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Across Farm Country, Fertilizer Pollution Impacts Not Just Health, but Water Costs, Too

News Feed
Wednesday, May 1, 2024

When Jeff Broberg and his wife, Erica, moved to their 170-acre bean and grain farm in Winona, Minnesota in 1986, their well water measured at 8.6 ppm for nitrates. These nitrogen-based compounds, common in agricultural runoff, are linked to multiple cancers and health issues for those exposed. Each year, the measurement in their water kept creeping up. In the late 1990s, Broberg decided it was time to source from elsewhere. He began hauling eight one-gallon jugs and two five-gallon jugs from his friend Mike’s house. That was his drinking water for the week. Six years ago, Broberg said, he was “getting too old to haul that water in the middle of the winter.” So, he installed his own reverse-osmosis water filtration system. The measurement of nitrates in his well has now reached up to 22 ppm. Post-filtration, the levels are almost nonexistent. Broberg, a retired geologist, has committed what he calls his “encore career” to advocating for clean water in Minnesota. He only leases out around 40 percent of his tillable land and has retired much of the rest due to groundwater pollution concerns. Almost one year ago, a group he co-founded, the Minnesota Well Owners Organization, joined other groups to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address groundwater contamination in southeast Minnesota. The EPA agreed, stating that “further action is needed to protect public health” and requested that the state create a plan for testing, education and supplying alternative drinking water to those most affected. Advocates in Wisconsin filed a petition, too. Last month, 13 separate groups in Iowa did the same. This advocacy comes in light of increased regional attention on nitrate pollution and its health effects. In Nebraska, researchers have connected high birth defect rates with exposure to water contaminated with nitrates. In Wisconsin, experts warn that exposure to nitrates can increase the risk of colon cancer. Access to clean water, as defined by the United Nations, is a human right. And yet many currently don’t have that right, even in a country where potable water is taken for granted. What’s more, the cost of clean water falls more heavily on less populated areas, where fewer residents shoulder the bill. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that the cost for rural Iowa residents—who often live in areas with smaller, more expensive water systems—could be as much as $4,960 more per person per year to filter out nitrates from their water than their counterparts in cities like Des Moines. Nitrates are affecting water utilities from California to D.C., and the reason comes down to one major source: Agricultural runoff. Where The Trouble Begins: ‘A Leaky System’ The root of water-quality issues in the Midwest starts with its cropland drainage system, a network of underground, cylindrical tiles that drain excess water and nutrients from the land and funnel it downstream. Those tiles, which were first installed in the mid-1800s and have now largely been replaced with plastic pipes, ultimately allowed farmers to grow crops on land that was once too wet to farm. Lee Tesdell is the fifth generation to own his family’s 80-acre farm in Polk County, Iowa. Tesdell explained that when his European ancestors settled in the Midwest, they plowed the prairie and switched from deeply rooted perennial plants to shallow-rooted annual crops like wheat, oats, and corn instead. “Then we had more exposed soil and less water infiltration because the roots weren’t as deep,” he said. “The annual crops and drainage tile started to create this leaky system.” This “leaky system” refers to what is not absorbed by the crops on the field, most dangerously, in this case, fertilizer. “It’s a leaky system because it’s not in sync,” said Iowa water quality expert Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic book (and blog).  “And farmers know they’re going to lose some fertilizer. As a consequence, they apply extra as insurance.” Fertilizer as Poison The U.S. is the top corn-producing country in the world, with states like Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota supplying 32 percent of corn globally. Corn produces lower yields if it is nitrogen deficient, so farmers apply nitrogen-heavy fertilizer to the crop. In fact, they must use fertilizer in order to qualify for crop insurance. The ammonia in the fertilizer oxidizes existing nitrogen in the soil, turning it into highly water-soluble nitrates that aren’t fully absorbed by the corn. Those nitrates leak into aquifers. In 1960, farmers used approximately 3 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer a year. In 2021, that number was closer to 19 million. Farmers can use a nitrogen calculator to determine how much nitrogen they need—but nearly 70 percent of farmers use more than the recommended amount. “Other people also have an American dream, and they want to be able to turn on their faucet and have clean water, or know that if they put their baby in a