Paul Thissen: Innovation in Action

Introduction/Background

Growing “dead zones” are threatening the health of water resources.

My Idea

FERTILIZING the MISSISSIPPI

As we observed Earth Day, we paused to consider the state of our natural environment. If we are to care for the Earth, we must include the health of its oceans(71% of its area), and its fresh water lakes and streams(1% of its area). A place to start is with our own Mississippi River system. During the past several thousand years, the river has carried enough silt to build a substantial delta into the Gulf of Mexico. For more than one hundred years, it has carried other products like nitrogen(N) and phosphorous(P) from the fertilized farm fields and sewage systems of mid-America. These nutrients cause algal bloom in both fresh and salt water. As the algae decay, they rob the water of oxygen (hypoxia), making it uninhabitable for fish. This causes so-called “dead zones” in fresh water and at the ocean mouths of many of the world’s rivers.

A joint study from the Universities of Sao Paulo, Arkansas, and Cornell states, “In the U.S., over 60% of the coastal rivers and bays are moderately to severely degraded from nutrient pollution.” The demand for corn and soybeans to make ethanol and biodiesel has caused planted acreage for those crops in the U.S. to increase by 12 million acres from 2006 to 2008. Ten million of those newly fertilized acres came from conservation and pasture lands. This experience is being repeated throughout the world, resulting in coastal dead zones as the P and N from fertilizer nourish the algae.

We are currently producing about 9 billion gallons of ethanol per year, nearly all of it in the Mississippi River Basin. The federal mandate calls for a steady increase to 36 billion gallons by 2022. The above study concludes, “that continuing the current direction in biofuel production, particularly with the focus remaining on grain and sugar crops as primary feed stocks, has serious implications for coastal water quality, and it will almost certainly worsen already serious hypoxic conditions in many locations around the world.”

In adding to a river’s natural content, we tamper with Mother Nature, an activity that has uncertain consequences, often unattractive.

Rolf Westgard

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