Recently in Agriculture Land Management Category

For the Greener Good "Vertical Farming" from National Building Museum on Vimeo.

Urban food security is a rising concern with climate change affecting traditional agriculture with droughts, floods and migratory changes for pollinators. Local regional food production is also a solution for access to fresh foods to reduce obesity and childhood onset diabetes. A major overhaul of our food system is bursting from its seeds.

LED / CFL / Fermenting Beer Grow Rooms

Dwarf vegetable varieties fit well in a highly reflective grow room ... radishes, tomatoes, lettuce and beer, of course :-)

Fermentation raises CO2 for better growth, CFLs add a full spectrum light for an LED lighting setup. www.advancednutrients.com

Take the Advanced Nutrients video overview series on YouTube, and check out their products for organic hydroponics and organic gardening.

Iguana Juice Grow
From: Advanced Nutrients

Growing your own seedlings a couple months before the last frost in your area gives you a head start on gardening. Tomatoes, peppers, and garden salad plants such as lettuce and radishes are all feasible to grow with grow lights. Here's Eric's version of a rough little grow light operation to start your seedlings.

Visit Gardenfork.tv for more information such as project plans and recipes.

It's important to restore landscapes in an ecologically sound way.  And that's not as intuitive as you might think.  It's not "business as usual."  Here are some suggestions from the California Landscape Contractors Association that might help you understand the major landscaping transformation that takes place after a fire.

Recommendations to Help Protect Your Property After a Fire from the California Landscape Contractors Association

Fire destroys hundreds of homes each year in California and often burns thousands of acres of land.  If your property was damaged by fire, the California Landscape Contractors Association (CLCA) is pleased to offer some recommendations to help your landscape recover and to help protect your property.

... In general, many plants and trees are exposed to fire in their native environment and many will recover in the spring and should be left alone.  Any pruning or cutting back of fire-damaged plants should not be done until the plants show signs of recovery. Removing bark, leaves or limbs can expose the plants to sun damage.  Heat from the sun can actually kill the tissue beneath the bark on some trees.  It is best to leave them alone until new growth appears.

... Some plants recover faster than others. Burned plants can still be green underneath and still have healthy roots. If similar plants appear to be recovering, wait a few more weeks before removing damaged parts.  Full damage to woody plants may not be apparent until the next spring or summer season.  Re-examine them at that time and then carefully remove damaged wood to make room for new growth. Ash on the plants will not cause damage and should be left alone.

... Damaged trees that have branches that are cracked or overhanging homes, driveways etc., that can be a future hazard, should be removed.  Trees that have shifted in the soil due to wind or burn damage and those with burned roots should be removed as well, because they are now considered unstable and could potentially fall.  If fire has completely burned off all the bark around the entire circumference of the tree and/or fire has burned deep into the trunk, the tree should also be removed.

... Fertilization is not recommended.  Immediately fertilizing can cause damage to the roots and cause additional harm to the plants. Waiting also gives the soil time to recover.  Wait until the spring and fertilize at half rates with a product containing nitrogen.  Do not fertilize with manures at that time, since they contain a high concentration of salts that can injure roots.  

... Plastic irrigation lines, parts and drains may be damaged.  Check your existing irrigation system for leaks and damage and document them for your insurance company.  Also shut off irrigation water immediately after a fire to help prevent erosion and further damage.

... It is generally not recommended to water plants immediately after a fire.  If your area is experiencing a drought and water is necessary, water gently by hand.  Severely burned soils do not absorb water well.  Make sure the flow of water is slow enough to be absorbed. Also examine and clean concrete drains and swales.  Many become filled with ash and mud during a fire.

... In areas where protective plants are removed or destroyed, soil becomes vulnerable to erosion.  Soil erosion can happen slowly or it can happen very quickly in a heavy rain.  The exact measures needed for your property are based on your soil type, slope grade, home location, weather, water availability etc.  Also areas exposed by fire can open the door for invasive species and weeds. In some areas erosion control materials or mechanical control measures may need to be applied.  Contact your local CalTrans office or local forest service for guidelines in your area.  