bath, they’re not going to end up in the hospital with major organs shutting down because they have been poisoned.” As Jones explains in his blog, even with “insurance” fertilizer use, yields can often turn out the same: “What happened to that extra 56 pounds of nitrogen that you bought? Well, some might’ve ended up sequestered in the soil, but a lot of it ran off into lakes and streams or leached down into the aquifer (hmm, do you reckon that’s why the neighbor’s well is contaminated?), and some off-gassed to the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a substance that has 300 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide.” Commercial fertilizer is just one contributor to high nitrate levels in groundwater. The other main factor, manure, is also increasing as CAFOs become more prevalent. Nancy Utesch and her husband, Lynn, live on 150 acres of land in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, where they rotationally graze beef cattle. In 2004, a family nearby became very ill from E. coli poisoning in their water. “I was really upset that this had happened in our county,” she said. “A lot of the support was for the polluting farmer, and you know, farming is right there with the American flag and grandma’s apple pie.” Utesch worries that the current system of industrialized agriculture has created a world where people living closest to the polluters do not have access to clean water themselves, and are afraid to speak out against the actions of their neighbors. “Other people also have an American dream, and they want to be able to turn on their faucet and have clean water, or know that if they put their baby in a bath, that they’re not going to end up in the hospital with major organs shutting down because they have been poisoned,” she said. “If they clean a scrape because their grandchild fell down in the driveway, they could be hurting them if they use the water from the tap.” The Plight of the Small Town In June 2022, fertilizer runoff pushed Des Moines Water Works, the municipal agency charged with overseeing drinking water, to restart operations of their nitrate removal system—one of the largest in the world—at a cost of up to $16,000 per day. Des Moines finances its removal system from its roughly 600,000 ratepayers. “Financially, Des Moines can spread out needed treatment over many thousands of customers, whereas a small town can’t do that,” Jones said. “If you have a small town of 1,000 people, your well gets contaminated, and you need a $2 million treatment plan to clean up the water, that’s a burden.” “Financially, Des Moines can spread out needed treatment over many thousands of customers, whereas a small town can’t do that.” While cities like Des Moines are willing to pay the cost to remove nitrates, other small communities will have a tougher time doing so. And once their aquifer is contaminated, “it doesn’t go away for a long time, in some cases, thousands of years,” Jones said. Utica, Minnesota, which has fewer than 300 residents, has two deep wells, both measuring at unsafe levels for nitrates. “[Residents are] scared to death,” Broberg, who lives in a neighboring town, said. “The city has investigated water treatment expenses at around $3 million for reverse osmosis, and they only last 10 years. A town of 85 households can’t amortize that debt by themselves.” The town has applied for a grant from the state and is waiting to hear back. Another nearby town, Lewiston, dug a new, deeper well to solve their nitrate problem. “They went down there, and the water was contaminated with radium. It’s radioactive,” Broberg said. “So they kept their nitrate-contaminated well and their radium-contaminated well and blended the water so that it doesn’t exceed the health risk limit for either nitrates or radium.” However, as Chris Rogers reported in the Winona Post, that plan didn’t quite work. Thus, Lewiston dug another well at a cost of $904,580, and is now sourcing all of their water from that new well. That well is now testing trace amounts of nitrates and has less radium than before. Many rural residents also rely on private, personal well systems, which aren’t regulated for contaminants, to source their water. Forty million people rely on well water nationwide. “Public water systems have these maximum contaminant levels that are set by the EPA. There are rules and regulations that they have to follow, but private wells aren’t covered by the Safe Drinking Water Act,” said Stacy Woods, research director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s really on individual well owners to decide whether to test their wells and what contaminants to test their wells for, and these tests can be really expensive.” Broberg and his group are working to extend the protection of the Safe Drinking Water Act to well water. In southeast Minnesota, the EPA agreed to the plan, though the path forward is still uncertain as funding packages move through the legislature. “I’ve spoken with people who simply don’t want to test their well water because they can’t afford to do much about it if they find out that their nitrate levels are unsafe.” Without these protections in place, or