Is something like this an accepted tradeoff when using fertilizers for farming?
Coastal regions are (typically) teaming with life of all kinds. I can live without people getting fresh fish quite as often as they're used to. I can't swallow destroying entire ecosystems out of wilful ignorance quite so easily.
The EPA has a 10 Billion dollar budget, which it uses to do massive amounts of research to help control and mitigate negative externalities. Fines and penalties for violating EPA rules are severe.
"The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged under the Clean Water Act to monitor America’s waterways and shield them from the toxic runoff from factory farms. But the growth of that industry, and its courtroom tenacity, has far outstripped the E.P.A.’s efforts to restrict runoff from manure lagoons and feedlots.
Last year, the agency meekly withdrew two proposed rules. One would have gathered basic information from all factory farms. The other proposed rule would have expanded the number of such farms required to have a national pollution discharge permit. Fewer than 60 percent do now.
Then, last week, in yet another retreat, the agency announced that promised new regulations governing feedlot discharges nationally would not be forthcoming."
This is an op-ed, and leads to advocacy for a particular response. But the facts it's based on are not in question, and they seriously undermine any assertions that the EPA is as effective as it needs to be.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/the-epa-backs-off-...
Interesting data in the above about fertilizer consumption in agriculture. The link was found at http://stirringthepyramid.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/who-overu...
Farmers don't like to fertilize, it costs money. I remember long ago it being used to plant crops in fields that normally were off rotation because that crop was very profitable that year. That was ages ago so I don't know if it applies still.