Watching Our Water NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 Watching Our Water Sat, 15 May 2021 05:04:39 +0000 https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Peggy Lowe Standing on a platform above the eastern bank of the Missouri River at the Kansas City, Missouri, Water Services’ intake plant is like being on the deck of a large ship. Electric turbines create a vibration along the blue railing, where David Greene, laboratory manager for Kansas City Water Services, looks out across the river. Water the color of chocolate milk is sucked up and forced through screens below, picking up all the debris the river carries downstream. “The muddy Mo,” Greene says. “The Missouri River drains one-sixth of the United States, so there’s a lot of stuff that can affect the water quality in the river.” Enough water to supply Kansas City with drinking water for a day flows by this point every 17 minutes, Greene says, and it’s his job to make sure that enormous volume of water is clean. The most frequently detected contaminant is bacteria from sewage dumped in upstream, he says. But there’s also the annual problem of atrazine, the No. 2 most-used weed killer that’s https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/kansas-city-both-copes-water-pollution-and-creates-it 100 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:43:00 +0000 Kansas City Both Copes With Water Pollution And Creates It Kristofor Husted Farming in the fertile Midwest is tied to an environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But scientists are studying new ways to lessen the Midwest’s environmental impact and improve water quality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts the so-called “dead zone,” an area of sea without enough oxygen to support most marine life, to grow larger than the size of Connecticut, or roughly 6,000 square miles . “This dead zone forms because nitrogen (and) phosphorous pollution is flowing from agricultural fields – because they use it as fertilizer,” says Matt Rota , senior policy director for the environmental group Gulf Restoration Network. “(The pollution is) flowing from sewage treatment plants, from concentrated animal feeding operations, from industrial sources, and flows down the Mississippi River.” The Mississippi then dumps massive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Gulf, which feeds algal blooms. When the algae die and drifts to the bottom, https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/missouri-researchers-study-new-ways-farmers-can-fight-water-pollution 97 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:25:00 +0000 Missouri Researchers Study New Ways Farmers Can Fight Water Pollution Amy Mayer On a gray day, just as the rain begins to fall, Roger Zylstra stops his red GMC Sierra pick-up truck on the side of the road and hops down into a ditch in Jasper County, Iowa. It takes two such stops before he unearths amid the tall weeds and grasses what he’s looking for. “Here is one of the tiles,” he says, pointing to a pipe about six or eight inches in diameter. Water trickles from it into a culvert that runs under the road after flowing through a network of underground drainage lines below his farm field. “That’s where it outlets.” Water like this is called runoff and it can contain harmful chemicals, such as nitrates from fertilizer that plants don’t absorb or excess pesticides. For years, contaminants like these have reached public waterways. While federal regulations have successfully cut back some types of water pollution, like raw sewage and industrial waste, the landmark Clean Water Act, now 44 years old, has little muscle in combating what is one of the Midwest’s biggest https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/without-regulations-its-midwest-farmers-reduce-water-pollution 101 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Wed, 21 Sep 2016 14:18:00 +0000 Without Regulations, It's Up To Midwest Farmers To Reduce Water Pollution Grant Gerlock Living in the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska means understanding that the water in your well may contain high levels of nitrates and may not be safe to drink. “When our first son was born in 1980, we actually put a distiller in for our drinking water here in the house,” says Ken Seim, who lives in the Platte Valley near the town of Chapman, Nebraska. “And at that time our water level was a 12 parts per million.” Nitrates are formed when nitrogen, from the air or fertilizer, is converted by bacteria in the soil to a form that is more plant-friendly. Nitrates help plants grow, but can be dangerous in large amounts. The legal limit in public water systems is 10ppm. Some nearby wells, Seim says, contain nitrates at dangerous levels, two or three times the legal threshold. For Seim, nitrate pollution in groundwater is a problem that feels personal, because he’s a farmer. Seim and his sons grow about 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans, which means that some of nitrates in his water https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/heres-how-midwest-farmers-are-fighting-agricultural-water-pollution 102 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Tue, 20 Sep 2016 21:12:00 +0000 Here's How Midwest Farmers Are Fighting Agricultural Water Pollution Luke Runyon Contaminated drinking water isn’t just a problem for Flint, Michigan. Many towns and cities across the Midwest and Great Plains face pollution seeping into their water supplies. A big part of the problem: farming and ranching. Farmers spread nitrogen- and phosphorous-based fertilizers on their fields to help their crops grow. Excess nutrients, though, can leach into groundwater or seep into rivers, creeks, canals or ditches that eventually feed into the Mississippi River. In high concentrations, these chemical compounds damage aquatic life and burden small towns that have to remove them from their water supply. Water high in nitrates, a compound that moves easily in water, can trigger blue baby syndrome in infants under 6 months old. The condition, if left untreated, can cause death. Headlines on news stories from Burlington, Colorado , Erie, Illinois , and Creighton, Nebraska , warn citizens not to drink the water due to high levels of nitrate. Boiling the water won’t work. It further https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/how-are-nitrates-ending-midwest-drinking-water-supplies 103 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Tue, 20 Sep 2016 12:59:00 +0000 How Are Nitrates Ending Up In Midwest Drinking Water Supplies?