Nitrates are polluting Minnesota’s water. Environmental groups say the state isn’t doing enough
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There are harmful chemicals in Minnesota’s water, and environmental groups think the state isn’t doing enough to fix the problem. They’re making their views known during the period of public comment on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s rules for protecting groundwater from nitrates.
Nitrates are naturally occurring compounds, but in high amounts they can be dangerous and using fertilizer can cause them to seep into water. Fertilizer use in agriculture is a major source of nitrate pollution.
The state’s Groundwater Protection Rule regulates some fertilizer application practices. Recent changes in the rule ban using certain fertilizers in the fall and on frozen soils in some areas of the state where the terrain makes it easy for nitrates to seep into groundwater.
Joy Anderson, an attorney for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said these practices weren’t recommended or popular anyway, so they won’t go a long way toward keeping nitrates out of the water. And since most of the rule encourages voluntary actions, she said there's not a lot of compliance either.
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“We've seen that voluntary actions alone don't work. We've been doing that for 30 years. The nitrate pollution is unimproving,” she said. “We need to get away from voluntary actions toward regulatory actions.”
Anderson said producers should have to follow the fertilizer application rates that are set by University of Minnesota Extension.
“These are rates that are recommended by the extension service to maximize profitability for farmers — they are not even meant to help the environment — but they do, because if you don't put on too much fertilizer, there's less to run off,” Anderson added.
Brad Carlson, an educator with University of Minnesota Extension who specializes in water quality and fertilizer, said farmers already have strong incentives to adopt good management practices.
“I think every farmer is aware of the pressures they're under related to environmental issues,” he said. “They certainly want to do the best job they can, if for no other reason because the point at which we minimize loss to the environment is also the most profitable point. Anything that's lost is just simply wasted money.”
He added the issue of state regulations is complicated, and regulators shouldn’t be quick to make sweeping changes. He pointed to a recent study by agriculture department researchers that showed the age of groundwater had implications for how polluted it was. Decades-old groundwater is still contaminated with discontinued fertilizers, meaning that existing regulations will take time to make meaningful impacts.
“The bottom line is any changes that have happened up on the surface probably aren't going to manifest themselves for a number of years, and so it's very difficult to gauge progress in the short term, given that situation,” he said.
The agriculture department’s public comment period was prompted by a settlement with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which sued it and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for failing to adequately protect Minnesota’s water from nitrate pollution.
Following a court order, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency also requested public comment and has already started the process of making new rules for regulating livestock feedlots and manure use based on the feedback.
The agriculture department’s current comment period is focused on whether or not it needs new rules for fertilizer application. Comments can be submitted online, and the comment period closes on Thursday.
