Farm runoff fuels green algae blooms in Lake Erie that are visible in satellite images. Photo: UW-M Space Science and Engineering Center and NOAA CoastWatch
State programs for regulating and preventing farm runoff are falling short, according to a new report (PDF) from the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Mississippi River Collaborative.
Farm runoff is a problem because it carries nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers into lakes and bays. Once there, the nutrients can contaminate drinking water or fuel algae blooms that muck up beaches. Bacteria that break down dead blooms use up oxygen and leave behind dead zones where wildlife can’t breathe.
State programs to control runoff don’t work as well as they could because they are either underfunded or aren’t mandatory, the report says. The plans only work when farmers volunteer to take steps like growing strips of trees between crops and streams.
That message sounds a lot like the one in a 2009 report on farm runoff pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. In that report, the Environmental Working Group argued that the region’s plans to curb runoff pollution will never work because farmers aren’t required to comply. In September, I compared the situation on the Chesapeake to runoff regulations around the Great Lakes.
The new report profiles Wisconsin’s program, which is one of the few that requires all farms to have a plan to control nutrients. That sounds good, but the state doesn’t have the resources to enforce it. That’s what the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture’s Sara Walling told me in September, and that’s what the Environmental Law and Policy Center is telling us now.