Ohio’s Watershed Moment: How to Fix Lake Erie Algae

Kurt’s farm is one of three demonstration projects in the Blanchard River watershed that spills into Lake Erie. Its aim is to gather field data and help educate farmers, policymakers and citizen groups about effective conservation practices.

Rampant Wildfires Will Affect Our Drinking Water

Once trees catch fire, they unleash ash, sediments and various noxious chemicals. And heat from fires undermines soil stability. Then, when heavy rain falls, tainted water slides into rivers rather than seeping into underground aquifers. If it rains hard enough, flooding often follows, especially when there are no trees to take up what moisture is absorbed into the soil.

How to Help Solve Farmer-Environmentalist Conflicts: Talk, Don’t Point Fingers

In response to the discovery of nitrogen contamination, a group of city officials, staff from the local conservation district, farmers, members of the agribusiness community, concerned citizens and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture decided to go beyond finger pointing. Instead, they held a series of meetings in the early 2000s that focused on both securing clean drinking water and ensuring a strong agricultural economy, and that were rooted in the context of local conditions.

California Towns Tackle Nitrate Pollution With Local Solutions

The state started to get serious about cleaning up nitrates a decade ago. It is now working with growers to stop new pollution and is considering how it might clean up old contamination. But it’s costly to clean an entire aquifer, and even extraordinary efforts would take several decades to pay off. So the state is also focused on funding interim local solutions to supply people with safe drinking water.

EPA Announces National Wastewater Nutrient Pollution Census

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls nutrient pollution the “single greatest challenge to our nation’s water quality.” Rising concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways, the agency reports, are a significant threat to human health, ecosystems, and local economies.