When Minnesota's production ag industry doesn't get its way, the talking points are a broken record stuck on the same tired whining point: we're the last to be heard. No one listens to us.
The latest example of the whinny kitty babies' crying is the release of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Rule, intended to address contamination of groundwater by nitrates. At the Mankato Free Press, Trey Mewes reports in Dayton proposes updated groundwater nitrate rules:
Gov. Mark Dayton has unveiled updated proposals governing nitrate runoff into groundwater, which adds restrictions on nitrogen fertilizer used in the fall.
"It's a lot more focused on the problem areas in Minnesota," Dayton said at a press conference Tuesday. "It's much more attuned to farmers' concerns and complaints."
The proposed rules come as the Dayton administration grapples with local governments and agricultural producers over runoff and water quality standards. State officials want to restrict nitrogen-based fertilizer application in some high-risk areas of Minnesota and near public water supplies during the fall months, with a few exceptions. The proposal also directs officials to build voluntary and mandatory water quality practices in high-nitrate concentration areas.
In south-central Minnesota, much of the Minnesota River and parts of Brown County would fall under those fall restrictions. Farmers commonly apply fertilizer in the fall after harvesting crops, but state officials hope the rules would mean more farmers using fertilizer in the spring. Though applying fertilizer in the spring gives farmers a tighter planting schedule, fall fertilizing increases the chance of nitrate runoff after snow melts in the winter.
The additional restrictions and exemptions come after state agricultural officials held 17 meetings across the state last fall. More than 1,500 farmers and landowners attended those meetings, according to state officials. Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson said the rules focus on public drinking water sources.
But if one listens to some ag groups and the lawmakers who love them, it's another world. Take an email from Minnesota House Ag Finance Chair Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake:
Governor Dayton announced this week plans to use an executive rule to limit farmers’ use of nitrogen fertilizers. I’m disappointed that the governor is not trying to find common ground with the legislature and farmers.
The governor has a troubling pattern - whether it’s a water quality certification program, neonicotinoid issues, buffer initiatives, and now nitrogen fertilizer rulemaking – where lawmakers and farmers are always the last to know or to be brought into the conversation. This decision is short on specifics and is a reactionary re-branding of an unpopular 2017 rule that was not well-received by the ag community. . . .
Mewes' article echoes this language:
House Agriculture Finance Committee Chair Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, and Senate Agricultural Policy Committee Chair Paul Anderson, R-Starbuck, called the governor's proposal "a reactionary re-branding of a vastly unpopular rule" in a statement Tuesday. They urged Dayton to drop his nitrate requirements and work closer with lawmakers on another solution.
In short, do nothing while Republican committee chairs toss around Orwellian talking points about how much they want clean water, while working to prevent any real efforts to achieve it. That is the actual troubling pattern as far as 'a water quality certification program, neonicotinoid issues, buffer initiatives, and now nitrogen fertilizer rulemaking."
It's the demand on the part of ag lobbyists and the lawmakers who obey them that it's their way or no way, spiced with language about "farmers being the best stewards of their land, therefore no regs needed," despite snowdrifts of evidence that might not always be the case.
As we heard in the hearing last week on a bill that would erase Minnesota's rule for wild rice water quality on behalf of mining industry corporations, there's a lot of this sort of blither going on. Of course, those who want to eliminate protection for wild rice waters totally want to protect it.
We've come to think of this rhetorical strategy as MNleg Festivus, airing of grievances and feats of lobbyist strength.
In fact, ag stakeholders received special treatment in public consideration of water quality issues. We noted last August in Dayton administration used public dollars to organize farmers before public water meetings:
All Minnesotans are equal, but some are more equal than others when it comes to water quality discussions.
In Dayton's water-quality meeting draws 200, veteran Mankato Free Press reporter Mark Fischenich reports:
Mapleton corn and soybean farmer Steve Trio spoke of his decision to take individual responsibility for how his agricultural production impacted the Cobb River. Working with his son Aaron, Trio has ensured there's protective cover between his farmland and the tributary streams leading to the river, works to be diligent in soil testing to minimize chemical use, and even added a containment system around his fuel tanks long before it was required.
"The thing is, we all gotta dig into this thing, farmers included," Trio said.
Along with being asked to speak to the large group — "I haven't spoke since my FFA days in front of a crowd. I'm just a farmer," Trio told them — he was invited to be the voice of area farmers in a pre-meeting sit-down with Dayton.
Isn't that special?
Bluestem noted Minnesota Department of Agriculture to host five town halls listening sessions on ag issues that the rest of us chickens weren't invited to this meeting--and several others--only farmers and representatives from agribusiness interests:
In conjunction with Governor Mark Dayton’s 25 by ‘25 water town hall meetings around the state, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) will be hosting a series of agriculture-focused listening sessions.
“We will give a brief overview of a few MDA programs and initiatives, including the draft Nitrogen Fertilizer Rule, and low cost loan programs offered by the Rural Finance Authority followed by an open conversation period,” said MDA Commissioner Dave Frederickson. “It’s important for us to hear from farmers about their current challenges and successes, and I encourage them, along with members of the state’s ag organizations, to attend.”
In short: the governor's office is using public dollars to organize farmers in advance of the public meetings. We do have to wonder one industry and occuption--represented by member organizations like Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, and all the commodity groups--needs a chance to have the state government organize a pre-meeting before any of the 25 x 25 water meetings.
