Vilsack doubts lawsuit will speed water-pollution cleanup By Des Moine RegisterJanuary 19, 2015A "holistic" conservation approach to curbing fertilizer runoff polluting Iowa and U.S. streams will work quicker than litigation, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Des Moines Register's editorial board Monday. Vilsack fielded questions about Des Moines Water Works' decision this month to [...]
Precision Conservation By John Carey for Conservation MagazineJanuary 19, 2015 If we treat agricultural pollution with a scalpel instead of a hatchet, we might have a fighting chance of cutting the flow of fertilizers into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. By John Carey When Katie Songer started cold-calling farmers in Wisconsin’s Pleasant Valley in [...]
EPA fighting order that it decide on Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone rule making By Jennifer Larino, Nola.comDecember 6, 2014 This color-coded map shows oxygen levels in bottom waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. The darkest red areas, surrounded by a black line, show where the oxygen level is below 2 [...]
A Sustainable Solution for the Corn Belt By New York Times Op-Ed Contributing Writer Mark BittmanNovember 18, 2014 It’s hard to imagine maintaining the current food system without Iowa. Yet that state — symbolic of both the unparalleled richness of our continent’s agricultural potential and the mess we’ve made of it — has undergone a transformation [...]
Global warming likely worsening 'dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico, study finds By Associated PressNovember 10, 2014 Global warming is likely playing a bigger role than previously thought in dead zones in oceans, lakes and rivers around the world and it's only going to get worse, according to a new study. Dead zones occur [...]
Tracking the Nitrate Pulse to the Gulf of Mexico By Ethan Alpern, October 4, 2014Released: 11/4/2014 11:36:38 AM Contact Information: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Office of Communications and Publishing 12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, MS 119 Reston, VA 20192 Ethan Alpern Phone: 703-648-4406 A new USGS report describes how advanced optical sensor technology is [...]
Corn Belt Pollution: Louisiana Shrimp and Oysters Pay the Price By meg wilcoxNovember 5, 2014 Luke Cibilch pulls up a load of oysters from the Gulf of Mexico. Though the dead zone occurs far offshore, agricultural wastes can also create smaller areas of hypoxia in the shallower coastal waters that can impact oysters. By Meg [...]
Lake Erie Grows More Susceptible to Harmful Algae, May Need Stricter Control Measures By By Nora MacalusoOctober 15, 2014 Great Lakes By Nora Macaluso Oct. 15 — Cyanobacteria in Lake Erie have become increasingly sensitive to phosphorus in recent years, making the lake more susceptible to large, harmful algae blooms, according to a study from the University of Michigan [...]
World Stands By As Algae and Dead Zones Ruin Water By Codi Kozacek - Circle of BlueSeptember 25, 2014Expensive research and cleanup efforts make little headway. Photo courtesy Greenpeace China via Flickr Creative Commons An algae bloom spreads across China’s Dianchi Lake in 2007. That same year, a bloom in Lake Taihu made the water undrinkable [...]
Iowa's strategy to reduce agricultural runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus By Daryll E. Ray and Hardwood D. Schaffer, Farm and Ranch Guide20 September 2014During the last week in August attention to the issue of water quality and the need to reduce the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from entering U.S. waterways moved from Ohio and [...]