intervention at the pollution source, rural residents often find the responsibility of clean water falling on them. “I’ve spoken with people who simply don’t want to test their well water because they can’t afford to do much about it if they find out that their nitrate levels are unsafe,” Food and Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen said. “They are basically powerless to protect their drinking water resources from sources of pollution that aren’t being adequately regulated by the state.” The solution, according to Woods, “is to protect the drinking water sources from that pollution in the first place.” Conservation on the Farm One way to do this is by using less fertilizer on the field. Another is to introduce on-the-field and edge-of-field conservation practices, like Tesdell is doing on his Iowa family farm. Tesdell’s farm is not the typical Iowa farm, which averages 359 acres. Tesdell’s is 80. He does, however, rent 50 acres to a neighbor who grows corn and soybeans, like most Iowa farmers. Where Tesdell’s farm differs is how he deals with excess nitrate. In 2012, Tesdell, who has always been drawn to conservation, became interested in adding cover cropping to his fields. Through his research, he came across other conservation practices such as wood chip bioreactors. He installed his first bioreactor that same year. “There’s a chemical and biological reaction between the wood chips and the nitrate in the tile water,” Tesdell said. “Much of the nitrate then is turned into nitrogen gas, which is a harmless gas. We don’t take out 100 percent of the nitrate, but we take out a good percentage.” According to Iowa State University, a typical bioreactor costs around $10,000 to design and install. Tesdell paid for his bioreactor partly out of pocket, but also acquired funding from the Iowa Soybean Association. For his saturated buffer, an edge-of-field practice that redirects excess nitrates through vegetation, Tesdell received funding from the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). To install the saturated buffer, Tesdell needed his neighbor to agree. “We put that one on a tile that actually comes from my neighbor’s farm. Because the creek is going through my farm, it’s a more direct route to come off a hill [on] his farm,” he said. “Neighbors need to work together.” Roughly 80 percent of the farmland in Iowa is owned by offsite landlords, who rent it out to farmers. Tesdell cites this as  a roadblock to conservation practices. “If the landowner doesn’t care, why would an operator care? They want to pull in with their 24-row planter, plant their corn, come in with the 12-row corn head in October and harvest, then truck it off to the ethanol plant,” he said. “I don’t blame them.” Iowa currently has a “Nutrient Reduction Strategy” plan, which outlines voluntary efforts farmers can take to reduce their pollution. There is no active legislation that limits how much fertilizer farmers use on their cropland. Heinzen, of Food and Water Watch, explained that agricultural pollution is largely unregulated, with the exception of concentrated animals feeding operations (CAFOs).  “In fact, even most CAFOs are completely unregulated, because EPA has completely failed to implement Congress’s intent to regulate this industry, which we’re suing them over,” she said, referring to a new brief filed by multiple advocacy groups in February aimed at upgrading CAFO pollution regulation. Even Des Moines Waterworks, with its state-of-the-art nitrate removal facility, is calling for change. “We cannot keep treating water quality only at the receiving end,” spokesperson Melissa Walker said. “There needs to be a plan for every acre of farmland in Iowa and how its nutrients will be managed, as well as every animal and its manure.” “You’re either going to have to change your practices, change your farming, or you’re going to have the accept the risk of preventable disease.” Some communities have sued for damages related to nitrate-contaminated groundwater. In Millsboro, Delaware, residents received a payout but still have contaminated water. In Boardman, Oregon, five residents are suing the Port of Morrow and multiple farms and CAFOs due to their well-water testing “at more than four times the safe limit established by the U.S. EPA,” Alex Baumhardt reported in the Oregon Capital Chronicle. A few weeks ago, 1,500 tons of liquid nitrogen were spilled into an Iowa river. No living fish were found nearby. Today, polluted water flows downstream into the Gulf of Mexico, where it causes “dead zones” stripped of marine life. “You’re either going to have to change your practices, change your farming, or you’re going to have the accept the risk of preventable disease,” Broberg said. “And you need to put that equation in your family budget. If you’re going to get bladder cancer, diabetes, birth defects, juvenile cancers—what are those going to cost?” When asked why protecting water is so important, Tesdell paused and looked away. His voice cracked with emotion. “It’s for the grandkids.” The post Across Farm Country, Fertilizer Pollution Impacts Not Just Health, but Water Costs, Too appeared first on Civil Eats.

