Posted on 09/27/2009 5:12:23 PM PDT by TaraP
WAUSAU, Wis. — Waterways across the upper Midwest are increasingly plagued with ugly, smelly and potentially deadly blue-green algae, bloomed by drought and fertilizer runoffs from farm fields, that's killed dozens of dogs and sickened many people.
Aquatic biologists say it's a problem that falls somewhere between a human health concern and a nuisance, but will eventually lead to more human poisoning. State officials are telling people who live on algae-covered lakes to close their windows, stop taking walks along the picturesque shorelines and keep their dogs from drinking the rank water.
Peggy McAloon, 62, lives on Wisconsin's Tainter Lake and calls the algae blooms the "cockroach on the water."
"It is like living in the sewer for three weeks. You gag. You cannot go outside
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Factory Farms Strike again...
Is there a drought or is water causing fertilizer runoffs... kind of hard to see how both are going on at the same time.
We have the same situation here in Humboldt county Calif. Been going on for a million years as it’s Mother Natures way of thinning the herd. The next step is training the “not in my back yard” crowd to consider it a health food supplement
****Factory Farms Strike again...****
There is no such thing in this world as a perfect system. Quit pointing out the small failings of a system that results in greater good.
“If the water is pea-soup green, be sure to have clean water along to wash the dog off,” Vennie said. “Don’t let it drink the water.”
Good luck with that. My current Lab, and the two prior, have had a sip from every single puddle, stream, river or lake they’ve ever come across or swum in, LOL!
It basically boils down to poor management of the lakes. I grew up on a lake and my Grandpa was the head of the Lake Association for many, many years. It truly is poor management and not educating those that LIVE on the lake to stop fertilizing their d@mn lawns with a high phosphorus fertilizer because grass won’t grow in sandy soil, anyway. A waste of money.
However, I live across the road from a lake...that is surrounded on two sides by farm fields. Field corn (for cattle) is grown there every year, and I’m sure they must fertilize it and use insecticides, etc. because the crop is always nice. Cows share that same spot, and have free access to the lake. They lay in it, poop in it, whatever. It is always filled with Sandhill Cranes, Canada Geese, white Egrets, and Blue Heron. Noneo f them have two heads, or seem to be unable to fly or anything...
That lake is crystal clear. Has been for 15 years, so what’s up with that?
Ah, well. That’s my 2-cents. After growing up on a lake I’ll never live on a lake, LOL!
Lovely....I’m getting ready to go grouse hunting out there near Park Falls with my new puppy. Great...just great.
kind of hard to see how both are going on at the same time.
Actually that is exactly what is going on. Please don't take this as a leftist know-it-all comment, it just happens to be my line of work.
The applied agricultural agents, herbicides, insecticides, and unassimilated nutrients, run off disproportionately in the first flush of any rainfall, so there can be a general shortage of precipitation overall, but the accumulated nutrients will runoff into the receiving waters, e.g. the lakes, in an initially concentrated form, and not be diluted (flushed) by subsequent rainfall. It is a recognized phenomenon.
And it is a deep problem, pun intended, for it involves corporate agriculture responsibility, increased population pressure, the whole farm economics politic, etc.
In the public forum these days there is a lot of media-driven nonsense about the shortage of our fresh water resources in the US. Through the hydrologic cycle there is plenty of fresh water, but the poisoning which removes it from the usable reservoir is a problem.
It’s Obamas Fault !
We used to call it the ‘Dog Days of Summer’.
“...happens to be my line of work.”
From other replies seems that in some cases it is entirely natural — not influenced by any human activity. Is it that the runoff from farming chemicals increases a the growth more than would normally take place?
“...Wisconsin’s Tainter Lake...”
Absolutely. In the long involved Chesapeake issue, those closely associated with it technically will readily concede that intensive agriculture is as much or more a responsible party as low intensity development. (When you have flown over the planet as I have had the fortune to do one comes to realize that intensive farming IS intense development).
Not saying there are not solutions, but quantitatively one does wonder when the technical solutions reach diminishing returns versus overwhelming population pressure, at least as far as one's desire for a naturally pleasant environment is concerned.
That is one reason, and only one of many, that I vehemently oppose the illegal Mexican invasion. How can one rationalize importing twenty million civilly irresponsible and environmentally devastating refugees who pay nothing, but press the environment which most of us struggle to protect and pay for?
Greater good? Devastated towns, sickening smells, and dead zones and the end of the Mississippi river.
I think Obama will like your Greater Good argument. He can use to bring in Illegals, push socialized medicine down our necks, suspend the constitution etc.etc.
And by the way, I see no greater good in Nixon’s plan.
Maybe if food was not so cheap we would not have so many fat people in this country.
Your tag line is the greatest one I’ve ever read!
****Greater good? Devastated towns, sickening smells, and dead zones and the end of the Mississippi river.
I think Obama will like your Greater Good argument. He can use to bring in Illegals, push socialized medicine down our necks, suspend the constitution etc.etc.
And by the way, I see no greater good in Nixon’s plan.
Maybe if food was not so cheap we would not have so many fat people in this country.****
What a bunch of leftist relativist crap. There are more people living longer lives than ever before.
Greater good is only a good argument if it is true. There is a reason to only permit certain people into our country, that is to help our good country continue to be strong so that we continue to he a light unto the world.
Too many have bought into leftist lies and that light is getting dimmer by the day.
The factory farm system is supported by two things...
Government subsidies, and cheap illeagal labor.
I am against both, if that makes me a leftest so be it.
As a side note I market the food I produce as NOT from a factory farm. Eggs from happy chickens non caged chickens and all that. I actually make money off of that. I am sure making money is another thing only leftests do, at least in your silly book.
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