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In the Toxic Terrain series, former New York Times reporter Keith Schneider examines the rampant overuse of farm fertilizers in US agriculture, and the dire consequences for human and environmental health. The project is supported by the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Fund For Investigative Journalism. Several articles have been co-published by other outlets, including the Guardian, Circle of Blue, and Investigate Midwest.
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“It’s getting worse” – US failing to stem tide of harmful farm pollutants
By Keith Schneider VENICE, LA. Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern Louisiana, near the juncture where the 2,350-mile-long Mississippi River ends at the Gulf of Mexico. Clark Porter is a 62-year-old farmer who lives in north-central Iowa where…
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New report sparks questions and controversy over possible causes for Iowa “cancer crisis”
By Keith Schneider Amid increasing scrutiny of a potential link between Iowa farm chemicals and cancer, a new report is generating controversy as it blames rising cancer rates not on the toxins used widely throughout the state, but on something else entirely: binge alcohol consumption. The Iowa Cancer Registry, a health research group housed at…
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Cancer in the corn belt sparks actions to fight farm chemical contamination
By Keith Schneider When directors of the public water utility in Des Moines, Iowa, went to court in 2015 to try to stop toxic farm nutrients from contaminating the city’s drinking water, they knew the federal lawsuit they filed would be seen as not just a desperate step to protect public health, but also a…
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“We can’t sit back” – Amid climbing cancer rates, Iowa health officials eye farm chemicals
Faced with a startlingly high cancer rate in the key US farm state of Iowa, public health leaders are taking the politically precarious step of acknowledging that preventing disease necessitates cutting exposure to potentially cancer-causing chemicals, including those used in agriculture. In a departure from other state cancer prevention programs, which rarely address environmental risk…
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US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns
By Keith Schneider AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that would turn polluting agricultural waste into a source of…
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US regulators order Minnesota to clean up nitrate contaminated water
By Keith Schneider In recognition of pervasive farm-related water contamination, federal regulators have ordered three Minnesota state agencies to address “imminent and substantial endangerment to the health” of thousands of residents who are being exposed to high levels of nitrate contamination in their drinking water. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered state officials to…
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“What we’re up against” – North Dakota towns fight Farm Bureau to try to keep water clean
By Keith Schneider DEVILS LAKE, ND – When Clark Steinhaus first heard about a plan to build a feeding operation for 2,499 hogs near the shoreline of North Dakota’s largest natural lake, he was alarmed. As chair of Pelican Township’s board of supervisors, Steinhaus worried the manure generated by so many hogs could easily contaminate…
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Could farm fertilizers be driving Corn Belt cancers?
By Keith Schneider BERNE, Minn. – It was a hot afternoon in mid-July and 60-year-old Brian Bennerotte was making a pilgrimage of sorts, navigating a shotgun-straight, gravel road south of Minneapolis on a journey through a landscape stitched with crop and livestock farms as far as the eye can see. Bennerotte is one of only…
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Advising farmers on fertilizer, universities add to water pollution woes
By Keith Schneider WINONA, Minn. – Corn drapes every curve and rise here in Winona County, Minnesota – seemingly endless fields of grain that contribute to the food, fuel and finances of a robust US agricultural economy. But the bucolic landscape belies a dark and dangerous truth: Much of the groundwater in the porous limestone…
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Native American tribe takes a stand to protect its natural resources
By Keith Schneider MAHNOMEN, Minn. – It’s been centuries since the White Earth tribe migrated west across North America, following an ancestral prophecy to go where “food grows on water.” One of seven Ojibwe bands in Minnesota, White Earth found that prophecy fulfilled along the many shallow clear lakes that lie in the state’s northern…