The Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico Shrinks; Will Perennial Biomass Crops Help Keep It That Way?

With an extreme drought across the nation’s agricultural heartland, Mother Nature has been able to accomplish in one extremely dry summer what conservationists have been trying to do for decades: restore oxygen and life to the waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico. While the shrunken dead zone is something to celebrate, it has come at a very great price. Expanding the use of agricultural practices to reduce nutrient pollution, including the establishment of conservation biomass energy crops, offer a far better way to clean up the Gulf and make agricultural production more sustainable.

On August 23, Science Daily reported : " The worst drought to hit the United States in at least 50 years does have one benefit: it has created the smallest "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico in years, says a Texas A&M University researcher who has just returned from gulf waters. Oceanography professor Steve DiMarco, one of the world's leading authorities on the dead zone, says he and other Texas A&M researchers and graduate students analyzed the Gulf Aug. 15-21 and covered more than 1,200 miles of cruise track, from Texas to Louisiana. The team found no hypoxia off the Texas coast while only finding hypoxia near the Mississippi River delta on the Louisiana coast ."

Nutrient run-off from expanded production of corn and soybeans in the Mississippi watershed – to meet rising U.S. and global demand for animal feed and first generation biofuels – has contributed significantly to the formation of extensive, oxygen-depleted, dead zones in the Gulf, the Chesapeake Bay, and many other bays and estuaries along the nation’s coasts in years past. Scientists have estimated that nutrient run-off from agriculture (primarily from corn and soy production) is responsible for about half of the excess nutrient load in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Other sources of excess nutrients include sewage treatment plants, run-off from urban fertilizer use, and emissions from fossil fuel power plants.

The extension and expansion of federal conservation programs and the increase in conservation compliance requirements for participants in federally-subsidized crop insurance policies can help reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture, as discussed in previous SBFF posts here and here . The future of these programs is now pending before Congress in the next Farm Bill .

Other policy innovations are needed, as well. On August 14, Ag Professional reported : " In a first-of-its-kind trading plan involving three states of the Ohio River Basin, an interstate water quality pilot trading program has been initiated. Under the trading plan, farmers in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky reducing their nutrient run-off using conservation best practices can be credited for nutrient run-off reduction. And emitters of similar nutrients such as power plants and sewage treatment plants can purchase the nutrient reduction credits and not have to invest in hugely expensive changes to their operations in order to meet lower pollution standards/environmental permit requirements ."

To learn more about this approach, check out the video from this EESI briefing, Managing Nutrients to Protect Water Quality: Innovative Approaches .

The establishment of perennial biomass crops as watershed buffers can play an important role in such a trading scheme – providing new revenue streams for farmers and conserving their soils and water, while providing clean water and other conservation benefits for the public. The USDA Biomass Crop Assistance Program , now pending reauthorization in the 2012 Farm Bill, provides support to farmers who want to establish biomass crops on marginal lands.

Biomass crops can be used to produce biofuels, bioheat, biopower, or other bio-based products. For example, on September 3, Yahoo News reported on a pilot project to develop perennial conservation biomass crops on marginal land. It will provide heat and power for an ethanol plant in South Dakota, while also providing multiple conservation benefits. " It’s a very good week for the United States alternative energy industry, and an even better day for conservation and biodiversity. After three years in the planning, native prairie and wetland plants have been test burned to evaluate their value for power production. As a step towards commercializing native plant biomass as an alternative energy source, another goal of the demonstration project was to assess cost factors needed to finalize business models. The demonstration was conducted by a unique partnership that includes The Earth Partners, LP, Applied Ecological Services (AES), and POET, the largest ethanol producer in the U.S. Project partners conducted the processing and test-burn of the native plants in a solid fuel boiler at POET’s Chancellor, South Dakota, ethanol plant. At this facility, the energy derived from this ‘conservation biomass’ was used to generate power to run the ethanol production process ."

To learn more about the roles biomass crops can play in advancing conservation goals, check out these videos from these previous EESI briefings:
• Conservation, Energy Security and Jobs with Biomass Crops? A Question for the Next Farm Bill
• Developing Sustainable Biomass Supplies: A Step toward Energy, Economic, and Environmental Security