A new assessment of the state strategy to reduce nutrient runoff shows mixed results, writes Charlie Schlenker at WGLT.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has released its third biennial Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy Report. The overall amount of measured nutrients actually went up the last two years — phosphorous by 35% and nitrate runoff by 13% — compared to a baseline period measured between 1980 and 1996. The Illinois River watershed, which drains the largest part of Illinois, had an increase as well, but substantially below the total state average.
Those contribute to the so-called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that has so little oxygen in the water, it is difficult to support life. Algae feeding on the nitrogen and phosphorous bloom and use up the available oxygen.
One complicating factor to reduction efforts, the report notes, was that total runoff from Illinois waterways increased substantially over the study period. And with higher-than-average flow, there will be higher-than-average amounts of chemicals carried downstream. Yet, the fact remains the nutrients are there in amounts available to be carried.
“The trajectory will not meet the goals of the strategy,” said Kris Reynolds, Midwest regional director of the ag environmental group, American Farmland Trust.
The nutrient reduction strategy calls for a 15% drop in nitrate runoff and 25% in phosphorous by 2025, and a 45% decrease in both by 2045.
