MembersSuccess Stories
From Minnesota to Louisiana, a variety of projects and programs are underway that provide direct, measurable benefit to conditions within the Gulf. The stories presented here provide a sample of successful projects that are contributing to the reduction in Gulf hypoxia.
Source: USDA
Incentive payments are offered to corn producers in the 43,000 acre watershed who develop a certified four-year nutrient management plan and use a nitrification inhibitor with fall nitrogen application or shift to spring application of nitrogen. The combined efforts of the Illinois Council on Best Management Practices, a coalition of agriculture organizations, the Illinois Department of Agriculture and local stakeholders led to overwhelming success the first year – 70% of all corn acres were enrolled. Preliminary reports show producers were already following University recommendations; nitrogen application was reduced an average of 0.9 lbs/acre (10,000 lbs total) while phosphorus application decreased 14 lbs/acre (140,000 lbs total). The project is funded by the Sand County Foundation.
Source: Orthman Manufacturing
The Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative (SMBSC) is a farmer-owned cooperative with a beet-processing facility that wanted to build a wastewater treatment plant to serve the facility. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency allowed SMBSC to obtain a permit for the proposed wastewater treatment plant, provided that they offset all of the additional loading through nonpoint source projects which reduced total phosphorus. The highest tier of nonpoint source trade offsets requires 13,000 lbs of total phosphorus reductions per year. SMBSC is achieving nearly 2.5 times the permit’s required nonpoint source reductions.
Source: USDA
The nutrient trading program administered by the Miami Conservancy District for the Great Miami River Watershed in Ohio allows National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitted dischargers to purchase credits from best management practices installed by upstream nonpoint sources (i.e., agricultural producers) to offset nutrient loadings. While no Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is in place yet, point sources in the watershed are concerned that upstream nonpoint source loadings will result in a stringent TMDL in future years. The point sources are purchasing reductions upstream in order to improve water quality enough to lessen the stringency of or eliminate the need for a TMDL. The program also employs trade ratios to encourage early investing. The trades are administered in a reverse auction format, where nonpoint sources submit bids for the amount they will accept in order to implement practices. Currently, there are 28 projects and more than 112 tons (244,606 lbs.) of nutrient reduction is targeted over the terms of the projects. Funded best management practices include conservation tillage, conservation crop rotation, conservation cover, milk house/cow lot treatment, pasture seeding/prescribed grazing, sod establishment, hayland, manure storage, grid sampling/variable rate technology, and filter strips.
Source: NRCS
In the Fall of 2007, USDA enrolled farmland in Minnesota as the one millionth acre in its nationwide Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP).
CREP is a community-based, results-oriented effort that focuses on local participation and leadership and addresses high-priority conservation issues of both local and national significance, such as impacts to water supplies, loss of critical habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife species, soil erosion, and reduced habitat for fish populations.
As a component of USDA's Conservation Reserve Program administered by the Farm Service Agency, CREP is a voluntary land retirement program that helps agricultural producers protect environmentally sensitive land, decrease erosion, restore wildlife habitat and safeguard ground and surface water. Partnering with tribal, state and federal governments and private groups, USDA establishes contracts with agricultural producers to retire highly erodible and other sensitive cropland and pastureland. During the 10- to 15-year contract period, participants convert enrolled land to grass, trees, wetlands, wildlife cover and other conservation uses. CREP supports increased conservation practices such as filter strips and forested buffers, which help protect streams, lakes and rivers from sedimentation and agricultural runoff.
Farmers in local communities deserve much of the credit for CREP's overwhelming success. Without their commitment to CREP, this innovative program would not have reached this milestone.
Source: USFWS
With a commitment greater than $12.5 million since 2001, NOAA has continued to provide the scientific foundation on Gulf of Mexico ecosystem dynamics upon which management of the hypoxic zone is based. As part of this commitment, annual monitoring of the hypoxic zone provides the benchmark for which progress on Action Plan goals is measured. Utilizing an ecosystem-based approach, NOAA research studies have led to enhanced predictive models capable of examining a multitude of interacting factors on the size of the hypoxic zone, and provide information on how hypoxia affects commercially and ecologically important species in the region. These models are integrating oceanographic physical data and coastal biogeochemistry to improve quantification of the duration, timing, and extent of the hypoxic zone, and their relationship to causative factors such as nutrients and stratification. These model predictions of complex processes will continue to allow for the comprehensive assessment of alternative management strategies to mitigate hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: USDA
Recognizing the impacts of nutrient pollution on the hypoxic zone in the Gulf, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) works with industries and municipalities along the Mississippi River to reduce nutrient discharges, consistent with Action 8 of the 2001 Action Plan. Voluntary programs, like the Louisiana Environmental Leadership Pollution Prevention Program (LaELP) engage professional, environmental, industrial, and municipal associations to improve the quality of the environment through pollution prevention, community environmental outreach, and environmental management.