In the late 1990s, Broberg decided it was time to source from elsewhere. He began hauling eight one-gallon jugs and two five-gallon jugs from his friend Mike’s house. That was his drinking water for the week. Six years ago, Broberg said, he was “getting too old to haul that water in the middle of the […] The post Across Farm Country, Fertilizer Pollution Impacts Not Just Health, but Water Costs, Too appeared first on Civil Eats.

When Jeff Broberg and his wife, Erica, moved to their 170-acre bean and grain farm in Winona, Minnesota in 1986, their well water measured at 8.6 ppm for nitrates. These nitrogen-based compounds, common in agricultural runoff, are linked to multiple cancers and health issues for those exposed. Each year, the measurement in their water kept creeping up.

In the late 1990s, Broberg decided it was time to source from elsewhere. He began hauling eight one-gallon jugs and two five-gallon jugs from his friend Mike’s house. That was his drinking water for the week.

Six years ago, Broberg said, he was “getting too old to haul that water in the middle of the winter.” So, he installed his own reverse-osmosis water filtration system. The measurement of nitrates in his well has now reached up to 22 ppm. Post-filtration, the levels are almost nonexistent.

Broberg, a retired geologist, has committed what he calls his “encore career” to advocating for clean water in Minnesota. He only leases out around 40 percent of his tillable land and has retired much of the rest due to groundwater pollution concerns. Almost one year ago, a group he co-founded, the Minnesota Well Owners Organization, joined other groups to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address groundwater contamination in southeast Minnesota.

The EPA agreed, stating that “further action is needed to protect public health” and requested that the state create a plan for testing, education and supplying alternative drinking water to those most affected. Advocates in Wisconsin filed a petition, too. Last month, 13 separate groups in Iowa did the same.

This advocacy comes in light of increased regional attention on nitrate pollution and its health effects. In Nebraska, researchers have connected high birth defect rates with exposure to water contaminated with nitrates. In Wisconsin, experts warn that exposure to nitrates can increase the risk of colon cancer.

Access to clean water, as defined by the United Nations, is a human right. And yet many currently don’t have that right, even in a country where potable water is taken for granted. What’s more, the cost of clean water falls more heavily on less populated areas, where fewer residents shoulder the bill. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that the cost for rural Iowa residents—who often live in areas with smaller, more expensive water systems—could be as much as $4,960 more per person per year to filter out nitrates from their water than their counterparts in cities like Des Moines. Nitrates are affecting water utilities from California to D.C., and the reason comes down to one major source: Agricultural runoff.

Where The Trouble Begins: ‘A Leaky System’

The root of water-quality issues in the Midwest starts with its cropland drainage system, a network of underground, cylindrical tiles that drain excess water and nutrients from the land and funnel it downstream. Those tiles, which were first installed in the mid-1800s and have now largely been replaced with plastic pipes, ultimately allowed farmers to grow crops on land that was once too wet to farm.

Lee Tesdell is the fifth generation to own his family’s 80-acre farm in Polk County, Iowa. Tesdell explained that when his European ancestors settled in the Midwest, they plowed the prairie and switched from deeply rooted perennial plants to shallow-rooted annual crops like wheat, oats, and corn instead.

“Then we had more exposed soil and less water infiltration because the roots weren’t as deep,” he said. “The annual crops and drainage tile started to create this leaky system.”

This “leaky system” refers to what is not absorbed by the crops on the field, most dangerously, in this case, fertilizer.

“It’s a leaky system because it’s not in sync,” said Iowa water quality expert Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic book (and blog).  “And farmers know they’re going to lose some fertilizer. As a consequence, they apply extra as insurance.”

Fertilizer as Poison

The U.S. is the top corn-producing country in the world, with states like Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota supplying 32 percent of corn globally. Corn produces lower yields if it is nitrogen deficient, so farmers apply nitrogen-heavy fertilizer to the crop. In fact, they must use fertilizer in order to qualify for crop insurance. The ammonia in the fertilizer oxidizes existing nitrogen in the soil, turning it into highly water-soluble nitrates that aren’t fully absorbed by the corn. Those nitrates leak into aquifers.

In 1960, farmers used approximately 3 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer a year. In 2021, that number was closer to 19 million. Farmers can use a nitrogen calculator to determine how much nitrogen they need—but nearly 70 percent of farmers use more than the recommended amount.

“Other people also have an American dream, and they want to be able to turn on their faucet and have clean water, or know that if they put their baby in a bath, they’re not going to end up in the hospital with major organs shutting down because they have been poisoned.”

As Jones explains in his blog, even with “insurance” fertilizer use, yields can often turn out the same: “What happened to that extra 56 pounds of nitrogen that you bought? Well, some might’ve ended up sequestered in the soil, but a lot of it ran off into lakes and streams or leached down into the aquifer (hmm, do you reckon that’s why the neighbor’s well is contaminated?), and some off-gassed to the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a substance that has 300 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide.”

Commercial fertilizer is just one contributor to high nitrate levels in groundwater. The other main factor, manure, is also increasing as CAFOs become more prevalent.

Nancy Utesch and her husband, Lynn, live on 150 acres of land in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, where they rotationally graze beef cattle. In 2004, a family nearby became very ill from E. coli poisoning in their water.

“I was really upset that this had happened in our county,” she said. “A lot of the support was for the polluting farmer, and you know, farming is right there with the American flag and grandma’s apple pie.”

Utesch worries that the current system of industrialized agriculture has created a world where people living closest to the polluters do not have access to clean water themselves, and are afraid to speak out against the actions of their neighbors.