... Water flow is an important factor of any erosion plan.  Never underestimate the power of storm water and debris.  Evaluating the area and planning for storm events is a critical first step to protecting your property and improper or inadequate measures can aggravate potential problems.  If you need help with erosion control or fire prevention landscaping, be sure to hire a licensed professional who specializes in that area of expertise.  Ask for references, insurance certificates and request to see their license.  You'll want to protect your home and your neighbors' as well.

... It is also an important time to evaluate your property's landscape and damage.  Take a look at what worked and what did not and try to determine how to make your property safer in case of a future fire.  For future reference, it is also a good idea to keep records and photos of your landscape as part of your home inventory list for insurance purposes.

For helpful information about fire prevention landscaping please go to: www.clca.org/clca/education/fire-protection.php

Our wild and cultivated landscapes are all vital to prevent climate change -- and especially in the aftermath of disasters such as Western states' wildfires.


Barbara Landrith
Outreach Specialist

California Landscape Contractors Association
barbaralandrith@clca.org
1491 River Park Dr#100
Sacramento, Ca 95815
(916) 830-2780
www.clca.org

I've followed the honey bee crisis known as "colony collapse disorder" because of their close connection with our food supply, with nature, and because bees are one of the few "domesticated" insects in our economy.

Science is finally making headway on what is causing the die off of complete hives of bees.

Penn State researchers worked with the National Science Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agricultural Marketing Service that already tests commodities such as milk and fruits and vegetables.

Honey has not regularly been analyzed, and bee pollen was not a commodity and so was not analyzed at all. The researchers decided to use types of screening the lab uses for milk and apples, which looks at over 170 pesticides. What they found is quite astounding to me... because of what it says about our agricultural practices.

All of the bees tested showed at least 1 pesticide and pollen averaged 6 pesticides with as many as 31 in a sample.

Honeycomb may contain pesticides applied years ago.

Scientists do not know that these chemicals have anything to do with colony collapse disorder, but scientists have concluded that these pesticides are definitely stressors. Penn State's Dr. Maryann Frazier say, "Pesticides alone have not shown they are the cause of CCD. We believe that it is a combination of a variety of factors, possibly including mites, viruses and pesticides."

While beekeepers will have a difficult time controlling pesticide exposure outside the hive, the Penn State researchers tested a method using gamma radiation for reducing the chemical load in beeswax and they found that irradiation broke down about 50% of the acaricides, pesticides that kill mites.

Read all the details at the Environment News Service.

Growing food almost year round in the mountains of Colorado is a green solution for localized food. It's a bit beyond farming -- this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager.

A newly discovered disease caused by a previously undescribed fungus hitchhiking on a tiny native bark beetle, is infecting and killing hundreds of black walnut trees in California and seven other Western states.

The havoc wreaked by the combined pests, coined "Thousand Cankers Disease," represents a serious threat to black walnut trees, says chemical ecologist and forest entomologist Steve Seybold of the Davis-based Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, and an affiliate of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis.
 
"The black walnut trees could go the way of the American chestnut or American elm," warns entomologist Lynn Kimsey, chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses one of the largest insect collections in North America.
 
"By itself the very tiny walnut twig beetle, does relatively little damage," Seybold said.  But combined with the aggressive fungus, it can kill a walnut tree in one to three years.  Despite the "twig" in its common name, the walnut twig beetle also bores holes in large branches and even in the trunk of walnut trees.
 
The beetle, Pityophthorus juglandis, native to Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Mexico is widely distributed in California, from San Diego to Shasta counties. Known since 1959 as just another specimen in the drawers of California insect museums, it has emerged on the radar screens of entomologists and plant scientists because it has been found in abundance on dying walnut trees statewide.  The disease has also been found in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Washington, and Oregon.
 
"It's a hard time for hardwoods," said Seybold, who organized and chaired a symposium at the Entomological Society of America's 65th annual meeting, held last fall in Reno.  "This is behaving like an invasive pathogen that has run amuck."
 
Scientists are concerned that the disease may also impact English walnut and California walnut production. "There are hints that the fungus may have infected English walnuts in Utah," Seybold said, "and there are several symptomatic English walnut trees at the USDA National Germplasm collection located in nearby Winters but beyond that we do not know the extent of the threat to the industry."
 
The fungus, with its barrel-shaped spores, appears to be an undescribed and perhaps exotic species within the genus Geosmithia, said postdoctoral researcher Andrew Graves of the UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology. Graves, part of a Davis-based team working on the project since June 2008, has noted that there are seven named species of Geosmithia.
 
