A recent study from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium shows the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is getting bigger. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports that pollution from the Midwest may be to blame:
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A recent study from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium shows the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is getting bigger. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports that pollution from the Midwest may be to blame:
The 85-hundred square mile area suffers from hypoxia. That’s when the levels of dissolved oxygen fall low enough to kill off most fish and plants. Many scientists believe nitrogen coming from Midwest farms and wastewater plants that travel down the Mississippi River are responsible. Forrest Peterson is a spokesperson with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. He says Midwestern states are aware of the problem, and are trying to fix it:
“Things like providing buffer strips and projects to retain some of the water’s nutrient management, things like that. So there are a whole array of things that can be done and that are being done, it just takes some time to see that effect.”
Peterson says the federal government has set the goal to reduce the zone to two thousand square miles and reduce nitrogen levels in the Mississippi River by 30 percent by 2015. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.