I don’t think they are the ones working on it. But I know some are. I’ve heard of ML-powered autonomous farm craft that can spot-spray fertilizers and pesticides using machine vision systems. Think four-wheeled devices the size of a small table, some even solar powered.
What we do now with fertilizers and pesticides is very wasteful and that waste is harmful.
Thanks to the Morrel Act of 1862, nearly every state has an agriculture university that works on regional needs. They are probably the ones doing the research. Companies like Deere also work on the machinery required.
The required mix of water and minerals makes it a difficult problem. Trapping the runoff and reusing it is maybe most logical but costly. And when it rains the ponds implied will probably over flow.
More efficient use of fertilizer is a good idea but the improvements are likely to be small and incremental. Break through discoveries seem unlikely.
One possibility, unfortunately politically impossible it would seem, is to combine run-off ferilizer treatment with Mississippi flood control by moving most of the levees on the lower Mississippi River much further back from the current main channel, recreating the Mississippi’s ancient overflow regions within a planned controllable system. Each year during lower the lower flow season significant flows could be diverted into marshlands and lowlands absorbing the nutrient flow along the banks.
Not a chance. Too expensive. Too many powerful interests. And only part of the solution to an even larger problem: the Mississippi River wants to change its course!
We need to start NOW to begin the multi-decadal process necessary to move the New Orleans harborage and economic center from its current historic location to where the Mississippi Will Eventually Go No Matter What: Morgan City/Calumet and the mouths of the Atchafalaya River. The Old River Control Structure
is a marvel of human engineering and audacity that buys us time but simply cannot last. Another earthquake on the New Madrid, or bad luck upstream during floods across the entire Rockies, and bye bye to that control system and hello to the new course of the lower river.
david fb
(catastrophe minded today because suffering horribly from shingles…)
Years ago, there was talk that runoff from urban and suburban surfaces was a significant source of fertilizers into river systems.
IIRC, the comment was something like:
< "Farmers are trained to measure and apply just enough fertilizer to meet the needs. The farmer buys just enough fertilizer, and is constrained by economics. Less fertilizer means more dollars in the farmer’s pocket. (And, Less scrutiny by government agencies). Farmland runoff often passes through riparian wetland ecosystems, which reduce fertilizer load.
Urban, suburban home owners are not trained to use fertilizers, buy small amounts, so don’t really consider “economics”, and in trying to win “yard of the month”, buy TOO MUCH for their actual needs, and over apply it.
In aggregate, urban and suburban landscapes per unit land area, are a significant source of fertilizer laced runoff.
In addition, urban/suburban runoff is directed into Storm drain systems, directly into streams and rivers." >>
This argument did not pertain to CAFOs.
Confined Animal Feeding Operations.
Cattle, pig, poultry feedlots and such.
As the urban/suburban surface area of towns and cities increases, pollutant related runoff will also increase?
ralph
You would think water shortages in the West was cause more people to switch to desert sand rather than green grass. And of course Astroturf can be used.
I wonder if zoning laws can make that happen–at least in new construction.
Otherwise I suspect we will get rid of fossil fuels long before we give up green grass lawns.
I think Austin no longer allows St. Augustine grass on new construction. Smart. That is a very water thirsty grass suited for (humid/rainy) Houston, but not Austin. We hate ours. Problem is that grass is predatory. You plant something else, but your neighbor’s St. Augustine will invade your lawn anyway. But we are soooo done with trying to keep a lawn alive anymore.
I tired of mowing the grass, ages ago, eithjer paved the area for our RV, and a shop. but a lot od covered by used brick, some new, a friends Dad worked at a brick factory, he’d bring home some every day, so we’d go to his Dad’s place haul them home, even split between us… Some Heavy loads… So I used 'em fow some walkways, or just ground cover in the yard. When we landscaped, it was lots of 5" river rock over ground cloth… Blow the leaves off, maybe pull or burn the weeds off…
Gave away the mower back in the '70s, weed eater a bit, but did pavers on the driveways… Drip system handles it. even if we travel… Try to avoid poisons, a propane weed burner works well, just gon’t use iy on hot days…
Black plastic staked over grass for six to 8 weeks, even the most evil crabgrasses, even some bamboos once they’ve been cut down to the indestructible roots, will kill better than weedkillers. It dries it to death, but more importantly it causes heat to escalate and kill seeds and roots.
david fb
(did lots of landscaping with friends in Palm Springs in the 70’s to kill off the 50’s idiot worship of golf courses everywhere.)
“as China is to America, Texas is to Illinois”.
It’s a commentary on Texas wages and benefits, and why Texas is one of the states with higher job growth.
By Jon Stewart.
ralph
@pauleckler The book is on stuff from the 1980s which easily means prior to the 1980s such as 50s, 60s and 70s. The EPA was from Nixon’s time in office. Things changed a lot but paying off inspectors happened. I had an account of Nixon as an inspector being paid off in the 1940s. One of my neighbor’s connections. David FB knew Edward Hall my neighbor or much more than knew of him. Top chemical engineer in this country an important executive. The author of the book did some important work.
