“Nobody Alive Has Seen Anything Like This” – Record Rains Have Big Downstream Impacts

Flooding continues to worsen in the nation’s breadbasket as record rains continue.
Farm wonks may watch the whole 8 minute vid, but the first 2 or 3 minutes will give you the gist. Recent rains, more intense than any in this Iowa-based expert’s memory, are not just drowning crops, but washing huge amounts of nutrients out of soils across the corn belt, down the Mississippi, and into the Gulf of Mexico’s nutrient-polluted “Dead Zone”.
Double whammy. Farm production impacted, pollution multiplied, with serious impacts to human and ecological health.

US Environmental Protection Agency:

Too much nitrogen and phosphorus in the water causes algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle. Significant increases in algae harm water quality, food resources and habitats, and decrease the oxygen that fish and other aquatic life need to survive. Large growths of algae are called algal blooms and they can severely reduce or eliminate oxygen in the water, leading to illnesses in fish and the death of large numbers of fish. Some algal blooms are harmful to humans because they produce elevated toxins and bacterial growth that can make people sick if they come into contact with polluted water, consume tainted fish or shellfish, or drink contaminated water.

Nutrient pollution in ground water – which millions of people in the United States use as their drinking water source – can be harmful, even at low levels. Infants are vulnerable to a nitrogen-based compound called nitrates in drinking water. Excess nitrogen in the atmosphere can produce pollutants such as ammonia and ozone, which can impair our ability to breathe, limit visibility and alter plant growth. When excess nitrogen comes back to earth from the atmosphere, it can harm the health of forests, soils and waterways.

NOAA:

Nitrogen and phosphorus are essential for the growth of algae and aquatic plants, which provide food and habitat for fish, shellfish, and smaller animals that live in water. When too much nitrogen and phosphorus enter the water it causes algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle. This growth leads to harmful algal blooms, or HABs. Very large increases in algae harm water quality, the food resources, and habitats. HABs can also decrease the oxygen that fish and other aquatic life need to survive.

Many human activities produce excess nitrogen and phosphorus and cause nutrient pollution. Here are a few examples: 

• Agriculture: Animal manure and chemical fertilizers used to grow crops contain nitrogen and phosphorus. However, when farms use too much fertilizer or mis-manage manure, rain events can wash them into waterways.
• In and Around the Home: Fertilizers, yard and pet waste, and certain soaps and detergents contain nitrogen and phosphorus. These can contribute to nutrient pollution if not properly used or disposed of. The amount of hard surfaces and type of landscaping can also increase the runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from homes and yards during wet weather.
• Stormwater: When precipitation falls on our cities and towns, it runs across hard surfaces like rooftops, sidewalks, and roads. That runoff carries pollutants, including nitrogen and phosphorus, into local waterways.
• Wastewater: Our sewer and septic systems are responsible for treating large quantities of human waste. These systems do not always operate properly or remove enough nitrogen and phosphorus before discharging into waterways.
• Fossil Fuels: Nitrogen is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels like oil and coal. The combustion of fossil fuels by power plants, large industries, and automobiles is a major source of nutrients in the atmosphere.

Excess nitrogen and phosphorus can travel thousands of miles from inland to coastal areas like the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Waterways across the U.S. have poor water quality because of nutrient pollution, including:

• More than 100,000 miles of rivers and streams.
• Close to 2.5 million acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds.
• More than 800 square miles of bays and estuaries.

Minnesota Department of Health:

Consuming too much nitrate can affect how blood carries oxygen and can cause methemoglobinemia (also known as blue baby syndrome). Bottle-fed babies under six months old are at the highest risk of getting methemoglobinemia. Methemoglobinemia can cause skin to turn a bluish color and can result in serious illness or death. Other symptoms connected to methemoglobinemia include decreased blood pressure, increased heart rate, headaches, stomach cramps, and vomiting.

Only recently has scientific evidence emerged to assess the health impacts of drinking water with high nitrate on adults. A growing body of literature indicates potential associations between nitrate/nitrite exposure and other health effects such as increased heart rate, nausea, headaches, and abdominal cramps. Some studies also suggest an increased risk of cancer, especially gastric cancer, associated with dietary nitrate/nitrite exposure, but there is not yet scientific consensus on this question.

National Cancer Institute:

Nitrates and nitrites are nitrogen-oxygen chemical units that naturally occur in soil, water, and some foods. When taken into the body by drinking water and through other dietary sources, nitrate and nitrite can react with amines and amides to form N-nitroso compounds (NOCs), which are known to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans.

USAFacts.org:

In 2019, Kentucky had the nation’s highest age-adjusted cancer incidence rate at 516.6 per 100,000 people, followed by Iowa at 501.8

Wastewater Digest:

Over the past two decades, nitrogen pollution sourced from the state of Iowa has worsened by nearly 50%. This is in spite of the fact that the state has seen significant funding efforts to curb soil nutrients from entering waterways throughout the state.

Now, via a study conducted at the University of Iowa, it is revealed that the state’s contribution to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico jumped by 47% in the year 2016 alone, injecting 618 million pounds of harmful nutrients into the water body.