Lake Erie is once again plagued by algae blooms that suck
oxygen out of the water leading to massive fish kills, and farming is being
blamed this time.
The last time agriculture was only one of several sources of
phosphorous and the main action to clean up the lake was outlawing laundry
detergents that incorporate phosphorous and adding tertiary treatment at sewage
treatment plants.
The result was a dramatically cleaner Lake Erie.
This time agriculture stands at the top of the hit list of a
new report that will be coming out later this week from the International Joint
Commission, a body created by the United States and Canada to deal with water
issues of interest to both nations.
The U.S. side takes the hardest hit because of increased
phosphorous fertilizer applications to grow more acres of corn to meet the
demand for ethanol.
But the Grand and Thames rivers that carry water from the
richest farming fields in Southwestern Ontario are also blamed in the report.
What remains to be seen is any detailed recommendations the
report may offer about reducing the phosphorous runoff from fields.
One solution has been shelved by the Ontario Pork marketing
board and a research team at the University of Guelph.
That’s the Enviropig, a genetically-engineered strain of
pigs that have had a gene inserted to produce phytase in their saliva so they
need less phosphorous in their feed rations to achieve optimum meat-producing
performance.
That, in turn, means they poop out lower levels of
phosphorous, meaning there is less to run off into lakes and streams fertilized
with hog manure.
The Enviropig was shelved because it became too expensive to
keep on providing ever-more data to the federal government officials in Canada
and the U.S. who decide whether genetically-modified organisms ought to be
approved in the food-production system.
Ontario’s main response to the challenge of phosphorous
runoff from farm fields has been the development and implementation of a
Nutrient Management protocol.
It was required of the largest and newest farms when it was
launched and has progressively been required for more farms. It is designed to
balance the amount of fertilizer applied to fields with the amount that will be
used to grow the crop in question.
