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Negative impacts on Minnesota's environment come foremost from particles in air, according to a recent report from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Other significant impacts come from phosphorus, transported sediment, temperature increases/climate change and habitat modification, according to agency experts, who say these substances and conditions are widespread in the environment, their effects are severe and only slowly reversible and they affect large populations.

Topping the list of factors contributing to these impacts are vehicles and equipment; coal-fired power plants; agricultural runoff; urban development and runoff; and pesticide use, both urban and rural, experts said in the report.

The Environmental Information Report is a first edition from the agency's Environmental Outcomes Division, intended as a baseline of current conditions for assessing future environmental change. It evaluates the physical, chemical and biological condition of Minnesota's environment to identify threats to humans and ecosystems that remain today despite previous and ongoing cleanup efforts.

In drafting the report, a multidisciplinary team looked at environmental risks to human and ecosystem health and to quality of life; socioeconomic conditions of air, water, land and biota; and pollution sources, impacts and trends. Health issues rated high among their concerns.

"Preventing exposure to cancer-causing substances is an important focus of various MPCA pollution control programs," the report said.

Nearly 50 percent of Minnesotans contract some form of cancer during their lives and cancer accounts for about 24 percent of all deaths in Minnesota, the report said. Major cardiovascular diseases account for about 36 percent of deaths.

Diet/obesity and smoking cause a majority of cancer incidences and deaths in the state. Pollution is responsible for roughly 2 percent of all U.S. cancer deaths, the report said.

"Cancer stressors that may affect large populations are particles in air, toxic chemicals in air, toxic chemicals in food and excess UV radiation," the report said. "Of these, the air stressors -- particles and toxic chemicals -- have a high potential to worsen because of trends we are seeing in Minnesota."

Important sources of air stressors include industrial activity, energy production from coal, and on-road vehicle and off-road equipment use. Each of these activities has increased and will likely continue to increase, although technology improvements, alternative fuel development and control strategies may lessen the impact of particles and toxics by reducing them at their source, the report said.

Additionally, several socioeconomic trends may have implications for non-cancer acute impacts on human health -- which include asthma attacks, heat stress and headaches -- and for non-cancer chronic impacts on human health -- which include long-term respiratory impairment, heart and lung disease and immunological disorders, the report said.

It is difficult to put these environmental-related health impacts into context with other health impacts because of incomplete knowledge on cause and effect and the limited nature of disease and death statistics, the report said. However, population growth and migration to urban areas, along with consumptive behavior, will likely worsen environmental impacts from transportation, energy production and waste disposal.

Stress on aquatic organisms also persists as commercial and residential development continues at a rapid rate in urban areas, increasing runoff that carries phosphorus, nitrogen, sediment and toxics to streams and lakes, the report said. Meanwhile, rural Minnesota continues to produce large amounts of pollution from row crop production and livestock operations. Additionally, parts of rural Minnesota also are experiencing rapid development, much of it to satisfy the desires of urban residents who want to "get away" from cities.

The state monitors about 5 percent of its river and stream miles and 60 percent of its lake acres, and two-thirds of them meet water quality standards and criteria designed to protect aquatic life, the report said. Very little monitoring has been done to assess the health of pre-settlement wetland acres that remain.

Most problems with surface water quality now come from non-point sources of pollution, the report said. Stream miles and lake acres considered impaired by non-point sources are about seven times greater than those impaired by point sources.

Technology to address non-point source pollution is generally well established and cost effective, but success will require substantial changes in land-use practices by a great number of different parties, the report said.

"The agency has a number of programs addressing non-point sources, generally in partnership with local governments and organizations, but overall the efforts are relatively young and have yet to show general, statewide results," the report said.

Other findings in the report include:

• Drainage activity has tapered off in the last two decades but still takes place in growing urban areas for roads, airports, and residential and industrial development. Minnesota contains about five million acres of drained land and 27,000 miles of constructed ditches. About half of the state's 18.6 million wetland acres have been drained and streams in the west and south have undergone extensive channeling.

• The state has nearly 150,000 highway miles and the number of vehicle miles driven per person has increased from 6,992 in 1980 to more than 10,000 in 2000. Further increases are likely over the next 20 years, requiring construction of more highways that will result in more drainage of wetlands, habitat fragmentation, and transport of chemicals and exotic species.

• Phosphorus concentrations have decreased at 78 percent of monitored stream sites and have shown trends of increasing at 1 percent of the sites. Lakes also show a trend toward better water quality at most monitored sites.

• Minnesota is the sixth largest user of nitrogen fertilizers in the United States, applying more than 600,000 tons annually. Heavy agriculture in the Minnesota River Basin is a large contributor of nitrate-nitrogen to the Mississippi River and hence the Gulf of Mexico.

• Timber production has increased from 2.3 million cords in 1980 to 3.8 million cords in 1999, although the rate of harvest held steady in the 1990s. Cropland acres decreased between 1982 and 1997 while the number of grassland and urban acres increased.

The entire report is available on the Internet at: http://www.pca.state.mn.us/publications/ei-report.html/

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