“Other people also have an American dream, and they want to be able to turn on their faucet and have clean water, or know that if they put their baby in a bath, that they’re not going to end up in the hospital with major organs shutting down because they have been poisoned,” she said. “If they clean a scrape because their grandchild fell down in the driveway, they could be hurting them if they use the water from the tap.”

The Plight of the Small Town

In June 2022, fertilizer runoff pushed Des Moines Water Works, the municipal agency charged with overseeing drinking water, to restart operations of their nitrate removal system—one of the largest in the world—at a cost of up to $16,000 per day. Des Moines finances its removal system from its roughly 600,000 ratepayers.

“Financially, Des Moines can spread out needed treatment over many thousands of customers, whereas a small town can’t do that,” Jones said. “If you have a small town of 1,000 people, your well gets contaminated, and you need a $2 million treatment plan to clean up the water, that’s a burden.”

“Financially, Des Moines can spread out needed treatment over many thousands of customers, whereas a small town can’t do that.”

While cities like Des Moines are willing to pay the cost to remove nitrates, other small communities will have a tougher time doing so. And once their aquifer is contaminated, “it doesn’t go away for a long time, in some cases, thousands of years,” Jones said.

Utica, Minnesota, which has fewer than 300 residents, has two deep wells, both measuring at unsafe levels for nitrates.

“[Residents are] scared to death,” Broberg, who lives in a neighboring town, said. “The city has investigated water treatment expenses at around $3 million for reverse osmosis, and they only last 10 years. A town of 85 households can’t amortize that debt by themselves.”

The town has applied for a grant from the state and is waiting to hear back.

Another nearby town, Lewiston, dug a new, deeper well to solve their nitrate problem.

“They went down there, and the water was contaminated with radium. It’s radioactive,” Broberg said. “So they kept their nitrate-contaminated well and their radium-contaminated well and blended the water so that it doesn’t exceed the health risk limit for either nitrates or radium.”

However, as Chris Rogers reported in the Winona Post, that plan didn’t quite work. Thus, Lewiston dug another well at a cost of $904,580, and is now sourcing all of their water from that new well. That well is now testing trace amounts of nitrates and has less radium than before.

Many rural residents also rely on private, personal well systems, which aren’t regulated for contaminants, to source their water. Forty million people rely on well water nationwide.

“Public water systems have these maximum contaminant levels that are set by the EPA. There are rules and regulations that they have to follow, but private wells aren’t covered by the Safe Drinking Water Act,” said Stacy Woods, research director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s really on individual well owners to decide whether to test their wells and what contaminants to test their wells for, and these tests can be really expensive.”

Broberg and his group are working to extend the protection of the Safe Drinking Water Act to well water. In southeast Minnesota, the EPA agreed to the plan, though the path forward is still uncertain as funding packages move through the legislature.

“I’ve spoken with people who simply don’t want to test their well water because they can’t afford to do much about it if they find out that their nitrate levels are unsafe.”

Without these protections in place, or intervention at the pollution source, rural residents often find the responsibility of clean water falling on them.

“I’ve spoken with people who simply don’t want to test their well water because they can’t afford to do much about it if they find out that their nitrate levels are unsafe,” Food and Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen said. “They are basically powerless to protect their drinking water resources from sources of pollution that aren’t being adequately regulated by the state.”

The solution, according to Woods, “is to protect the drinking water sources from that pollution in the first place.”

Conservation on the Farm

One way to do this is by using less fertilizer on the field. Another is to introduce on-the-field and edge-of-field conservation practices, like Tesdell is doing on his Iowa family farm.

Tesdell’s farm is not the typical Iowa farm, which averages 359 acres. Tesdell’s is 80. He does, however, rent 50 acres to a neighbor who grows corn and soybeans, like most Iowa farmers.

Where Tesdell’s farm differs is how he deals with excess nitrate. In 2012, Tesdell, who has always been drawn to conservation, became interested in adding cover cropping to his fields. Through his research, he came across other conservation practices such as wood chip bioreactors. He installed his first bioreactor that same year.

“There’s a chemical and biological reaction between the wood chips and the nitrate in the tile water,” Tesdell said. “Much of the nitrate then is turned into nitrogen gas, which is a harmless gas. We don’t take out 100 percent of the nitrate, but we take out a good percentage.”

According to Iowa State University, a typical bioreactor costs around $10,000 to design and install. Tesdell paid for his bioreactor partly out of pocket, but also acquired funding from the Iowa Soybean Association. For his saturated buffer, an edge-of-field practice that redirects excess nitrates through vegetation, Tesdell received funding from the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). To install the saturated buffer, Tesdell needed his neighbor to agree.

