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https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/12/1/23979634/climate-change-farming-soil-conservation-jake-lieb-michelle-carr>
"Jake Lieb drives his John Deere two-seater around his property and across the
shallow Camp Creek. The waterway cuts back and forth through miles of farm
fields until it reaches the Sangamon River and eventually pours into Lake
Decatur 32 miles away — the man-made source of water for 200,000 people.
These are troubled waters. The city of Decatur paid $100 million in 2021 to
dredge so much polluted sediment from the lake that it could have filled the
Willis Tower seven times.
And much of it was from farms like Lieb’s, the soil swept away by increasingly
heavy and unpredictable rains. When the downpours come, they funnel topsoil and
costly fertilizer into the creek, the river and, miles downstream, the lake.
The problem doesn’t end there. This agricultural runoff, occurring in
watersheds all over Illinois, eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, where
it contributes to an oxygen-starved dead zone that threatens fish and other sea
life.
Lieb wants his remaining soil to stay where it is, and he’s among a small but
growing percentage of Illinois farmers experimenting with how. He has been
rolling out soil conservation projects.
“I got to save something for my family, you know what I mean?” says Lieb, 41,
who has two young sons.
Now, the city of Decatur, the federal government and the Illinois Farm Bureau
have pledged to assist and pay farmers to reduce water and wind erosion."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