Why not pre-meetings (again, at government expense) to organize conservation and sportsmen's groups? Environmental organizations?
Are we to conclude that farmers and their organizations are so incompetent that they need special assistance to attend public meetings? Or are their special interests just better at feeding at the public trough?
Perhaps every special interest group in the state--regardless of the issue--should stand up and demand a pre-meeting with the Dayton administration to organize and select a leader for the dog and pony show.
As far as listening to lawmakers go, there's a special irony in this one. Early last October, Minneapolis state representative Jean Wagenius posted in “Fertilizer rules pit clean water vs. profits” (the headline is in quotation marks because it's borrowed from the Star Tribune):
Josephine Marcotty’s “Fertilizer rules pit clean water vs. profits” is a welcome kick off of a public discussion about the state of Minnesota’s drinking water.
Most of the discussion about nitrogen pollution has been confined to the impact on lakes, rivers and streams so the impact, while important, has not been seen as pressing. The impact of nitrogen pollution on drinking water is decidedly different and much more pressing. That is especially true since the Department of Agriculture’s own data shows that where there is nitrogen in groundwater, there are pesticides and as nitrogen increases pesticides increase.
The Department of Agriculture offers voluntary nitrogen testing in townships that are considered vulnerable to pollution and are generally planted in row crops. Of the tests done so far, 1,912 have nitrogen above the health risk standard. Since there is a good estimate of the total number of wells in each township one can estimate that if all the private wells in these townships were tested, over 5,532 would be contaminated. The Department does not offer any help to those whose wells are contaminated even when the well owner didn’t cause the pollution.
Mankato is in a similar situation. It gets its drinking water from wells. Nitrate levels in the Blue Earth and Minnesota Rivers have increased to the point that some of Mankato’s wells are now contaminated. Mankato mixes water from these wells with water from the Mt. Simon, the region’s most critical aquifer that provides water for Minnesotans well beyond Mankato. There is concern that the Mt. Simon is not sufficiently recharging so Mankato has limited its use of this source. At this point Mankato has to consider an expensive nitrate-filtering plant so they have brought their request for help to the Governor and Legislature. Marcotty points out that Mankato is not the only city that has faced this problem.
The nitrogen rule discussed in Marcotty’s article received 800 comments. The Department of Agriculture says it will not post them because it does not have the capability. The Department of Commerce received 2,867 comments on the Enbridge Line 3 DEIS. The comment period closed July 10 and they were posted on July 20.
Here are the comments from:
26 legislators
Friends of the Mississippi
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
Fresh Water Society
Hamilton and the ag interests act like they're treated with special malice, that they are at the end of the line. Nope.
Enough.
While we don't entirely agree with the editorial board of the Star Tribune--legislative hearings on the rule would likely be just more butt hurt airing of grievances--there's much we do admire in Safe drinking water must be a shared value in Minnesota, an editorial first posted online late Friday afternoon:
Only since enactment of the Legacy Amendment in 2008 was funding available for tests that found that dozens of community water systems and, in a southeastern Minnesota sample, one in 10 private wells contained potentially unsafe nitrate levels. Although nitrate is a naturally occurring substance, elevated levels in water have been linked to farmers’ use of fertilizer to boost production of this state’s two big cash crops, corn and soybeans.
Unlike his predecessors, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton is not spared that knowledge, and he’s trying to do something about it. Last week, Dayton and state agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson unveiled an amended version of a proposed rule on agricultural fertilizer use in areas with porous soil and/or high nitrate levels in public drinking water.
In those targeted areas, the proposed rule would restrict fertilizer use in the autumn, in keeping with best practices recommended by the University of Minnesota. Fertilizer applied in the autumn is most likely to leach into groundwater or wash into streams and rivers rather than stay in the topsoil to be absorbed by young plants in the next growing season. That’s especially true where soils are porous and/or annual precipitation is high.
The proposed new rule would rely on local advisory teams and a phased series of voluntary and mandatory practices to address high nitrate concentrations. “No one will be told ‘You can’t grow corn,’ ” Frederickson assured a state Senate panel. . . .
. . . As the rule-making process enters a new public comment phase, those comments ought to include legislative hearings. The proposed rule is subject to more months of public input before at least one more revision; it is expected to be finalized by December. That’s ample time for legislators to weigh in. But the 1989 Legislature was right to give a state agency the authority to take practical steps to keep Minnesota’s drinking water safe. That authority should stand. The Legislature is ill-suited to do this work on its own.
The state Senate sponsor of the 1989 bill, Steve Morse, is today’s executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership. Halting the rule-making now would be “a horrendous setback” at a critical time, Morse aptly said. “It goes to a core question about who we are as Minnesotans, if we will not protect our corpus of clean water.” Now would be a fine time for Minnesotans who agree to say as much to their legislators.
We know we'll hear Republican legislators and Ag Mafia lobbyists talk about how much they care about clean water as they gut what protection the MDA has put forth. There's a disturbing pattern there, as Hamilton might say.
Meme: If you feel you've heard the same complaining over and over from Minnesota's Republican lawmakers--and the same testimony in committees and public hearings, you probably have. Meanwhile, problems for clean drinking water, wild rice and pollinators persist.
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