More ethanol means more corn -- and more water pollution

Farmers in Illinois, second only to Iowa in corn production, planned to plant 1.6 million more acres of corn. Their Missouri counterparts intended to plant corn on an additional 700,000 acres.

That's just this planting season. With the ethanol industry predicting that it will more than double production by 2010 — and with Washington politicians leaping on the biofuels bandwagon — it seems certain than the nation will need more corn in coming years to keep pace.

The robust growth benefits farmers and the Corn Belt economy. It might chip away at energy imports as advertised, even though much of the fertilizer that farmers use is made with imported natural gas. But those successes have one certain cost: more oxygen-stealing chemicals running off farms to choke rivers and lakes with algae.

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