Steve DiMarco, a professor of oceanography at Texas A&M, says this year's dead zone could be the biggest yet.
How bad could it get? When discussing pollution, the state of New Jersey really allows people to visualize:
"The zone off Louisiana reached a record 7,900 square miles in 2002. A recent estimate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Louisiana State University shows the zone, which has been monitored for about 25 years, could exceed 8,800 square miles this year, an area roughly the size of New Jersey."
I wrote about this topic in the fall of 2007:
The largest corn crop in decades may be good news for
the biofuel business, but it could be a disaster for
the Gulf of Mexico.
Millions of tons of fertilizer used by farmers,
carrying nutrient pollution in the form of excess
nitrogen and phosphorus, are running into watersheds
that feed the Mississippi River. This pollution
eventually flows into the Gulf, creating a massive
“dead zone” where sea life cannot be sustained. Low
oxygen levels in these waters off the coast of
Louisiana and Texas interfere with fish reproduction
by disrupting fish hormones, and bottom dwellers such
as snails, worms, starfish and crabs die off.
The dead zone, first observed during the 1970s, is a
seasonal phenomenon, forming each spring and lasting
through early fall. Almost the size of New Jersey in
2007, scientists fear the dead zone will grow even
bigger in the years to come because of increased
farming activity - and fertilizer use - to meet the
demand for biofuels like ethanol.
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