Clean drinking water doesn't just come from replacing lead pipes. Solutions also rest on Minnesota's farm fields, and this time of year, some rural acreage has been planted with seeds designed to do winter magic before the next growing season.

Cover crops are typically planted going into in a farmer's offseason and are meant to improve soil health before a main crop, like corn, is prioritized the following spring and summer.

Peter LaFontaine, agricultural policy manager with Friends of the Mississippi River, said newer varieties of winter cover crops have come on the scene, potentially changing the dynamics when it comes to profits. On the sustainability side, protecting waterways is still a benefit.

"If you have crops that are providing some more of that natural cover during winter, you wind up with a more resilient system. These crops do a phenomenal job of addressing things like nitrogen loss," he said.

Traditional plants like cereal rye have been helpful with those water quality efforts. But products like winter camelina are getting more attention these days because they have a bigger potential as a dual benefit. They can be harvested for the sustainable jet fuel market. Overall, the cover crop movement still faces headwinds, with an adoption rate below 3% for Minnesota's farmland.

Agriculture experts say Minnesota's harsh winters can be disruptive to cover crops, and it can take time for a producer to fully realize the economic benefits of improved soil quality, such as less flooding in fields.

Anne Schwagerl, western Minnesota farmer and vice president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, has long planted these seeds and is now experimenting with the "cash cover crops." She predicts they'll help with the momentum issue.

"The old adage in farming is don't plant something you don't have a market for. Well, this is something we actually got a market for," she explained.

Schwagerl noted that the biofuels market has a strong appetite for winter camelina. There are federal conservation programs that provide incentives for using cover crops. It's unclear how much extra support will be provided as Congress debates the next Farm Bill.

Despite Minnesota's low adoption rate, more farms were trying cover crops in 2022 compared to 2017. That's according to the Census of Agriculture, released every five years.

Minnesota is giving its water quality standards a fresh look. With public input in their hands, officials are under pressure to add language about nitrate levels, a move some said is long overdue.

Nitrate pollution is often tied to farm runoff containing fertilizers and animal waste. There are standards for drinking water but conservation groups want a nitrate standard for lakes and rivers.

Trevor Russell, water program director for Friends of the Mississippi River, said the effort has been building for more than 15 years but final action has been hard to come by. While it is difficult to keep waterways perfectly clean, he pointed out it is helpful to have scientific thresholds.

"We want them to be relatively healthy for fish and other aquatic life," Russell explained. "That's what we're managing for when you set a water quality standard."

His group was encouraged to see wording on the topic in a draft proposal. Russell hopes the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency can hold off political pushback and not exclude it from the final plan. Public comment just wrapped up and the plan will soon be sent for federal review.

Minnesota has been aggressive in other ways to curb nitrate pollution, for which Russell gives the state credit.

The farming sector might not be overjoyed at the potential of a new nitrate standard but Russell noted many producers have joined the movement to limit their runoff. Still, he said even with actions like these, getting the problem under control will not be easy.

"About 15% of nitrogen application to Minnesota's farm fields is going to run off into our waters no matter what farmers do," Russell acknowledged. "It is the nature of nitrate and it is the risk that comes with our reliance on summer annual cropping systems that need to be fertilized."

If a nitrate standard is included, Russell emphasized Minnesota has a robust monitoring system in place to detect excessive levels, spurring a likely cleanup response. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said updating the standards is required every three years. It also covers bacteria, which can make the water unsafe for swimming, as well as so-called "forever chemicals" from industrial waste.

A new study by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found nitrate levels have continued to rise across the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.

The report found about 40% of the wells tested exceed the limit of safe nitrate levels for drinking water. Exposure to nitrates can lead to blue baby syndrome, birth defects, thyroid problems and cancer, among other things.

Kaleb Lay, director of policy and research for the advocacy group Oregon Rural Action, said the state has known about the high levels of nitrate in the area for decades but has not done enough to address the issue.

"The state's approach has been basically just voluntary measures to reduce groundwater pollution," Lay explained. "Unsurprisingly, what we've seen ever since is nitrate levels continue to go up."

Lay pointed out synthetic fertilizer, liquefied manure and wastewater are the main sources of nitrate pollution in groundwater. Factory farms, including a major dairy supplying the brand Tillamook, spread their waste on Oregon fields. Lay added the contamination disproportionately impacts low-income Hispanic communities, many of whom work on the polluting farms.

Oregon Rural Action started testing wells in 2022, Lay noted, and has found disturbing levels of contamination.

"Hundreds of people were drinking water that was polluted by nitrates and had no idea," Lay reported. "They hadn't been warned about it."

A good place to start reining in the problem, according to Lay, is to collect more data. Senate Bill 747 would require farms 200 acres or larger to report how much fertilizer they use. It would allow the state to identify overuse and advise where farmers could use less fertilizer.

In written testimony, Oregon farmers opposed to the bill said they do not overuse fertilizer and are burdened by too many regulations.


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Legal action continues in efforts at cleaning up a portion of Ohio's waterways.

The Ohio EPA has been added as a defendant, along with the U.S. EPA, in a lawsuit filed by the Board of Lucas County Commissioners, the City of Toledo, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center, arguing the two agencies failed to have an effective plan to prevent dangerous amounts of phosphorus from occupying Lake Erie. Phosphorus produces cyanobacteria which appears in water as blue-green or brownish algae.

Sandy Bihn, executive director of the nonprofit Lake Erie waterkeeper, calls the EPA's control plan ineffective.

"We've got now, just in the last two years, an increase of 100,000 cattle coming into the Maumee watershed, most of it unpermitted, piles of manure on the ground here, there, and everywhere," Bihn pointed out. "You can actually physically see the manure running off into the streams."

Bihn noted commercial fertilizer phosphorus use has decreased by almost 40% but livestock is increasing and with that comes more manure runoff. She stressed the agencies being sued are more focused on the phosphorus in farmers' chemical fertilizers.

With the reduction in phosphorus, farmers are still having good yields. However, the number of livestock increases, which creates more untreated manure that seeps into nearby land and water. Excessive phosphorus pollution is joined by E. coli bacteria, pathogens, and other harmful pollutants in Ohio waterways and streams.

"About 90% of it is from runoff from the fields; agricultural runoff, and the two major sources of that are commercial fertilizer and manure," Bihn explained. "The path to reducing those harmful algal blooms is simply to reduce the sources, which is not something the programs are focusing on."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said swallowing water, eating fish or blue-green algae supplements contaminated with cyanobacteria can damage a person's liver and central nervous system or cause death.


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