“We put that one on a tile that actually comes from my neighbor’s farm. Because the creek is going through my farm, it’s a more direct route to come off a hill [on] his farm,” he said. “Neighbors need to work together.”

Roughly 80 percent of the farmland in Iowa is owned by offsite landlords, who rent it out to farmers. Tesdell cites this as  a roadblock to conservation practices.

“If the landowner doesn’t care, why would an operator care? They want to pull in with their 24-row planter, plant their corn, come in with the 12-row corn head in October and harvest, then truck it off to the ethanol plant,” he said. “I don’t blame them.”

Iowa currently has a “Nutrient Reduction Strategy” plan, which outlines voluntary efforts farmers can take to reduce their pollution. There is no active legislation that limits how much fertilizer farmers use on their cropland.

Heinzen, of Food and Water Watch, explained that agricultural pollution is largely unregulated, with the exception of concentrated animals feeding operations (CAFOs).  “In fact, even most CAFOs are completely unregulated, because EPA has completely failed to implement Congress’s intent to regulate this industry, which we’re suing them over,” she said, referring to a new brief filed by multiple advocacy groups in February aimed at upgrading CAFO pollution regulation.

Even Des Moines Waterworks, with its state-of-the-art nitrate removal facility, is calling for change.

“We cannot keep treating water quality only at the receiving end,” spokesperson Melissa Walker said. “There needs to be a plan for every acre of farmland in Iowa and how its nutrients will be managed, as well as every animal and its manure.”

“You’re either going to have to change your practices, change your farming, or you’re going to have the accept the risk of preventable disease.”

Some communities have sued for damages related to nitrate-contaminated groundwater. In Millsboro, Delaware, residents received a payout but still have contaminated water. In Boardman, Oregon, five residents are suing the Port of Morrow and multiple farms and CAFOs due to their well-water testing “at more than four times the safe limit established by the U.S. EPA,” Alex Baumhardt reported in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

A few weeks ago, 1,500 tons of liquid nitrogen were spilled into an Iowa river. No living fish were found nearby. Today, polluted water flows downstream into the Gulf of Mexico, where it causes “dead zones” stripped of marine life.

“You’re either going to have to change your practices, change your farming, or you’re going to have the accept the risk of preventable disease,” Broberg said. “And you need to put that equation in your family budget. If you’re going to get bladder cancer, diabetes, birth defects, juvenile cancers—what are those going to cost?”

When asked why protecting water is so important, Tesdell paused and looked away. His voice cracked with emotion. “It’s for the grandkids.”

The post Across Farm Country, Fertilizer Pollution Impacts Not Just Health, but Water Costs, Too appeared first on Civil Eats.

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Staff working on childhood lead exposure and cancer clusters fired from CDC

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill. The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person...

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill. The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division. This division works on issues such as asthma and air pollution, climate change and health, childhood lead poisoning and cancer clusters.  The former employee noted that these divisions do crucial work to protect public health, pointing out, for example, that it helped discover lead contamination in applesauce pouches that were popular with kids.  The person also noted that the division also had staffers who would be able to help respond in case there was a nuclear event such as an attack or nuclear plant meltdown. "Within this division, we house all the experts who do things like chemical, radiological or nuclear response activities. So for example, if there were a nuclear detonation within the United States, or a dirty bomb, our division would be the one who would lead that response,” they said. “Those people were targeted as well. There are no survivors." The person said that the division may still have contractors, but that there’s no staff for them to work with.  However, the current director of the Center for Environmental Health, Ari Bernstein, said in an internal email that the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice had been “slated to be eliminated in its entirety,” E&E News reported.  The workers who were let go include epidemiologists, scientists and administrators who manage grant programs.  Other experts also raised concerns about the impacts of the cuts.  “There was just the wholesale elimination of the division that eliminates, essentially, the program that protects children from lead, from air pollution and asthma, from emergencies like fires,” said Patrick Breysse, the now-retired former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which houses the environmental health division.  “People are going to suffer from this for decades,” Breysse told The Hill.  The firings come amid broader cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the HHS, which houses it. The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.  The firings come as the department lets go of around 10,000 additional workers as it seeks to reorganize.  HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the cuts as part of his plan to streamline the agency and “Make America Healthy Again.”  However, critics argue that cutting many of these jobs will actually make the nation less healthy.  “This is not the way we make America healthy again. This is how we make America sick again,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Nathaniel Weixel contributed. 

