While green activists focus on non-stop climate crisis, other important environmental issues have been brewing for decades. Time for a closer look.

As a longtime observer of environmental affairs and 25-year veteran of the green industry, I’ve often been amazed at the polarized nature of debate on modern ecological topics, as well as some major oversights that have developed. The two main environmental subjects that EPA and its allies can’t shoot straight about involve reckless government sewage and stormwater handling—a source of thousands of public beach closures and millions of associated sick swimmers each year—and the routine fish kills, multiple large aquatic “dead zones” and other widespread problems caused by our heavily subsidized agribusiness.

EPA, various green groups and their friends in Legacy media are well aware of all this. But for the most part, they keep to the script of blaming all environmental harm on “corporate polluters” while concocting poor excuses to downplay government malfeasance.

With many environmental organizations promoting anti-industry fear to solicit contributions from their supporters—and with conservative/pro-business types permanently in defense mode pushing back on those narratives—these major pollution topics get little coverage and virtually zero traction in mainstream media or among the general public. At most, some hardcore environmentalists occasionally rail against “factory farms,” the one segment of agribusiness it’s OK to hate. But even that coverage is usually slanted for political purposes.

The many aspects of government pollution are all problematic. But all are drenched in power politics that most in Washington would rather not disturb. Admitting that non-industrial operators cause pollution threatens not only the entrenched message of the Green Lobby, but also the pristine image of the powerful Farm Lobby and the “progressive” aura of big-city political machines. These pollution sources lead to trouble waters in a variety of ways.

The twin pillars of government pollution are the skyrocketing usage of USDA-backed chemical fertilizers since 1945 and the 16,000 government-run (patronage laden) sewage treatment systems. The latter may work well during dry weather, but after a rain event soaks into porous sewer networks, anything goes, with EPA’s full approval. The option of privatizing the operations of any of these municipal monopolies with periodic competitive bidding is fiercely opposed by pro-government activists as well as civil service unions.

Farm Lobby advocates often claim chemical fertilizers are completely “natural” and nothing new, both assertions being false. Nitrogen is pulled from the air by a complex set of industrial steps known as the Haber–Bosch process. Phosphates are mined and purified at industrial facilities like this one in Florida. Chemical fertilizers have been a tremendous success for feeding a hungry world, but they create side-effects that still need to be addressed. Much of the nitrogen and phosphorous in fertilizers get absorbed into crops, fed to animals, then deposited as animal manure. The rest of it builds up in the soil or gets flushed into nature.

Subsidized agribusiness (FY 2020 USDA budget $150 billion, 91,000 agency staffers) gets a free pass to deposit over 20 millions of tons of chemical fertilizers and over a billion of tons of bacteria- and nutrient-rich animal manure right onto porous ground surfaces each year with little or no attempt at abatement. Much of that noxious stew is carried away via surface water or groundwater any time it rains, becoming major causes of nitrate contamination in drinking water wells, widespread river and lake pollution (according to EPA’s National Water Quality Inventory, which was more robust in the past), routine and substantial fish kills, and large “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and scores of other locations.

While human waste is now collected and treated (except when it’s raining), very little effort goes to manage the mountains of animal waste created by the billions of chickens, pigs, cows and other tasty critters served up to consumers each year. Using the most conservative of available figures, at least 1.4 billion tons of livestock manure is produced each year in the U.S., which is roughly 130 times the amount of human waste generated annually in the nation. (Those manure figures come from a 1997 report from Tom Harkin, then-U.S. Senator from Iowa and strong supporter of agribusiness.) Whether that waste is stored in leaky open-air lagoons or spread haphazardly on broken soil, significant amounts seep into groundwater and cascade off of farmland whenever it rains. Downstream rivers, lakes and shorelines get hit with a tidal wave of this filth.

Regarding farm pollution, I’m intentionally avoiding the controversies about trace pesticide residues in food. Pesticides tend to be an obsession of some anti-chemical purists that I have reviewed and don’t find significant enough for discussions involving national environmental policy. Without the use of pesticides, there would be tens of billions in annual crop losses to weeds and insect damage in the U.S. alone.

