Blacklock's Reporter

Farm fertilizers can accumulate in soil for up to 30 years or more, according to new University of Waterloo research. Scientists warned of a “biochemical legacy” that sees commercial fertilizers leach into groundwater, lakes and streams.

“You are growing crops and applying fertilizers and the nitrogen is accumulating in the soil,” said Kim Van Meter, a Waterloo doctoral student and co-author of the research Nitrogen Legacy: Emerging Evidence Of Nitrogen Accumulation In Anthropogenic Landscapes. “When you get rain or mineralization of the soil over time, nitrogen begins leaching from fields in the form of nitrates and can move into groundwater, into the rivers, the lakes and coastal areas.”

Van Meter noted Canadian drinking water standards set a safe level of 10 milligrams of nitrogen per litre: There are definitely places in Canada that go beyond that level,” she said. “Everything flows within a watershed.”

Farmers nationwide doubled their use of commercial nitrogen in the period from 1981 to 2011, according to Statistics Canada data, though the number of individual farms fell by half to fewer than 100,000 over the same period. StatsCan attributed the increased usage to gains in seeded acreage. Some 61.5 million acres of farmland are treated with fertilizers each year.

“Our general understanding had been there was some lag time as nitrates are dissolved into groundwater, but this study basically says it is going to be a lot longer than we’d assumed,” said Prof. Nandita Basu of Waterloo’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. “It is tough to say how long – we don’t have a good handle of the science yet – but it could be thirty, forty or even fifty years.”

The findings were published in the periodical Environmental Research Letters. “Our study for the first time links multiple lines of evidence to show convincingly that nitrate, like phosphorus, has a bio-geochemical legacy, a legacy that complicates our previous understanding of the fate of this nutrient in anthropogenic landscapes and that must be accounted for in intervention efforts to improve water quality,” Nitrogen Legacy said.

Researchers used more than 2,000 soil samples from farm fields along the U.S. Mississippi River basin. Scientists found trace nitrates in soil to a depth of up to 39 inches.

The Commons environment committee in a 2014 study Great Lakes Water Quality identified farm runoff as a pollution source for the St. Lawrence River and lake waters in southwest Ontario. “What we really need to do is start managing the Great Lakes as ecosystems and manage them more holistically,” Dr. William Taylor, University of Waterloo professor emeritus, earlier told committee hearings; “It really takes a much more complex approach to the problem than just more or less phosphorus than what we are currently allowing.”

By Kaven Baker-Voakes

The Senate will holding hearings, the first by a parliamentary committee, on the household cost of a carbon tax. The investigation by the energy committee follows government research that identified widespread public scepticism over carbon pricing.

“We want to look at the issues that surround the government’s intention to reduce greenhouse gases in Canada,” said Senator Richard Neufeld (Conservative-B.C.), committee chair. “We want to know how that’s going to affect Fred and Martha, the people on the street, the ordinary citizen. I don’t think any of that has been done.”

The environment department in a Strategy For Canada 2016-2019 proposed a 17 percent reduction in 2005 greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a target set by cabinet six years ago in the Copenhagen Accord. Strategy called for a total 30 percent reduction by 2030. The department has not yet detailed any regulations to meet its targets.

The Senate approved a motion that its energy committee “identify and report on the impact transitioning to a low carbon economy will have on energy and users, including Canadian households and businesses; identify and report on the most viable way electricity, oil and gas, transportation, buildings and trade-exposed energy intensive industries can contribute to a low carbon economy in meeting Canada’s emission targets; and identify areas of concern and make any necessary recommendations to the federal government that will help achieve greenhouse gas emission targets in a manner that is sustainable, affordable, efficient, equitable and achievable.” A final report is due by September 30, 2017.

“This is not to say that we shouldn’t be changing,” said Neufeld, a former B.C. energy minister. “That’s not what we’re saying. This is not to say that climate changing isn’t happening. This is to ask what the effects are.”

“Fred and Martha should have the right to know that this is what could happen,” Neufeld told the Senate. “That is what we’re trying to do.”

Natural Resources Canada in private focus group research concluded Canadians are unwilling to pay out of pocket for climate change programs, and fear any carbon tax will merely punish homeowners and motorists: “Since people rely on their vehicles as their primary mode of transportation, a small increase in operating costs would not affect their driving habits but would only increase personal expenditures,” said a 2015 report Public Opinion Research On Energy Issues by researchers at Leger.

Average temperatures nationwide have risen more than 1.3° since 1948, about twice the global rate, according to Department of Natural Resources data Overview Of Climate Change In Canada. However focus groups told researchers they had “objections or doubts about various government actions that could be imposed to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.”

Carbon taxes were considered “simply another way for governments to tax residents and would not have its intended effect on consumer behaviour,” Public Opinion said. Cap and trade systems were deemed complex and “unrealistic”. Use of green technology including hybrid vehicles was more popular, though “many participants believe it would be useful for the Canadian government to provide tax incentives” to promote their use.”

The research was based on focus groups in Vancouver, Whitehorse, Calgary, Mississauga, Ont., Montréal and Truro, N.S.

By Tom Korski