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The state Department of Natural Resources is now asking to hit the “pause” button on new regulations for phosphorus emissions. The rules, approved by the state Natural Resources Board this year, would cut back on algae growth in state waters but are expected to carry a heavy price tag for farmers, municipalities and some manufacturers.

Milwaukee River (photo by Adrian Palomo)

Phosphorus is a mineral found in fertilizer and manure spread by farmers. It’s also released by some paper manufacturers and food processors in the state. Municipal wastewater treatment plants, when releasing treated wastewater, would also be required to meet the standards.

The Natural Resources Board approved the new limits under Gov. Jim Doyle last year, estimating they could cost water treatment plants up to $1.3 billion to install new filters. Other estimates have put the costs much higher: The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District estimated its own costs at $500,000 and those for all treatment plants in the state at $4 billion.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is pushing for states to adopt precise limits on phosphorus like those passed in Wisconsin, but few have done so. Gov. Scott Walker initially proposed rolling back the new rules – which would have taken effect on Jan. 1, but the DNR has delayed implementing them – by adding a provision requiring that Wisconsin’s rules could be no more strict than those in surrounding states.

The Natural Resource Board objected to Walker’s approach in March, and now DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp is proposing a two-year waiting period to monitor how other states implement phosphorus regulations before Wisconsin takes the plunge. Stepp’s proposal could be included in the 2011-13 state budget, which is currently undergoing Joint Finance Committee hearings around the state.

The DNR lists about 170 lakes, rivers and streams (including the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers) as “phosphorus impaired.” Phosphorus, because it’s a fertilizer that stimulates cell growth, causes algae blooms in high concentrations that choke out other aquatic life and produce toxins.

Ecologists have long tracked phosphorus runoff as a threat to the world’s freshwater resources. A recent paper by UW-Madison ecologist Stephen Carpenter, director of the UW Center for Limnology, estimates that Earth has passed a threshold beyond which phosphorus pollution in freshwater no longer constitutes “a safe operating space for humanity on Earth.”

But Carpenter also predicts a coming shortage of phosphorus, with mining production beginning to decline as early as 2030. Although the mineral is plentiful, easily-mined caches are running out. As there is no known natural replacement, this could create a decline in phosphorus supplies and possibly a new crisis in agriculture, even as it leads, in the long term, to a decline in phosphorus pollution.

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