Posted on 06/11/2015 1:54:30 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
Biologists at Rocky Mountain National Park are connecting the dots between nitrogen pollution and unprecedented algal blooms in the park’s lakes. Here’s how it works.
1. Cows eat greens in pastures, which are grown using LOTS of fertilizer.
2. They pee and poop, as animals are inclined to do. The nitrogen-containing ammonia in their urine, however, can transform into an airborne particulate, ammonium nitrate.
3. This little particle floats along in the air, and under certain wind conditions gets carried north, over the park. When it rains or snows, the ammonium nitrate falls back to earth.
4. This has led to excess nitrogen in the park’s ecosystem, which can harm native trees, cause invasive plants to thrive, and acidify rivers and lakes.
Only cow urine contains ammonia. Deer, elk, sheep, rabbits, and birds does not.
Only cow urine from cows raised on grass fertilized with ammonia contains ammonia.
Because science
Other animals have magic urine which is the liquid equivalent of pixie dust, don’t you know.
so....Toledo, Ohio had to shut down the entire municipal water system last summer due to toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, which were obviously caused by herds of cattle roaming through the streets and peeing into the Maumee River. ahhhhh....NOW I get it! /s
You are now an enlightened one.
Cows and other ruminants fill a niche in the ecosystem once filled by buffalo and other ruminants. Those critters which fill those niches do what the other critters did: eat green things, drink water, make more critters, and produce waste from their alimentary canals and renal systems.
What I want to know is how the airborne crystallized pee was tracked, versus waterborne, re-dissolved crystallized pee in runoff.
Furthermore, I want to know how this pee was attributed to any specific genus or species of organism versus any other species or genus of organism that pees.
This “science” sounds like what comes out of another cow opening. Rocky Mountain National Park is a high altitude, headwaters kind of place. Cow pee does not flow up those slopes. And cow pee floats in the air? Seriously? Do these “scientists” know that there is a large elk herd up there?
I doubt that. I think it has more to do with the use of nitrogen on the farm fields that drain into the Maumee River and other tributaries.
I know that the Ohio Dept’s of Resources & Agriculture have been training farmers in Western Ohio to better treat their fields with lower quantities and more direct fertilizing methods to reduce the potential blooms.
Either way this explanation doesn’t seem to take into account the large herds of Bison that once roamed freely over most of the American Plains. I would think the estimated 75 million Bison that roamed the plains would have been at least as detrimental to the lakes and rivers as the 80 million cattle that are presently dispersed throughout the lower 48 today. But I could be wrong.
>>Do these “scientists” know that there is a large elk herd up there?
Elk are “natural” animals so they have no adverse effect on the delicate ecosystem. Humans, cows, and chickens are not “natural” so everything we do is destructive.
So says the watermelon environmentalists.
Seems they just need to toss some copper sulfate into the pond to clear up the algae then.
I think I found a link between BS and politicians...
Just as cows fill an niche in the ecosystem once filled by bison, ammonia fills a niche in the ecosystem once filled by cows. If the cows grazed on the fields where the hay was growing, their own urine would feed the hay. But they usually don't, and so applying manufactured ammonia to the field is a replacement for the grazing cows.
Nitrogen and CO2 are essential for plant growth. The eco-weenies now term these toxic pollutants.
Increased nitrogen, in the nitrate form which is most useful to plants, will promote increased plant growth which will require more CO2 to be pulled from the atmosphere and be “sequestered” (environmental buzz-word!) by the plants.
BTW, said plants will produce more oxygen for animals and humans.
Seems to me that growing clover might put more nitrogen back in the soil and feed the cattle, too.
I wonder how they eliminated the N2H4O3 from people pee?
It seems provenance remains problematical.
The algae will die out when the nitrogen is used up. Algae and duckweed are nature's little sewage treatment plants, so I'm kind of hesitant to say there is actually anything wrong here, other than the ponds may not look pretty.
If there actually is too much algae in Rock Mountain National Park, my first guess would be to look at sources of nitrogen in the park. The park is upstream from everything, it is on the continental divide, and the water flows out of it, not into it. Guess number one would be that there are too many fish in the lakes and rivers.
Fish known to be native to the area that became Rocky Mountain National Park were cutthroat trout, suckers and sculpins. These fish were only historically found in the lower reaches of what would become the park due to waterfalls and cascades which served as fish migration barriers. Cold water temperatures make it probable that many of the waters in the park were originally fishless.
Rocky Mountain National Park - Fish
But what do I know, I just hang on to the "old school science" where people had theories and tested them.
"Out of my way, you damned tree huggers!"
The science is settled. There is no need for further discussion.
You all are just a bunch of cow pee deniers!!!
/sarc
The science is settled. There is no need for further discussion.
You all are just a bunch of cow pee deniers!!!
/sarc
It is illegal for cows to be in Rocky Mountain Park. They would not graze at the high altitude like stated. This is just an ignorant hit piece.
There are no cows in Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park and hardly any cows for hundreds of miles west of it. Besides, snow and rain have always been known to contain nitrogen which is highly beneficial to farms and gardens. Plants crave nitrogen.
Save the Planet — Eat Steak!!!!
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