Colorado State University plant pathologist Ned Tisserat, who placed the fungus in the genus, Geosmithia and named the disease, "Thousand Cankers," told the ESA symposium:   "It is really, really a scary disease; it's as bad as butternut (walnut) canker." Butternut (Juglans cinerea) is also known as white walnut.   
 
Graves, who also holds a doctorate in entomology from the University of Minnesota, described the beetle as reddish-brown bark beetle, about 1.5 to 1.9 millimeters long. "It's much smaller in size than a grain of rice," he said. The entrance holes into the black walnut tree look like pin pricks.
 
"But if you peel back the bark, you'll see the well-developed beetle galleries and blotches of fungal-stained wood and bark that look like a thousand cankers,"said Graves, who is researching the host colonization behavior of the beetle. He described some of the coalescing cankers as "enormous."  The cankers widen and girdle twigs and branches, resulting in die back of the tree crown.
 
Disease symptoms include dark stains on the outer bark tissue that extend into the cambium; yellowing and thinning of the upper crown; wilting of leaves; flagging branches; die back and eventual death, all within three years.  Seybold said that the disease is so recently discovered that specialists have not had time to develop and test integrated pest management tools to address the issue.  The natural system of attraction of the beetles to the trees and to each other might form the basis of a future monitoring and tree protection toolkit.
 
"The impact of these beetles and their fungus," Kimsey said, "may be devastating to yet another of our native trees. When I think of the possibility of losing all of the magnificent black walnuts in Davis, it makes me very sad."
 
The disease complex first gained notice in the Española Valley of New Mexico in 2001 when walnut trees declined and died.  Scientists initially attributed the mortality to drought stress. However, when the drought subsided, the massive dieoffs did not.  
 
The beetle-disease complex is associated with widespread deaths of black walnuts planted as street or highway trees in Boulder, Co., Portland, Ore., Prosser, Wash., and several counties in California, including Los Angeles, Sutter, Ventura, and Yolo.  It was first noted by scientists in California in 2008.
 
UC Davis walnut specialist Charles Leslie, a member of the Davis-based thousand cankers disease research team, says two species of black walnut are native to California: Juglans californica (a southern California shrublike black walnut) and Juglans hindsii (the northern California black walnut).
 
Northern California black walnut is widely planted in Yolo County as an ornamental tree, lining roads and ranches, Leslie said.  "These black walnuts are different from the commercial walnuts grown in the Central Valley, which are Persian, commonly called "English" walnut trees grown on black walnut root stock."
 
California black walnut "is prized more as a shade tree than for its nuts," Leslie said. "To crack the nut, you need to run over it with the family Hummer or hit it with a sledgehammer," he quipped.
 
However, eastern black walnut is a favorite in the ice cream industry, and the wood is especially prized for furniture and guitars.
 
To confirm the extent of the disease in the state, the Davis researchers are participating in a federally funded project to collect diseased branches throughout California, particularly in the native ranges of Juglans californica (Los Angeles and Ventura counties) and Juglans hindsii (Mt. Diablo and elsewhere in Contra Costa and Yolo counties. They are also rearing the beetles and studying host colonization behavior.  "The beetle appears to pump out at least two generations a year in California," Graves said.
 
Colorado State University plant sciences professor Whitney Cranshaw, who is on the front lines of the research in Boulder and Denver, said people continually ask him "How can a little twig beetle be killing healthy trees?"
 
"With Geosmithia," he said. "The fungus is carried into the tree when the beetle tunnels into and wounds the tree. The fungus produces large cankers."
 
The aggressive fungus girdles the tree and "it's death by 1000 cankers," Cranshaw said.
The attacks generally occur from mid-April through mid-September. At the end of summer, the beetles and the fungus that they carry move into the lower part of the trunk to hibernate.
 
In their continuing research, scientists hope to establish a baseline of the beetle and fungal populations to understand the full extent of the problem.  Native black walnut trees in the western U.S. are important components of the vegetation along streams and riparian zones, Seybold said, so their "loss may have significant ecological implications."
 