Even Wealthy Americans Die Younger Than Europeans

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Death comes for everyone, be they rich or poor.But no amount of...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Death comes for everyone, be they rich or poor.But no amount of money will help Americans live longer than Europeans, a new study says.Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans compared to well-heeled Europeans, according to results published April 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine.And in some cases, wealthy Americans have survival rates on par with poor Europeans living in western nations like Germany, France and the Netherlands, researchers said."The findings are a stark reminder that even the wealthiest Americans are not shielded from the systemic issues in the U.S. contributing to lower life expectancy, such as economic inequality or risk factors like stress, diet or environmental hazards,” senior researcher Irene Papanicolas, director of the Center for Health System Sustainability at the Brown University, said in a news release.“If we want to improve health in the U.S., we need to better understand the underlying factors that contribute to these differences — particularly amongst similar socioeconomic groups — and why they translate to different health outcomes across nations,” she added.For the study, researchers compared health data from the U.S. against different parts of Europe among people ages 50 to 85. Starting in 2010, the team tracked people to see how long they lived.Results showed that across every wealth level, death rates are higher in the U.S. than in Europe.Across the globe, wealthy people tend to live longer. The wealthiest 25% had a death rate 40% lower than those in the poorest 25%.But people in Western Europe died at rates about 40% lower than Americans, Southern Europeans at rates about 30% lower, and Eastern Europeans at rates 13% to 20% lower, results show.The wealthiest Americans had shorter lifespans on average than the wealthiest Europeans, and in some cases even fared worse than poorer Europeans, researchers found.Meanwhile, the poorest Americans “appeared to have the lowest survival among all wealth groups in the study sample,” researchers wrote.These findings indicate that a weaker social net, more complex health care system, and even lifestyle factors like smoking and diet are trimming years off the lives of Americans across all wealth groups, researchers said.“Fixing health outcomes is not just a challenge for the most vulnerable — even those in the top quartile of wealth are affected,” lead researcher Sara Machado, a research scientist at Brown’s Center for Health System Sustainability, said in a news release.In fact, the study found a “survivor effect” in the U.S. that is creating an illusion of decreasing wealth inequality as people age. In actuality, the gap between rich and poor continues to expand.Poorer Americans in worse health are more likely to die earlier, leaving behind a population that appears healthier and wealthier. It looks like wealth inequality declines among seniors, but this is partly due to the early deaths of the poorest people.“While wealth inequality narrows after 65 across the U.S. and Europe, in the U.S. it narrows because the poorest Americans die sooner and in greater proportion,” Papanicolas said.The study indicates that for all the talk of American exceptionalism, the U.S. could learn a lot about better, healthier living from Europe, researchers said.“If you look at other countries, there are better outcomes, and that means we can learn from them and improve," Machado said. “It’s not necessarily about spending more — it’s about addressing the factors we’re overlooking, which could deliver far greater benefits than we realize.”SOURCE: Brown University, news release, April 2, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Microplastics Linked To High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Stroke

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 1, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics appear to be contributing to chronic diseases in...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 1, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics appear to be contributing to chronic diseases in shoreline areas of the United States, a new study suggests.High blood pressure, diabetes and stroke rates are higher in coastal or lakefront areas with greater concentrations of microplastics in the environment, researchers reported at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology (ACC).The results also suggested a dose relationship, where higher concentrations of microplastics pollution are associated with more chronic disease, researchers said.“This study provides initial evidence that microplastics exposure has an impact on cardiovascular health, especially chronic, noncommunicable conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke," lead investigator Sai Rahul Ponnana, a research data scientist at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, said in a news release.Microplastics are tiny plastic particles as small as 1 nanometer; by comparison, a strand of human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide.These particles are released as larger pieces of plastic break down, and can come from food and beverage packaging, consumer products and building materials, researchers said in background notes.People can be exposed to microplastics in the water they drink, the food they eat and the air they breathe.For this study, researchers linked U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on chronic illness rates with federal data on microplastics concentrations in the sediment along coastal and lakeshore areas in 555 census tracts. The data ran from 2015 to 2019.Microplastics ranked among the top risk factors associated with chronic illness, researchers found. They considered 154 factors, including income, employment rate and air pollution."When we included 154 different socioeconomic and environmental features in our analysis, we didn't expect microplastics to rank in the top 10 for predicting chronic noncommunicable disease prevalence,” Ponnana said.However, researchers noted that the study does not prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between microplastics and chronic illness. More studies are needed to prove a concrete link and rule out other possible explanations.More research is also needed to determine the amount of exposure to microplastics that would have an impact on a person’s health, researchers added.In the meantime, people can help minimize microplastics exposure by reducing how much plastic they throw away."The environment plays a very important role in our health, especially cardiovascular health," Ponnana said. "As a result, taking care of our environment means taking care of ourselves."The findings were presented Monday at the ACC’s meeting in Chicago. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on microplastics.SOURCE: American College of Cardiology, news release, March 25, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Why the health risks from air pollution could be worse than we thought

A new study found elevated and previously overlooked health risks for communities living near industrial polluters.

