6.4K
The Wall Street Journal has published a series of data visualizations showing that heavy rainfalls are flushing an increasing amount of nitrates from farms into the Mississippi River, thus contaminating the river. Nitrates are used in fertilizers but are associated with birth defects, thyroid problems, and cancer. The visualizations show that the Mississippi River Basin is experiencing an agricultural boom and that Iowa, which is 70 percent farmland, has tripled the annual amount of nitrate it sends into the river since 2000.