On the topic of human sewage, as detailed later in this essay, EPA frequently boasts of the billions they helped spend for building and upgrading thousands of government-run wastewater facilities like the one pictured above. But high-tech equipment become irrelevant when leaky sewer pipes overload the plant causing pollution to bypass treatment and trigger waves of beach closings. Government’s inability to fix this longstanding problem beckons the old saying: “We can put a man on the moon” … but not handle this?

After decades of neglect, it looks like Lake Erie is headed backwards to routine beach closures and floating green algae blankets most summers. (EPA and environmentalists rarely admit why this once “dead” lake recovered in the 1970s. I’ll get to that important but forgotten victory.) Smelly, thick, toxic algae blooms fed from animal waste and chemical fertilizers—veritable rivers of “farm sewage”—wreak havoc at popular beaches from Ohio to Florida and harm every state across the U.S. farm belt.

Similar toxic algae blooms, oxygen-free aquatic dead zones, fish kills and beach closures are now a global phenomenon. The British magazine The Week reported on beach closures and algae blooms in France last summer. A story this year from UPI news leads off with “Record amounts of seaweed this summer have caused historic damage to beaches and cut tourism in Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean”; that article provides weak excuses that I’ll address in the Florida section of this essay. Pollution around China is so notorious that a single link to their algae problems barely does justice, although that article is quite good (scroll down in the prior link for a global map of 500 aquatic dead zones).

For this essay, I’ll stick primarily with American problems. Since we haven’t figured out a viable solution, there’s no sense in scolding the rest of the world. The first-third of this essay deals primarily with the travails surrounding government stormwater and sewage discharges—issues that mostly affect local residents or tourists in urban and suburban areas. The latter two-thirds address some of the many difficulties associated with farm pollution.

60-Second Op-Ed break for why concise articles are usually better than books. Partly in response to some previous comments on “long” article length, a few words are in order to challenge prevailing literary orthodoxy. To avoid the politicized world of modern book publishing, the long-format 500,000-word exhaustive manifesto approach was ruled out before I started typing the first line many years ago. Some of the problems with that highly subsidized format include full-time authors with no independence and/or little real-world experience, a tendency towards isolationism and single-issue extremism, and rampant hidden agendas. While grant-chasing academics rave about their beloved paper horcruxes ad nauseum, I find the anti-social nature of the monologue teaching style to be problematic and prone to pandering. Although a dialogue communication method would usually be preferred, I’ll settle for a comparatively shorter essay at a non-partisan publisher, with direct referencing web links and a “robust” comments section. I’d call that progress.

On the other hand, to keep this essay manageable for one or two extended sittings, I’ve skipped other significant farm anomalies. Important but omitted topics include: 1) the tremendous wasting of water to grow crops in arid parts of the nation, 2) environmentalists’ correct assertion that meat consumption creates a bigger impact on the environment than growing vegetables, due to the heavy fertilizer inputs and water usage for animal farming; to what degree coercive government policy is “needed” to achieve any green goals is another matter entirely, 3) EPA double standards on minor construction erosion vs. the much bigger issue of ongoing farm erosion and the expensive river dredging and dam sedimentation it causes, 4) the flimsy evidence and meanspirited assault against Monsanto for developing its beneficial herbicide Roundup—a product so safe that critics and trial lawyers resort to speech policing to make their twisted case. (There’s something really perverse when productive industries get worse courtroom treatment than suspected murderers and rapists. That’s the beauty of our “dual justice” system.)

For a snapshot on farm pollution (much more to come), I’ll lead off with the following national map of nitrate pollution from the U.S. Geological Survey published in 2006. The graphic is based on sampling from about 2,300 shallow groundwater wells, which they define as typically less than 5 meters deep, and associated computer modeling. This map is more reflective of nitrate surface pollution than contamination in deeper drinking water wells.

According to EPA’s annual Right to Know program, any aqueous nitrate compound is a reportable “toxic chemical” when used in excess of 5 tons per year by industries, even if nothing is discharged. Yet somehow, unlimited use and discharge of any nitrate compounds—in far greater quantities from agricultural fertilizers—is completely exempt from Right to Know reporting. In general, farm pollution is exempt from most U.S. environmental rules. This special treatment of agribusiness—staunchly guarded by USDA and the Farm Lobby—has allowed nitrates and other farm pollutants to environmentally accumulate across vast sections of the nation with little public attention.

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