It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico could be the largest ever (Photo courtesy of NASA)
A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:
These dead zones are areas where oxygen is depleted. No oxygen and much of the
marine life leaves or dies. It’s caused by nitrogen-based farm fertilizers that are
washed off the fields and into the water.
Donald Scavia is a researcher at the University of Michigan. Using U.S. Geological
Survey data, he predicts the dead zone in Chesapeake Bay will be the sixth largest
on record.
“The six other ones are also not that much bigger than what we’re predicting for this
year.”
Heavy rains and flooding across the Corn Belt washed nitrogen fertilizers into the
Mississippi River system and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. Scavia predicts the
dead zone in the Gulf could be the largest ever.
“What you put down on the land is what gets flushed in those rainstorms. And we’re
putting too much fertilizer on the land. So,
what’s changed over the last three decades is agricultural practices. What changes
from year-to-year is the weather.”
Scavia says better methods of farming could reduce the dead zones.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.