The scientists also advocate research on vector transmission, overwintering biology, an estimation of the risk and threat to the walnut-growing industry in California and to commercially valuable native black walnut trees in the eastern U.S., development of attractive baits, and an insecticide treatment.
 
Insecticides may prove useful, but only if used prior to the beetle arriving at the tree, Graves said. "Insecticide sprays are of limited effectiveness due to the extended period when the beetles are active, and because the beetles are feeding beneath the bark, insecticides will not be useful in killing beetles that have already entered the tree.  Even if the insecticide kills the adult beetles and larvae, the Geosmithia may continue to colonize the bark and phloem."
 
The scientists also discussed their research this past spring at meetings in Savannah, Georgia (National Forest Health Monitoring Workshop) Spokane, Wash. (Western Forest Insect Work Conference); and San Diego (Pacific Branch ESA Meeting).

Community development techniques -- both commercial and residential -- have a major impact on fresh water supplies and the surface and underground water system. Pavement is a big contributor to the problem. Now it can provide a solution.

Sustainable Solutions with Low Impact Development

L.I.D. is in. That's Low Impact Development, the standards by which the local ecosystem is minimally impacted by development, and water is preserved as a precious resource.

West coast microclimates are interesting. From rain soaked areas like San Anselmo, to rain starved areas like Bakersfield, each zone presents it own challenges for water issues. With each water challenge comes difficulties that municipalities, developers, and home-owners have to adapt to, and manage.

California Water Conservation Solutions

For example, water conservation is critical in California's central valley where each gallon of runoff can be a precious resource, if properly managed. Other areas of California offer surprising challenges -- such as Marin county, which is more like Portland, Oregon, which receives over 40 inches of rain a year.

LID offers workable solutions that developers and home-owners can implement to manage water issues whatever their situation -- dearth or deluge. Whether the issue is drought conditions or excessive runoff, sustainable water management is important to California.

Permeable Pavement allows water to rapidly pass through the pavement into a cistern or natural underground water supplies.

Modular Pavers Used in Hardscape Applications

Permeable pavement is a relatively new concept and product that reduces "impervious" surfaces from driveways, sidewalks and other hardscapes by allowing water to run through the pavement and back into the soil - not follow the hardscape to the street and eventually into our waterways. This solution retains more rainwater for our underground aquafers - but it also allows plants and the soil to filter pollutants out of the water naturally.

Permeable Pavers

One LID product that can provide solutions for water runoff and infiltration issues, large or small, is permeable pavers from Permapave Northwest.

Different from traditional concrete pavers, Permapave NW pavers have an actual flow-through rate of over 1 gallon of water per second. The pavers are manufactured from natural rock, with an acrylic polymer binder similar to the clear coat on your automobile. The finished product is a completely inert paver which returns water directly to the soil, or underground storage, without adding alkalinity, zinc or hydrocarbons to the runoff.

When permeable pavers are installed over properly prepared secondary filtration in the sub-grade, they will capture and filter 100% of gross pollutants and up to 70% phosphorus, 80% of heavy metals and 98% of hydrocarbons from the water that flows through them.

Residential Applications Alleys, Driveways Walkways Patios Camper Parking High Traffic Grass Areas Pools / Hot Tubs Courtyard Rooftops Sidewalks / Pathways Foundation Drainage

Commercial / Industrial Applications Parking Areas Pedestrian Walkway Bike Path Plaza / Entryway Bioretention / Rain Garden Rooftop Tree Grates Rooftops Roadways / Median Strips Large Public Spaces

Modular Permeable Pavers for Sustainable Landscaping

Modular pavers over an advantage over "poured" pervious pavement by allowing edges of permeable pavement to be installed in many locations - under downspouts, along sidewalks, along driveways, around trees, around rain gardens, and on or around patios.

Modular Pavers Used in Landscape Applications

• Permapave NW pavers are available in a number of colors/aggregates to enhance building and landscaping aesthetics.

• PermapaveNW's Permeable pavers come in a modular, 12x12x2" standard size, with widths up to 16" and thicknesses up to 4" for heavier vehicle loads.

• The pavers, while extremely pervious, provide the hard surface needed for normal urban activities.

The surface not only performs well for sidewalks, biking paths, parking lots, and driveways but also handles water efficiently in both drought and flood conditions.

