Group blames farmers for "dead zone" problem

It’s not just livestock producers who draw fire from environmental groups in Iowa these days. A national leader of the Sierra Club testified in Des Moines today before the Pew Oceans Commission that Iowa’s responsible for several kinds of pollutants that make their way into the water supply.The says three of them are fertilizer runoff, wastewater treatment plants and growing feedlots. Ken Midkiff says Midwestern pollution runs all the way down the Mississippi to create destructive buildup in the Gulf of Mexico.Commonly called a Dead Zone, the area extends from Louisiana to Texas along the gulf coast where fishermen can no longer catch fish. Midkiff says farmers can prevent fertilizer runoff by putting more acres into the conservation reserve program, and are just waiting for funding to restore five-point-three million acres to wetland and buffer zones. The group says restoring wetlands will not only prevent runoff and the downriver “dead zone,” but lessen the damage from flooding.