That’s right. After some work on waking up memory lane here is what I remember of that time:
In 1974 I had already studied some of Hall’s later works for my Senior Thesis on “Key Questions in the Interrelation of Technology and Society”, wherein I was riffing on and updating ideas from a manuscript on that subject written by and lent to me a few years earlier by my Dad’s post WWII mentor Si Ramo)***
Si knew of my infatuation with both politics and mathematical physics and lent me the manuscript as a solid way of urging me to continue working in both fields.
A few years later I was at a long large luncheon with Buckminster Fuller, various younger members of his family, and Edward Hall, courtesy of an invitation arranged by an ex-boyfriend whose new lover was a nephew of Bucky’s and was sitting with me at the table, It was a wonderful afternoon, and Hall was particularly brilliant and visionary in talking about the design, evolution, and lifespans of large scale human spaces. As I was deeply involved in urban spatial and transportation planning in Southern California at that time I was fascinated. He educated me in brief on key aspects of his theory of Proxemics
That luncheon marked the end of my idyllic “youngster days” as shortly after that lunch, through my work at the Advocate Newsmagazine, I found out about the existence of a strange new fatal disease occuring predominantly among Haitians and Gays. My life changed.
david fb
One of the several war contractor scandals, which I have mentioned here before, was company officials at the Wright aircraft engine plant near Cincinnati paying off government inspectors to pass known defective engines that men would be betting their lives on in combat. When it comes to doing the right thing, vs maximizing short term profit, the Shiny thing to do is maximize profit, by any means necessary.
Steve
Steve,
Edward Hall would have agreed and been furious with you and against you. Over his dead body would it happen on his watch. He put in the Minute Man Missile System handing $20 Billion. If you leveled that at him, he’d pull a gun on you or have you court marshalled. If you said it about Nixon you’d hear swearing in Elizabethan English you did not know existed. The swearing would go on for 30 minutes till it ended.
David FB,
A lot of people think they hold court. Ed held court like no one else. He managed our home owners group. He did so for over a decade. He did it all. He was only supposed to manage it for one year. No one stood up to him. None of the doctors or lawyers or other engineers or top businessmen in the executive suits. None of them. When he left for California we fell apart. There was not a top businessman or professional that could get any of it right.
He went to dad to ask for some advice on his wife’s personal problem. I wont state what. Dad made a recommendation. Hall went else where. Hall then made his own decision on how is wife would be treated. He read up on it obviously. He got back to my dad congratulating dad on the advice dad had given. Dad kind of laughed about it for years. It was a tip of the hat to Edward Hall because as dad would say, “Ed did the exact opposite of what I recommended and it worked”. Ed was the only man dad let take first place. Ed would have force first place anyway.
Oh and Ed had pulled a gun on a doctor. He instructed the army doctor on a difficult birth. The doctor did what he was told.
I have stories David FB does not know. Many of them are X rated by Ed and his wife Edith. She was a Cambridge grad. She created the sexual revolution before anyone thought of it. It was her difficult labor where Ed demand at gun point the doctor go to work and how. The doctor did not otherwise know what he was doing.
I think Truman is known for his work looking into World War II defense contracts and the excesses. I don’t know the details but they say that work is what got him nominated as Vice President.
David FB,
Theodore Hall was Ed’s brother. Theodore was the youngest physicist working on the bomb. He turned states secrets to the Russians.
Wow, never made the connection before.
david fb
I have no idea how Ed looked on this. They were something like ten years apart in age. Theodore if I remember correctly had a Ph.D in physics from Harvard at 18.
Ralph, I’ll not ask you to restate precisely what you mean by “This argument did not pertain to CAFOs” (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) except to say that in agricultural operations managed by the EPA and the department of agriculture have pretty strict rules about attendant land ownership and waste burdens to the point of specifying a maximum number of animals to land used for fertilizer distribution.
Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) | US EPA
In addition the maximum number of animals by definition, it also specifies a permit with many features and aspects of land use, waste retention, processing and disposal, as well as to direct for beneficial reuse.
CAFO 2008 Consolidated Rule Final (epa.gov)
Blockquote
(e) Land application discharges from a CAFO are subject to NPDES requirements. The discharge of manure, litter or process wastewater to waters of the United States from a CAFO as a result of the application of that manure, litter or process wastewater by the CAFO to land areas under its control is a discharge from that CAFO subject to NPDES permit requirements, except where it is an agricultural storm water discharge as provided in 33 U.S.C. 1362(14). For purposes of this paragraph, where the manure, litter or process wastewater has been applied in accordance with site specific nutrient management practices that ensure appropriate agricultural utilization of the nutrients in the manure, litter or process wastewater, as specified in § 122.42(e)(1)(vi)-(ix), a precipitation-related discharge of manure, litter or process wastewater from land areas under the control of a CAFO is an agricultural stormwater discharge.
I have been around these facilities since the late 70’s. The regulations have always come with visits (unexpected, usually) from some newly minted college grad who was out to prove a name. Eventually, these agents learn how practice meets regulation and become friends.
This has happened numerous times over the years and is not likely to change anytime soon.