Fake for a second that Nebraska one way or the other halted all use of nitrogen fertilizer — not a single speck extra on our lawns, golf programs and cornfields.
That is as a result of, in keeping with specialists, generations of corn rising, feedlot runoff and oft-unwitting nitrogen overuse has left a legacy of nitrate, creeping slowly downward towards our water provide.
“It is there, it is shifting towards the groundwater, and there is not a factor we will do about it,” stated Don Batie, a farmer close to Lexington who serves on the Nebraska Pure Assets Fee.
That legacy makes it essential that Nebraska react extra severely to its nitrate-in-water downside in 2023, stated two dozen specialists interviewed for this story.
The stakes are severe: Nebraska’s median nitrate degree has doubled since 1978. Excessive ranges of nitrate in ingesting water have been linked to pediatric cancers. And Nebraska has the best pediatric most cancers fee of any state west of Pennsylvania, in keeping with the Facilities of Illness Management and Prevention.
The Flatwater Free Press sought options to Nebraska’s nitrate downside from state lawmakers, pure sources district leaders, NRD board members, ag curiosity teams, water and soil specialists, scientists, professors of public well being, regulation and agriculture economics and Nebraska farmers and ranchers.
There’s broad consensus in some areas. Nebraska wants to spice up current packages that may no less than reasonably cut back nitrate, these interviewed stated.
There’s additionally settlement that Nebraska should spend tens of millions extra to safeguard ingesting water, though lots of these interviewed say that pricey filtration methods aren’t a long-term repair.
The consensus crumbles when some specialists float extra stringent steps.
Ban farming practices identified to be dangerous, some say. Change federal coverage to encourage crops that do not require nitrogen fertilizer. Tax fertilizer overuse. Make the ag trade, not Nebraska taxpayers, pay for the filtration of polluted ingesting water.
And, perhaps most controversially: Mandate how a lot fertilizer Nebraska corn farmers can use.
“The very last thing that something needs is the federal authorities to come back in and boss everybody round on this concern,” stated Logan Pribbeno, a fourth-generation rancher who has applied numerous conservation practices at his household’s Wine Glass Ranch close to Imperial. “They are not gonna get it proper.”
Tim Gragert, a former Republican state senator from Creighton, has grown annoyed with the present system — one through which there is not any penalty for farmers who pollute Nebraska’s water provide.
“I am all about native management till native management would not occur,” he stated, referring to NRDs and their domestically elected boards, that are tasked with defending groundwater high quality. “No one needs mandates. I get it. However the voluntary system is just not working.”
For many years, specialists have sought to teach farmers on how and when to use fertilizer, and the way a lot to make use of on their corn.
Severe progress has been made, stated Ray Ward, the founding father of Ward Laboratories in Kearney.
He would know — Ward, 85, is called the dean of water and soil testing in Nebraska.
Over the a long time, heeding the recommendation of specialists like Ward, many Nebraska farmers have lowered their nitrogen utilization by roughly a 3rd per bushel of corn grown.
Nobody, together with Ward, thinks that is sufficient.
Extra farmers want to maneuver away from fall utility, the longstanding apply by which farmers fertilize after harvesting within the fall. It is simpler for the farmer, Ward stated, however worse for the state’s water.
“Why have 6-8 months of nitrogen within the soil, with nothing utilizing it, after which we marvel why it goes into the water?” Ward stated. “I inform farmers, ‘Possibly it is time to do chores once more. Feed the corn when the corn must be fed, not if you wish to put the feed on the market.’ “
Extra farmers ought to apply fertilizer at completely different factors, a course of often known as break up utility, specialists stated. Extra farmers ought to use the right quantity of nitrogen on corn.
It comes again to schooling, the argument goes. Attain extra farmers — for instance with Gragert’s latest proposal LB925, which emphasizes farmer-to-farmer schooling — and you can also make headway whereas farmers get monetary savings.
“It actually a win-win-win for the producer and the general public and for the setting,” Gragert stated.
However there’s one snag, different specialists stated: Nebraska has been making an attempt related plans for many years.
“We have now executed some schooling, we have now executed some compensation, we have now tried to grease the skids on the uptick of a few of these practices,” stated Anthony Schutz, a College of Nebraska-Lincoln regulation professor and water regulation skilled who’s additionally an NRD board member.
“I believe it is truthful to say that it hasn’t been efficient. We’re nonetheless left with the issue. So then, the query turns into: What else might we do?”
Silvia Secchi, a College of Iowa professor who researches the environmental impacts of agriculture and water sustainability, stated she thinks folks contained in the ag trade — and even economists who examine it — want to contemplate upsetting the established order.
The federal government might remove subsidies that encourage folks to farm on flood plains, she stated.
She and a number of other others stated the federal government might incentivize the rising of different crops, like alfalfa, wheat and oats, that have been as soon as extra extensively grown in Nebraska. These crops do not want nitrogen fertilizer.
What’s wanted, Secchi stated, is farm insurance policies that defend our soil and water, in ways in which nonetheless permit farmers to make a residing.
“We have now a proper to ask for a coverage that does not shoot ourselves within the foot,” she stated.
Schutz, the water regulation skilled, wonders about serving to cities and small cities which are on the hook for tens of millions to wash up nitrate-laced ingesting water. At the moment, the most important polluters — together with large feedlots, or those that wildly over-apply fertilizer and apply within the fall — pay no price for that cleanup.
“After I exit and run within the spring (alongside the path), there might be litter and beer bottles,” Schutz stated. “And I’ve joked we must always pay these of us to choose up the stuff they dropped.”
“Nobody thinks of it that approach, as a result of we have now a powerful anti-littering ethic. We do not appear to have the identical ethic with regards to land makes use of and environmental hurt.”
Gragert stated the way in which regulation is organized — the NRDs in command of farming, the Nebraska Division of Surroundings and Vitality in command of concentrated animal feeding operations — results in turf battles. Gragert stated he is seen conditions the place the state supplies permits for a brand new feedlot, “inside a watershed or an space that is already approach excessive in nitrate.”
“There’s loads of finger-pointing occurring,” Gragert stated. “That is not fixing something. What’s really essential is the NRD and the NDEE begin working collectively to repair this. And once more, presently, they aren’t.”
Jesse Bell stated he understands the frustration from all angles.
Bell is a College of Nebraska Medical Heart public well being skilled who grew up in Bloomfield, inhabitants 986. He has labored for the CDC, and he additionally has labored constructing hog barns.
Now he is a part of a staff learning why and the way nitrate is contributing to well being dangers in Nebraska.
Any resolution have to be workable, he stated. It have to be sensible. However any resolution additionally must preserve the give attention to Nebraska farmkids, very like he as soon as was – Nebraska youngsters who proceed to get recognized with pediatric cancers at larger charges than virtually anyplace else in America.
“So far as I can see, we have now a water high quality concern within the state, and that water high quality concern has potential well being impacts, particularly on youngsters,” stated Bell, director of UNMC’s Water, Local weather and Well being program. “My purpose in all of this: How can we cut back threat in these youngsters? That is the very first thing I wish to attempt to sort out.”
The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first unbiased, nonprofit newsroom targeted on investigations and have tales that matter.