The EPA has long noted the benefits of pervious pavers, highlighting them in their Best Management Practices: "depending on the design, pervious pavements (pavers), when used in combination with other techniques such as vegetated swales, or vegetated filter strips, may eliminate or reduce the need for land intensive BMPs, such as dry extended detention or wet retention ponds." (EPA Best Management Practices- porous pavements)

Both residential and commercial developers may find that the use of pervious pavers, which can range up to $8 per square foot, can actually make money for them, by eliminating detention ponds and increasing the amount of land that can be developed.

Home-owners can install the easy-to-use permeable pavers themselves, providing drainage areas for driveway or patios that may be puddling, or as a pervious cover for an underground water storage cistern.

The pavers can also be used as stepping stones, in pet areas, in gardens, along walkways, as parking areas for RVs -- the landscaping possibilities are endless.

Some municipalities are offering rebates for the purchase of LID products like Permapave. Check with your local city or county city and county governments, as well as water providers (ie: Metropolitan Water District) to find incentives and rebates to improve water quality, reduce runoff, or retain stormwater.

Sustainable Solutions to Stormwater Runoff

Retaining rain water for your landscape can be especially helpful during California's prolonged droughts. By protecting your landscape with adequate water supplies from a cistern, and from focusing the available rain into specific rain gardens, your plants will not suffer as much - and your water bill will thank you, too!

Sample permeable pavers by Permapave Northwest

CONTACT:
Permapave Northwest
Distributor for Western US
1-877-694-0141
815 NE 172nd Ave
Vancouver, WA 98684
www.permapavenw.com

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally recognized the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (NN EPA) in 2009 for their efforts to protect and preserve the environment over the past 30 years.

"For over 30 years we have partnered with the Navajo Nation to protect public health and precious natural resources," said Laura Yoshii, acting regional administrator for the EPA's Pacific Southwest region.  "The EPA applauds the Navajo Nation EPA not only for their achievements on their land, but for their leadership role in the development of tribal environmental programs nationally.  The Navajo Nation continues to build and implement its programs, has enacted seven of its own environmental laws, and set a national precedent for tribal sovereignty and environmental protection." Navajo Nation leaders met with federal officials to discuss environmental priorities for the Navajo Nation which administers several of the country's largest and most sophisticated tribal environmental programs.

"Former Navajo Nation elected leaders and managers have provided the foundation for the partnership with U.S. EPA," said Steve Etsitty, Executive Director of the Navajo Nation EPA.  "Under President Shirley's guidance the Navajo Nation EPA has truly emerged as a key implementer of environmental regulatory programs, and it will continue to protect the Navajo Nation and the south west United States from unhealthy pollution."

Abandoned Uranium Mine Cleanup

Navajo Nation EPA, four federal agencies and EPA are working together to implement a 5-year plan to address the legacy of over 500 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.  Currently, NN EPA and EPA are working to

• identify and cleanup mines,
• assess potentially contaminated structures, and
• conduct massive outreach efforts to warn residents of potential hazards from unregulated, contaminated wells.

Together, the agencies have assessed 113 structures and are in the process of demolishing and excavating 27 radiation-contaminated structures and 10 residential yards.



This year, the NN EPA, the Navajo Department of Water Resources, EPA, and the Indian Health Service are working together to provide

• safe drinking water to 3,000 people and
• wastewater infrastructure to 2,500 homes.

 Over the past 25 years, Navajo homes with access to safe drinking water rose by nearly 20 percent.

Federal Drinking Water Program

The Navajo Nation remains the first and only tribal government that has EPA's authority to implement the federal drinking water program which ensures that the 162 public water systems serving approximately 150,000 people meet federal drinking water requirements.  These groundwater supplies are also protected through NN EPA's underground injection control program.

Underground Injection Control Program of Disposal Wells

The underground injection control program regulates the construction, operation, permitting and closure of storage and/or disposal wells.  In 2008, NN EPA took over the program to protect the tribe's groundwater resources.  Together with their prior authorization to oversee public water systems, the Navajo Nation is the first tribe in the nation to implement the two main regulatory programs under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.  In addition to the underground injection control program, the Navajo Nation also administers protects groundwater resources through their underground storage tank program.

