The ethanol boom might reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, but the huge increase in corn crops that it requires could seriously harm the Chesapeake Bay, according to a government report to be released today.
The report by the multistate Chesapeake Bay Commission estimates that demand for ethanol will lead to an increase of 300,000 acres of corn in the six-state watershed. That increase would erode the progress that farmers have made in reducing the amount of pollution flowing into the bay from farms, sending an added 5 million pounds of nitrogen into the estuary each year.
But if done right, ethanol could be a major opportunity for the region, said Ann Swanson, executive director of the commission, which wrote the report, Biofuels and the Bay: Getting it Right to Benefit Farms, Forests and the Chesapeake.
"If handled incorrectly, biofuels could lead to increased loads of pollution in the bay and shifts in crop patterns that we might not want," Swanson said. "However, we know how to handle it correctly. If you choose to only go the economic path, you will degrade the environment. But if you choose the other path, you can have your cake and eat it too."
The increased demand for ethanol is driving up corn prices and encouraging farmers, many of whom have long struggled financially, to stay in business. But it has fueled fears among environmentalists that farmers will plant more corn instead of nitrogen-absorbing cover crops.
In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that Maryland farmers planted 540,000 acres of corn, a 10 percent increase over last year and the largest corn crop in 15 years. Ethanol plants are springing up all over the Midwest to meet demand.
Several have been proposed for Maryland, including two in the Baltimore harbor area and one on the Eastern Shore. In this year's State of the Union address, President Bush called for domestic production of 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017.
But ethanol has its drawbacks. It takes fossil fuels to ferment the corn into fuel. And it can't be piped across the country, like gas or oil. It has to be trucked.
As a crop, corn often requires more fertilizer than soybeans or wheat, environmentalists say. Much of that ends up running off the land and into waterways, where it leads to overgrowth of algae that consumes the oxygen in the water, leaving little for fish and sea grasses.
