New findings reveal disturbing cost of modern farming practices for everyday Americans: 'A really big problem'

Pollution from fertilizer runoff in coastal waters is a bigger problem than many people realize. 

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to shrink the affected areas in the Gulf of Mexico by 2035, but doing so will require restrictions on the use of fertilizer or on agriculture in general. 

A West Virginia University researcher created a model showing the expected economic impact of that effort as well as the potential benefits, according to a WVU report shared by Phys.org.

What's happening?

Algal blooms are events where algae grow out of control, depriving the underwater environment of light, and then die, sucking oxygen out of the water. This creates an inhospitable environment for water plants and fish, which either leave or die, creating "dead zones."

The Gulf of Mexico is the site of one such dead zone, caused by the agricultural runoff from around watersheds such as the Mississippi River Basin. These areas grow corn, wheat, sorghum, and soybeans, all of which use different amounts of fertilizer.

Levan Elbakidze, professor of resource economics and management at the WVU Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the Division for Land-Grant Engagement, led a team from WVU to work with researchers from Texas Soil and Water Research Laboratory and Iowa State University in a four-year study of the agricultural and water systems contributing to the dead zones in the Gulf.

"The Gulf of Mexico algal bloom is a really big problem," Elbakidze said, per WVU.

Why are the results important?

With the model that Elbakidze and his team created, they determined that the cost of reducing the Gulf dead zones would be around $7 billion a year.

However, that isn't the full story.

"I suspect that the benefits of reducing nitrogen runoff are likely to exceed these costs, especially if we count the values of reducing the dead zone in the Gulf as well as the values of improved upstream ecosystems in the Mississippi River Basin,"  Elbakidze said, per WVU.

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Those benefits could include less damage from the algal blooms, more fish available to catch, and cleaner water for communities along the waterway.

What's being done about reducing fertilizer runoff?

The EPA is looking to reduce fertilizer use in the area by 45% in the near future to support reducing the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

Meanwhile, Elbakidze and his team are at work on a more complex model that takes into account more crops, different kinds of fertilizer, and the effects on other nearby bodies of water.

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