Does this means the projection for the future is the Gulf of Mexico will simply become a dead zone not supporting life? M

Published on Thursday, July 31, 2008 by The Washington Post
‘Dead Zone’ in The Gulf of Mexico Near Record Size
A 'Dead Zone' in The Gulf of Mexico - washingtonpost.com

by Joel Achenbach

GULF OF MEXICO - The “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area on the seabed with too little oxygen to support fish, shrimp, crabs and other forms of marine life, is nearly the largest on record this year, about 8,000 square miles, researchers said this week.

Only the churning effects of Hurricane Dolly last week, they said, prevented the dead zone from being the largest ever.



The problem of hypoxia — very low levels of dissolved oxygen — is a downstream effect of fertilizers used for agriculture in the Mississippi River watershed. Nitrogen is the major culprit, flowing into the Gulf and spurring the growth of algae. Animals called zooplankton eat the algae, excreting pellets that sink to the bottom like tiny stones. This organic matter decays in a process that depletes the water of oxygen.

Researchers expected the dead zone to set a record — even more than the 8,500 square miles observed in 2002 — after the Mississippi, swollen with floodwaters, carried an extraordinary amount of nitrates into the Gulf, about 37 percent more than last year and the most since measuring these factors was begun in 1970.

The researchers set out July 20 aboard the Pelican, a 115-foot academic research vessel, and braved 12-foot waves and 35-mph winds from the outer bands of Dolly to take samples. The hypoxia began to appear about halfway to the bottom in waters ranging from 10 to 130 feet deep, said Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, which conducted the study. Some water samples from the bottom of the water column showed no oxygen at all, and instead bore the signature odor of hydrogen sulfide emerging from underlying sediments.

“It smells like rotten eggs,” she said. “It’s really nasty.”

The dead zone has been known about for decades but has been studied carefully only since the mid-1980s, when Rabalais began making annual cruises in late July to measure its extent and characteristics. She said the dead zone has roughly doubled in size since 1985.

“I would think an area the size of Massachusetts where you can’t catch any fish or shrimp, that’s significant,” Rabalais said.

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There is another large "dead zone" caused by industrial agriculture on the east coast off what's called the Delmarva peninsula. A lot of the aquatic life died because of similar stuff, but it was largely, I think, intensive pig and chicken farming. Wastewater filtered into the bay and killed them. There were really poor regulations on dumping. It's just another sad consequence of modern factory farming, among other things.

So gather up the algae and transport it elsewhere.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I would bet you that it would make great fertilzer for crops. Fertilizer is what stimulated its growth in the first place. It is high in nitrogen (that is what makes it stink so bad).

It can be skimmed off the surface before it dies off. The trick would be to skim if fast enough to avoid the algae dying off and sinking into the water. It would have to be skimmed in fresh water before it reaches salt water.

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The "dead zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi has been occuring for millions of years. That's why there's so much oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

To some extent fresh water algae has died when taken into ocean salt water, but fertilizer is the new element intervening here to stimulate algae growth. Therefore in the past you had a minimal "dead zone" and now you have a dead zone the size of Massachusetts.

If you point is therefore we should be unconcerned, I totally disagree.

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I don't know about his point but mine is that instead of whining about it, the environmentalists should get off their lazy backsides and do something about it - like gathering up the algae.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

"Whining about it"? I hope you are not referring to me. I have posted this article at several boards and I have even mentioned using this algae in the same manner as they are doing to make biofuel. They have pilot programs with algae greenhouses attached to traditional power plants. The emissions from the plants are rich in carbon and the algae feeds on this in process of cleaning up the emissions and converts it into oxygen.

So why build algae farms when you have a natural, humungous algae farm already going.

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Well, Chan, logically that task would be too big for any of them to accomplish, hence the environmentalists' 'whining,' which really means trying to get the government to do it.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read the words and notice especially the bold, italicized and underlined part (the part that tells you who I was referring to): "instead of whining about it, the environmentalists should get off their lazy backsides and do something about it..."

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."