America's Oceans Start Here!

A lot has been in the news lately about ocean pollution, declining fish stocks, and species of marine life such as whales and dolphins and the threats they face. In addition, recent reports by the Pew Ocean Commission and the United States Commission on Ocean Policy both detail the many threats facing the nation's oceans.

Many in Illinois and elsewhere around the Midwest may wonder whether the oceans, their many living resources, and the findings of these report are of significance beyond our coasts. The answer is a resounding yes. The oceans and the resources within belong to all Americans, and we all benefit from them. Similarly, we all have a responsibility to do our part to protect them. Activities that we undertake in our every day lives can have an impact on Illinois rivers and eventually the oceans. (Simple steps you can take to reduce water pollution.)

Pollutants that flow into Illinois' rivers make their way into rivers and streams which ultimately flow into the ocean. Of chief concern is nutrient pollution runoff generated by agricultural activities and municipalities. According to the US Commission on Ocean Policy report, every year an area covering 12,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico becomes a "dead zone" as a result of nitrogen fertilizers from farms far inland washing into streams and ultimately the Mississippi river, flowing into the Gulf.

These nutrients cause excessive algal growth, depleting oxygen in the Gulf's waters to levels too low to support fish, crustaceans, and many other forms of marine life. The report also found that, on average, streams draining from the agricultural states of Iowa and Illinois contribute about 35% of the nitrogen coming from the Mississippi into the Gulf.

This is the second major ocean report in the past year that has identified nutrient pollution from inland states like Illinois as having a significant impact on the oceans' resources. The Pew report was the first. As more and more Americans focus on the problems facing our oceans and the causes of those problems, Illinois should expect that it will be asked to do its part to reduce these impacts.

In 2001, the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force published its "Action Plan for Reducing, Mitigating, and Controlling Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. It included several recommendations for preventing nutrient pollution including the restoration, enhancement, and creation of wetlands, and the implementation of Best Management Practices by agricultural producers.

The US and Pew Ocean Commissions also made several recommendations aimed at reducing nutrient pollution. Key among them was the recommendation that USDA should align its conservation and funding with other programs aimed at reducing nonpoint source pollution, and that Congress and USDA adopt more incentives to reduce agricultural nutrient runoff, including incentives to reward farmers for good performance, tax incentives for farmers who implement best management practices, insurance programs for farmers who apply fertilizer at below the recommended agronomic rates, and tying federal farm aid to the implementation of best management practices. Some of these incentives are already being tested on a limited basis around the Midwest. To read more about this issue, you can read the reports by going to the links above.

To better participate in the discussions and debate concerning the conservation of our river and ocean resources and the role that states like Illinois play in that effort, Prairie Rivers Network is a member of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, a coalition of over 150 grassroots organizations, from the Headwaters of northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, working on bringing people together to save the Mississippi and to reduce impacts on the Gulf of Mexico.

We are also a member of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a coalition of over 155 national and regional environmental organizations, commercial and recreational fishing groups, aquariums, and marine science groups dedicated to conserving marine fish and to promoting their long-term sustainability.

Prairie Rivers participates in these organizations because we recognize that even as a state far from the coast, our rivers and our oceans are inexorably linked. Efforts to reduce pollutants flowing into Illinois' rivers benefit not only Illinois' citizens, fish and wildlife, but ultimately the oceans. America's oceans don't start at the coast, America's oceans start here.