The Chesapeake Bay Commission this week issued a new report raising cautions about the impacts ethanol production will have on water quality and forests in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

“Biofuels and the Bay: Getting It Right to Benefit Farms, Forests and the Chesapeake Bay” says biofuels could lead to shifts in crop patterns and acreages that create an uncertain future for farmers and foresters and seriously worsen the overload of nutrients to rivers.

These activities in the Chesapeake Bay could bring about “the most profound changes to the region’s agricultural markets in the past hundred years.”

“Handled correctly, biofuels have the potential to provide significant and permanent new income sources for farmers and foresters, while serving as a means to substantially reduce greenhouse gases and better manage agricultural nutrient loadings within the watershed.”

Other major findings in the report include:

· Due to fertilizer requirements and the relatively inefficient uptake of nutrients, more corn will likely increase nitrogen and phosphorus loadings to the Bay, unless offset by aggressive programs to plant cover crops and put in place other conservation practices;

· Without subsidies, corn-based ethanol is not likely a long-term sustainable technology, and plants cannot yet be readily converted to cellulosic feedstock; and

· Overall, grain-based ethanol should be considered a short-term windfall for farmers and refiners, a necessary step toward future development of an ethanol industry that includes cellulosic sources, and a stimulus for near-universal cover crops and other agricultural conservation measures to prevent adverse effects on the Bay.

The report makes a series of recommendations to mitigate the impacts of corn-based ethanol in the watershed, including: planting more riparian stream buffers, changing fertilization practices, promoting no-till farming, incorporating more organic wastes into the soil and establishing grassed waterways.

Many of these practices are already being used in the watershed to meet water quality goals, but additional efforts will be required to meet the environmental threats from additional corn growing acreage.

The report said overall, cellulosic ethanol offers a promising source of additional income for farmers and foresters beginning 2012–15, and can be better managed to help reduce nutrient overloads to the Bay.

A complete copy of the report and its recommendations is available online.

9/14/2007