Supercharge And Scale: $60 Million To State Nutrient Reduction Strategies
Today, EPA announced $60 million in federal funding ($12 million/year for five years) to help reach the goal of reducing nutrient pollution in the Gulf of Mexico by 20% by 2025.
“It’s a great day for our nation’s water,” EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox says. “It's going to help make some big progress on the pressing issue of nutrients.”
First Time Federal Funds Put Into the States Like This
On the day of the announcement, she appeared on AgriTalk along with EPA Ag Advisor Rod Snyder. Fox emphasized the theme of partnerships and collaboration. While Snyder emphasized the need to provide a variety of tools and options to farmers to be part of this effort.
“A lot of this funding is going to be state led and will be granted to all 12 of the states that are part of the Gulf Hypoxia Task Force,” Snyder says. “We'll be providing guidance to the states to create granting opportunities at a local level. That could be conservation groups, ag organizations, but focused on opportunities to build capacity on the ground. This is the first time that through the Gulf hypoxia Task Force with federal dollars EPA is actually able to directly to invest in this program.”
Established 25 years ago across 12 states, the Hypoxia Task Force has been working through its cornerstone of state nutrient reduction strategies to reduce the footprint of the low-oxygen, hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Progress Watershed by Watershed
Snyder says this new funding will accelerate the progress already being made “watershed by watershed.” He says this will continue the voluntary frameworks used currently across the task force states.
“We know we need maximum flexibility at a local level to determine what's going to be most effective, state by state or even county by county,” Snyder says. “No two farms are exactly alike–the topography, the climate, the production decisions of that farmer are going to lead to different types of interventions and practices that are going to be most effective. That's not something that EPA at the federal level needs to dictate all the way down to the ground. That's going to happen in leadership from the state and also with local technical assistance and other local partners. This approach is going to be most impactful over time and also make sure that this funding can help produce the greatest results for water quality.”
No Mandates, But Specific Goals Set
Focused on both nitrogen and phosphorus reduction, the current goal stated by EPA is to limit the dead zone to no more than 5,000 square kilometers by 2035.
“Through the Hypoxia Task Force, states are working with federal partners to take on the challenge of implementing their Nutrient Reduction Strategies. These state-driven strategies have engaged and expanded partnerships for research, implementation and measurements while also developing and deploying innovative conservation practices,” Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said in the EPA news release. “This new funding will help improve water quality and meet the unique needs of each state as outlined in their Nutrient Reduction Strategies.”
Fox says the work done in the past two decades has shown how investing in practices such as cover crops and on-farm wetlands improves water quality, soil health and on-farm productivity.
“These additional resources provided by this funding will be shown to be a win-win-win,” says says. “We're going to really be able to supercharge and scale the progress.”
