Reaching Gulf dead zone reduction goals will cost $7 billion, study finds

New research on the cost of reducing the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone places a $7 billion dollar annual price tag on reaching the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals. 

Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, researchers from West Virginia University, Iowa State University and the Texas Soil and Water Research Laboratory estimate decreasing nitrogen runoff from agriculture in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya river basins, a key driver of hypoxia in the Gulf, by the EPA’s goal of 45% will cost billions of dollars a year. 

“I suspect that the benefits of reducing nitrogen runoff are likely to exceed these costs, especially if we count the values of reducing the dead zone in the Gulf as well as the values of improved upstream ecosystems in the Mississippi River Basin,” Levan Elbakidze, West Virginia University professor of resource economics and management, said in a news release. 

Using an economic model that analyzed the relationship between nitrogen fertilizer and crops such as soybeans, corn, wheat and sorghum, the research gives a better picture as to what it would take to achieve substantial progress in eliminating the Gulf’s hypoxic zone as well as what areas across the country could be affected in turn.

“The benefits of reducing nitrogen pollution are likely to be really large upstream and downstream,” Elbakidze said. “But suppose we achieve the objective somehow … what will happen to the markets? … What will be the impact on consumers and producers?” 

Nutrients flowing from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico have historically benefitted Louisiana’s waterways, providing fertile grounds for fisheries, oysters and aquatic life. However, an excess of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertilizer runoff, can cause algae to bloom out of control in the water. 

The study also models scenarios in which crops that use a lot of nitrogen are moved away from the Mississippi RIver Basin and are cultivated in other areas. While decreasing the amount of nitrogen runoff into the Gulf by the desired 45%, it would raise the runoff to other bodies of water such as Lake Erie and the Chesapeake Bay 4% to 5%. 

While this scenario is an option, Elbakidze said, considering these side effects and costs of nitrogen runoff reduction “are critical for informed policy development.” 

The next phase of the study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will allow researchers to add new types of crops to the model and account for the effects of phosphorus runoff reduction in addition to nitrogen. 

Any move to implement the scenarios explored through the research will fall to the Trump administration, namely new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who was sworn in last week.

Clarification: This report was updated to remove a quote from Levan Elbakidze that included a factual error.