July 10, 2007

 

Corn-sourced ethanol may inflict huge damages in Gulf of Mexico

 

 

Increasing demand for corn-based biofuels can inflict bigger damages in the surroundings of Gulf of Mexico due to increased runoff of nitrogen from fertilizers used in corn planting.

 

Previously, corn farmers in the Midwest have been urged to reduce by 30 percent the amount of nitrogen flowing into the gulf.

 

A new panel of scientists now believe a bigger reduction in nitrogen by 45 percent is needed to protect the gulf from further chemical damages, according to a draft report.

 

The scientists also said a second chemical, phosphorus, which comes from city sewage systems as well as farms, also needs to be reduced - by 40 percent.

 

Encouraging more production of corn-based ethanol "could nullify other efforts" to reduce the dead zone, the scientists say.

 

The expanded corn acreage needed for the ethanol industry could increase nitrogen runoff by 33 percent.

 

Don Scavia, a University of Michigan scientist said the call for larger reduction (in pollutants) and at the same the rush to corn-based ethanol is somewhat paradoxical.

 

Scavia calls for an overhaul of agricultural programmes away from crop subsidies and into conservation measures that will reduce runoff.

 

The gulf's dead zone is an oxygen-deprived area, nearly devoid of shrimp, fish and other sea life that appears every summer. The oxygen loss occurs when high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus cause excessive algae.

 

It varies in size from 3,000 square miles to more than 7,700 square miles, an area approaching the size of New Jersey.

 

The government's goal is to reduce the average size of the dead zone to 2,000 square miles by 2015.

 

A task force of federal and state officials will issue an action plan on the scientists' report which is due to the Environmental Protection Agency this fall.

 

Apart from farms, cities and towns along streams that drain into the Mississippi River could be forced to remove more phosphorus will also be affected by the reduced runoff.

 

The cost of significantly reducing farm runoff in Iowa alone would be more than US$600 million a year, according to Iowa State University economists who are studying the issue for state farm organizations.

 

Rick Robinson of the Iowa Farm Bureau said the cost of farm runoff will be a financial burden for majority of the states.