Many people who live near heavy industry are routinely exposed to dozens of different pollutants, which can result in a multitude of health problems.Traditionally, environmental regulators have assessed the risks of chemical exposure on an individual basis. But that approach has led to underestimates of the total health risks faced by vulnerable populations, according to a new study.Now researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for measuring the cumulative effects on human health of multiple toxic air pollutants. Their findings were published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives.Regulators typically measure community risk by looking at the primary health effects of individual chemicals, an approach that often fails to address their combined risks, said Keeve Nachman, the study’s senior author.Residents in disadvantaged communities are exposed to a toxic stew of chemicals daily, and they “don’t just breathe one at a time, [they] breathe all the chemicals in the air at once,” said Peter DeCarlo, another of the study’s authors.Follow Climate & environment“Very little has happened to protect these people. And one of the major reasons for that is that current approaches have not done a good job showing they’re in harm’s way,” Nachman said.“When we regulate chemicals, we pretend that we’re only exposed to one chemical at a time,” Nachman continued. “If we have each chemical and we only think about the most sensitive effect, but we ignore the fact that it could potentially cause all these other effects to different parts of the body, we are missing protecting people from the collective mixture of chemicals that act together.”Nachman, DeCarlo and their colleagues set out to more accurately account for the total burden of breathing multiple toxic air pollutants.The study assessed the risks faced by communities in southeastern Pennsylvania living near petrochemical facilities using a mobile laboratory to measure 32 hazardous air pollutants, including vinyl chloride, formaldehyde and benzene. The researchers developed real-time profiles of the pollution concentrations in the air and translated them into estimates of what people are actually breathing.Using these estimates and a database of the chemicals’ toxic effects on various organs, the researchers created projections of the long-term cumulative health impacts of the pollution.By looking past the immediate health effects of chemicals and measuring what happens as concentrations increase, negative health outcomes can be detected in other parts of the body, Nachman said.For example, while EPA risk assessments consider only the respiratory effects of formaldehyde, the study found potential health impacts in 10 other organ systems, including neurological, developmental and reproductive harms.The cumulative risk study appears at a fraught moment for environmental regulation. Although the Biden administration in November released a draft framework for monitoring the cumulative impact of chemical exposure, the Trump administration has announced plans to roll back dozens of Biden administration environmental rules and is considering shutting down the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.A spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, said in an email that the Johns Hopkins research “may provide some useful information” but that “further assessment, replication and validation will be needed” of the methods and substances assessed in the study.“ACC continues to support the development of scientifically robust data, methods and approaches to underpin cumulative risk assessments,” the spokesperson added.The EPA did not provide an immediate comment while it reviewed the study.Jen Duggan, the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said communities often face higher health impacts than the EPA estimates due to their exposure to dangerous chemicals from multiple sources.“The authors of this paper powerfully demonstrate how EPA has repeatedly underestimated the true health risks for people living in the shadow of industrial polluters,” Duggan said.

Utah Bans Fluoride In Public Drinking Water

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed the legislation despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation late Thursday that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Utah lawmakers who pushed for a ban said putting fluoride in water was too expensive. Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, compared it recently to being “medicated” by the government.The ban comes weeks after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has expressed skepticism about water fluoridation, was sworn into office.More than 200 million people in the U.S., or almost two-thirds of the population, receive fluoridated water through community water. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.But some cities across the country have gotten rid of fluoride from their water, and other municipalities are considering doing the same. A few months ago, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.We Don't Work For Billionaires. We Work For You.Big money interests are running the government — and influencing the news you read. While other outlets are retreating behind paywalls and bending the knee to political pressure, HuffPost is proud to be unbought and unfiltered. Will you help us keep it that way? You can even access our stories ad-free.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.The president of the American Dental Association, Brett Kessler, has said the amounts of fluoride added to drinking water are below levels considered problematic.Opponents warn the ban will disproportionately affect low-income residents who may rely on public drinking water having fluoride as their only source of preventative dental care. Low-income families may not be able to afford regular dentist visits or the fluoride tablets some people buy as a supplement in cities without fluoridation.The sponsor of the Utah legislation, Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius, acknowledged fluoride has benefits, but said it was an issue of “individual choice” to not have it in the water.

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