Since 2000, the LaELP has recognized three industrial businesses for significant nutrient discharge reductions: IMC Phosphates (now Mosaic Industries), BASF Corporation, and ExxonMobil. Both BASF Corporation and IMC Phosphates have been acknowledged with "Special Recognition for Outstanding Nutrient Reductions," a category created to highlight Louisiana's special concern for hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and to emphasize the need for nutrient reductions.
Two IMC-Agrico plants were recognized for implementing a comprehensive, long range by-product management improvement campaign. This provides inactive phosphogypsum stacks with a synthetic liner and a clay/grass cover, and has resulted in more than an 80% reduction, over 100 million lbs., in average annual phosphorus discharges. While the program was voluntary, IMC-Agrico agreed to place the reductions in permits to ensure long-term compliance.
Source: EPA
BASF Corporation was recognized for developing a biological treatment system that converts nitrates in wastewater - that would otherwise have been discharged to the Mississippi River - to atmospheric nitrogen and other non-nutrient parameters. Specifically, a new process was added that completed the denitrification process using "anoxic treatment" and specific bacteria that live in low oxygen environments that break down nitrates. The result has been an annual reduction of over 2.3 million lbs. of nitrates in BASF's permitted discharged wastewater since implementation began in 1999. BASF has transferred ownership of the process to the Water Environment Research Foundation for wider use.
The ExxonMobil Baton Rouge Refinery, the second largest petroleum refinery in the nation, was recognized by both the LaELP and the EPA's Gulf Guardian Award for reducing annual nitrate discharges from 4.1 million lbs. in 1999 to 1.5 million lbs. in 2003. ExxonMobil's management team established a nitrate reduction objective and supported it through a five-year effort that included an extensive engineering analysis. As a result of the analysis, process operations were modified to run two ammonia strippers in parallel and the refinery wastewater treatment facility began operating under anoxic conditions. This reduction effort was not only voluntary, but was achieved without capital expenditure.
Recently, the Secretary of LDEQ reaffirmed the Department's commitment to the many objectives of the LaELP and the special nutrient reduction effort in particular. As a result, the LaELP will continue to recognize activities and projects that demonstrate environmental leadership including innovative pollution prevention efforts implemented by its partners to reduce point source nutrient discharges to the Mississippi River.
Source: EPA
Phosphorus is the nutrient primarily responsible for the eutrophication of Minnesota's surface waters. An overabundance of phosphorus results in excessive algal production in Minnesota waters. In response to a dissolved oxygen TMDL on the Lower Minnesota River, Minnesota developed the Statewide Phosphorus Report which quantifies the phosphorus loading to Minnesota waters from various point and nonpoint sources. In 2005, Minnesota developed a Phosphorus General Permit for forty point sources in the Minnesota River Basin. Under the permit, the point sources have the option of trading to meet their water quality-based effluent limits.
The Metropolitan Council owns and operates eight municipal wastewater treatment plants in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Since 1990, the Council has achieved dramatic reduction in phosphorus discharged from its plants to area receiving waters. Since the peak of phosphorus discharge in 1995, the Council has achieved a 78% reduction in phosphorus loads.
To understand the magnitude of such a reduction, it would be as if we went back to before 1900. At that time, the metropolitan area had a population of 500,000 people and it is estimated that 1,860 lbs/day of phosphorus was discharged to area rivers. Today, 2 million more people live in this area, yet discharge only 1,670 lbs/day.
Source: NOAA
Since 2005, over $1 million has been provided to landowners in Arkansas for installation of on-farm structures to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff. These projects have been implemented in the Arkansas River and Bayou Bartholomew/Beouf-Tensas basins. Overwhelming public participation and interest has created additional opportunities for implementation of nutrient reduction programs in other Mississippi River tributary watersheds.