Underground Storage Tank Lead Prevention Program

 The NN EPA runs the most capable tribal, underground storage tank leak prevention program in the country with two federally credentialed inspectors and a field citation pilot program. Recently, federally credentialed tank inspectors began inspecting the Nation's 125 underground storage tank facilities on behalf of the EPA.  

The pilot project allows the two inspectors to write EPA field citations for federal violations and is expected to increase field presence and improve compliance.  A hole the size of a pinhead can release 400 gallons of fuel in a year's time, enough to foul millions of gallons of fresh water.  To address leaking tanks, both agencies have cleaned up over 100 leaking underground storage tanks since 2004, using a combination of both federal and tribal leaking underground storage tank funds.

Title V Air Permitting

The Navajo Nation EPA has been successfully implementing their Title V air permitting program for 5 years, and collecting the permitting fees for 13 major sources. The NN EPA was the first tribe in the nation to achieve authority to implement this program.

Pesticide Inspections to Restore Land and Soil

Other programs protect and restore Navajo Nation's land and soil.  Last year, Navajo Nation Pesticide Program's federally credentialed inspectors conducted 120 federal pesticides inspections and 25 tribal inspections.  To address open dumps throughout the Navajo Nation, the EPA has invested $2 million dollars since 1990.  To date, 41 open dumps have been closed using federal and Navajo Nation funds.

First Tribal Superfund Law

In February 2008, the Navajo Nation Council passed the Navajo Nation Comprehensive Environmental Response, and Liability Act (Navajo CERCLA) or Superfund modeled after the EPA's program.  This is the first tribal Superfund law in the country, and is a huge success for the Navajo Nation, as it gives the Tribe the authority to address hazardous contamination across the Nation.

 For more information, please visit: http://www.navajonationepa.org/

Nutrient Delivery to the Gulf of Mexico Among Highest Measured in 30 years!


Too many nutrients, which are essential for plant growth, are not necessarily a good thing. Excessive nutrients can be harmful by decreasing the amount of oxygen in the water, also known as hypoxia.

This can result in an area experiencing stress or death of near or bottom dwelling organisms called a hypoxic zone, or "dead zone."

Hypoxia, along with overfishing, habitat loss and toxic contamination, can significantly impact the Gulf of Mexico coastal region, an important resource for the Nation providing about 1.2 billion pounds of fresh seafood every year.

The amount of nutrients transported from the Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf during the spring is a major factor controlling the size of the hypoxic zone. The northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone is the second largest in the world, and threatens the economic and ecological health of one of the nation's largest and most productive fisheries.

Nutrients can come from many sources, such as fertilizers applied to agricultural fields, golf courses, and suburban lawns; atmospheric contributions; erosion of soils containing nutrients; and sewage treatment plant discharges.

USGS releases estimates of nutrients from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico in early June each year. The estimates are used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, and other researchers to predict the areal extent of the hypoxic zone. 

The amount of nutrients delivered to the Gulf each spring depends, in large part, on precipitation and the resulting amounts of nutrient runoff and streamflow in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin. Streamflows in spring 2009 were about 17 percent above average over the last 30 years. Last year's elevated levels were most likely due to the flooding during the spring.

States and Federal partners serving on the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Taskforce are trying to reduce nutrients transported to the Gulf to reduce the size of hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 square kilometers by 2015. Tracking nutrient levels every year is important to determine if partners are on target with that goal.

Predictions of the size of the 2009 hypoxic zone reflects USGS estimates of about 295,000 metric tons of nitrogen (in the form of nitrate) delivered in April and May 2009 to the northern Gulf. In 2008, the hypoxic zone exceeded 20,000 square kilometers, an area similar in size to the state of New Jersey. Spring delivery of nitrogen in 2009 was about 23% lower than what was measured in 2008, but still about 11% above the average from 1979 to 2009.

USGS has monitored streamflow and water quality in the Mississippi River Basin for decades, to access more information visit the USGS nutrient flux webpage.

For more than 125 years, the USGS has served as the Nation's water monitoring agency, including flow and (or) quality in selected streams and rivers across the U.S. Access data from more than 7,400 streamgages, many of which provide real-time data in 15 minute increments at the USGS WaterWatch site.

For an even larger variety of USGS data, such as for ground water and water quality, access the National Water Information System Web Interface, which contains over 1.5 million sites, and averages over 25 million hits per month.