Dead Zone Widens. Thank You Ethanol!
Demand for ethanol is rising (dumb) and with it, an increased production of corn and use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. All those fertilizers in the corn belt make their way into the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico, creating a dead zone where nothing can live. According to the Associated Press:
The dead zone was discovered in 1985 and has grown fairly steadily since then, forcing fishermen to venture farther and farther out to sea to find their catch. For decades, fertilizer has been considered the prime cause of the lifeless spot.
Crabbers complained at a meeting in Louisiana earlier this year that they pulled up bucket upon bucket of dead crabs.Rota warned that if the corn boom continues, the Gulf of Mexico could see an "ecological regime change." The fear is that the zone will grow so big that most sea life won't be able to escape it, leading to an even bigger die-off.
"People's livelihood depends on the shrimp, fish and crabs in these waters," he said. "Already, some of these shrimpers are traveling longer and longer distances to catch anything."
For more on the dangers of monoculture and pesticides, check out Michael Pollan's latest article in the New York Times Magazine.
p.s. And let's not forget the Rotten Jellyfish Award given to this problem.
Environment
Comments
Your link to the NYT article is broken!
Posted by: Ian | December 18, 2007 3:56 AM
So the next question--how contaminated is the groundwater in all of those states? Are we going to start seeing (are we already seeing?) illness and disease in consumers of that ground water (humans, animals, plants)?
Posted by: Jon Rusho | December 18, 2007 5:47 AM
With the farm ane energy bills going through Congress, it is a safe bet that this will get a lot worse.
Posted by: Milan | December 18, 2007 8:53 AM
This is also being discussed on Grist.
Posted by: Milan | December 18, 2007 11:55 AM
With the farm ane energy bills going through Congress, it is a safe bet that this will get a lot worse.
Posted by: Milan | December 18, 2007 8:53 AM
Yes, I have seen a lot of good press about ethanol, perhaps clandestinely sponsored by the ethanol beneficiaries, but keep hearing negative things about it and it's production from unbiased sources. They say you only get 1.3 gallons equivalent of petroleum products worth of energy from the corn variety, for every gallon of fossil fuel you use to make it. But I heard as much as 8 times the energy from sugar cane or sawgrass. If we switched to these plants could it help with this pollution problem?
Dave Briggs :~)</b>Posted by: Dave Briggs | December 18, 2007 2:56 PM
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | December 18, 2007 7:47 PM
And another article of relevance to this subject came out today: Food and Fuel Compete for Land. Rising Food Prices. Thank You Ethanol!
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | December 18, 2007 8:14 PM
If the nitogenous fertiliser is being washed out of the soil then the farmers are wasting money. Lefty answer :- increase price of fertiliser. Right answer :- educate farmers about best time to apply fertiliser.
Posted by: FrankC | December 22, 2007 3:42 PM
the farm ane energy bills going through Congress, it is a safe bet that this will get a lot worse.
Posted by: kozmetik | December 23, 2007 10:58 AM
FrankC: Yes, we all know how farmers love to waste money. We all know that the only solution that a "lefty" could possibly come up with is to arbitrarily punish the farmer and kill industry. And of course every independent farmer will bow unquestioningly to your "education." Nevermind the fact that the large amounts of fertilizer being used will still contaminate the surroundings over time.
Unless I misunderstand your comment, you have managed to be condescending, ignorant and completely uninformative and unentertaining in only three sentences. Congrats!
P.S. Using both a colon and a hyphen is redundant.
Okay, on topic...I am new to this site, followed a link from decrepitoldfool. I am also new to this argument against ethanol. I have been skeptical of the wisdom behind ethanol production, since the only pro-ethanol arguments I've read have come from corn farmers and their state representatives. Now I'm even more skeptical. Being a native of California's San Joaquin Valley, I have seen what heavy farming can do to groundwater and creeks. And boy, I loves me some shrimp and crab. So all I can say is, keep up the good blogging!
Posted by: Neil | January 3, 2008 11:11 PM
Hi FrankC and Neil (and Neil, thanks for checking out the blog!). I'm a little confused about why the "left's" solution was to increase the price of nitrogen? Do you mean by taxing it? I would think the "left" solution might be regulating/limiting nitrogen use, encouraging farmers to leave large tracts of land fallow (which we already somewhat do), and putting a pollution tax on the nitrogen producers (rather than users). It's funny because my neighbor back in Ohio thought the "left" surely encouraged subsidies to fishers (since it often does to farmers) and that it would encourage fishers to fish less (since they could retire early). Neither assumption is true and the "left" (what I know of it anyway) supports a ban on most fishing subsidies, particularly for boat-buidling, fuel, and nets.
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | January 4, 2008 9:16 AM