"This is a big step for a lot of these guys," he said. The city of Boise completed a $20 million project last year that will remove phosphorus flowing off irrigated farmland before it reaches the Snake River."But allowing farmers to decide whether to participate can be costly to others.Wisconsin issues water quality permits for big livestock farms, where 2,500 cows can generate as much waste as a city of 400,000 residents. But experts say lots more participation is needed. Marys in western Ohio."QUESTIONABLE RESULTSDo the anti-pollution measures subsidized by the government to the tune of billions of dollars actually work?Agriculture Department studies of selected watersheds, based largely on farmer surveys and computer models, credit them with dramatic cutbacks in a runoff. But its Department of Natural Resources was sued by a dairy group this summer after strengthening manure regulations. "I have an 11-year-old daughter, and Im wondering, do I want to take her out on the lake?"The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is developing a system for compiling data on algae-related illnesses."The headlines were basically saying, Dont go into the water, dont touch the water," said Andy Zepp, executive director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, who lives near Cayuga Lake in Ithaca.But states mostly avoid challenging the powerful agriculture industry. "We pride ourselves on living off the land, and we try to preserve and conserve our resources."The AP found that the incentives program pledged $394 million between 2009 and 2016 for irrigation systems intended to reduce runoff - more than on any other water protection effort.Federal audits and scientific reports raise other problems: Decisions about which farms get funding are based too little on whats best for the environment; there arent enough inspections to ensure the measures taken are done properly; farm privacy laws make it hard for regulators to verify results. Farmers in the watershed were pledged $10 million from 2009 to 2016 to help address the problem, the AP found. She pulled through. Her respiratory muscles were paralyzed, her gums dark blue from lack of air. One found nitrogen flows from croplands in the Mississippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico would be 28 percent higher without those steps being taken."Those best-management practices are a far cry from the treatment that a pulp and paper mill or a foundry or a cannery or a sewage plant has to do before they let the wastewater go," he said. "Its out of their comfort zone."It sounds like a lot, but the amount of money were spending is woefully inadequate," said Johnson of Heidelberg University."And for all the money devoted to EQIP, only 23 percent of eligible applications for grants were funded in Polyester Shower curtain Suppliers 2015, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.California last year reported toxic blooms in more than 40 lakes and waterways, the most in state history. A 2009-10 study tallied at least 61 victims in three states, a total the authors acknowledged was likely understated.The river empties into algae-plagued Green Bay, which contains less than 2 percent of Lake Michigans water but receives one-third of the entire lakes nutrient flow.
"This is my baby girl." Elsewhere, domestic and wild animals are dying after ingesting algae-tainted water.Gillespie, a professor of veterinary medicine, and her veterinarian husband performed mouth-to-nose resuscitation and chest massage while racing their beloved Rose to a clinic.Peterson, employed by two counties with many hundreds of farms, has lined up six "demonstration farms" to use EQIP-funded runoff prevention, especially cover crops. New York created a team of specialists to confront the mounting problem in the Finger Lakes, a tourist magnet cherished for sparkling waters amid lush hillsides dotted with vineyards."
The next day, Gillespie spotted Roses paw prints in a purplish, slimy patch on the riverbank and took samples from nearby water."Some states have rules, including fertilizer application standards intended to minimize runoff. Two cities reported algal toxins in their drinking water in 2016, a first in New York. The Trump administrations 2018 budget proposes a slight cut. Minnesota requires 50-foot vegetation buffers around public waterways. Farmers in Maryland must keep livestock from defecating in streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay, where agriculture causes about half the nutrient pollution of the nations biggest estuary. The algae-generated toxin that sickened Steele in Lake Erie was found in one-third of the 1,161 lakes and reservoirs the agencies studied. Goodson says forcing others to follow his example would backfire.Brent Peterson spends long days in a mud-spattered pickup truck, promoting runoff prevention in eastern Wisconsins Lower Fox River watershed, where dairy cows excrete millions of gallons of manure daily - much of it sprayed onto cornfields as fertilizer.Although there is not a nationwide evaluation, Bramblett said "edge of field" monitoring the government started funding in 2013 points to the success of the incentives program in certain regions. More than half the lakes were smeared with garish green blooms this summer."It was pretty horrendous," Gillespie said."The practices are completely overwhelmed," said Stephen Carpenter, a University of Wisconsin lake ecologist. Even if many farmers are preventing runoff without government subsidies, as Bramblett contends, the numbers suggest theres a long way to go."Theres nothing that says,
For every excessive pound I put on, Ill have to pay a fee.45 billion last year.But only 795 water protection contracts were signed by Idaho farmers between 2014 and 2016, accounting for just over 1 percent of the roughly 11. They spent eight hours pumping oxygen into her lungs and steroids into her veins.The states former head of runoff management, Gordon Stevenson, is among those who doubt that the voluntary approach will be enough to make headway with the algae problem. A year ago, shortly after a frolic in Idahos Snake River, Briedi Gillespies 11-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever stopped breathing."Farmers have a bad taste for regulatory agencies," he said, gazing across the flat, wind-swept landscape. Its widely agreed that such pollution controls can make at least some difference.A rising number of water bodies across the US have excessive levels of nutrients and blue-green algae, according to a 2016 report by the Environmental Protection Agency and US Geological Survey.
Critics contend such reports are based mostly on speculation, rather than on actually testing the water flowing off fields.ALGAE PLAGUE SPREADSWhile theres no comprehensive tally of algae outbreaks, many experts agree theyre "quickly becoming a global epidemic," said Anna Michalak, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University. Anecdotal reports abound - a young boy hospitalized after swimming in a lake near Alexandria, Minnesota; a woman sickened while jet-skiing on Grand Lake St.In arid western Idaho, where phosphorus runoff is linked to algae blooms and fish kills in the lower Snake River, government funding is helping farmer Mike Goodson install equipment to convert to "drip irrigation" rather than flooding all of his 550 acres with water diverted from rivers and creeks.In Florida, artesian springs beloved by underwater divers is tainted by algae that causes a skin rash called "swimmers itch. "Its like the Stone Age versus the Space Age. Theres no stick.Signs posted at boat launches in the Hells Canyon area along the Idaho-Oregon line are typical of those at many recreation areas nationwide: "DANGER: DO NOT GO IN OR NEAR WATER" if there are algae. "Relying on them to solve the nations algae bloom problem is like using Band-Aids on haemorrhages.7 million farmland acres statewide.Funding of the incentives program has risen from just over $1 billion in 2009 to $1. How thankful I am that we could recognize what was going on and had the facilities we did, or shed be gone. They were laced with algae toxins
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