Latest Dead zone Stories

By HENRY C. JACKSON JEFFERSON, Iowa - Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since the Depression. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price. The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" -...

WASHINGTON -- There was hope for a cure down in the Louisiana bayous even as the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone expanded like a B-movie blob. The year was 2000 and states up and down the Mississippi River, spurred by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, were coming to grips with one of America's most vexing water quality challenges: the fertilizer runoff from Midwestern farm fields flowing hundreds of miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. A mass of oxygen-deprived water had expanded in 1999 to...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Scientists say the oxygen-starved "dead zone" along the Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought.Scientists say weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, and no relief is in sight. However, some say there is no immediate sign yet of long-term damage to the crab fishery.Oregon State University scientists looking for weather changes that could reverse the situation aren't finding them, and they say levels...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The dead zone off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas is nearly the size of Connecticut and much larger than federal researchers had predicted earlier this year, according to a new survey. An annual weeklong cruise led by researchers with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium found an area of low-oxygen measuring 4,564 square miles and extending from the Mississippi River to the Texas border. On average, the dead zone has measured about 4,800 square miles since 1985....

NEW ORLEANS -- The dead zone off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas should be considerably smaller than usual this year - about the size of Rhode Island, rather than larger than Jamaica, researchers say. That's because the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers are carrying much less nitrogen and other nutrients than usual into the Gulf of Mexico, according to scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nancy Rabalais, head of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium...

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) -- Through mid-July, scientists from NOAA's National Coast Data Development Center and the agency's Fisheries Service at Stennis Space Center will look at data about dissolved oxygen from the "dead zone" areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The scientists believe the zone forms in June and stretches 5,000-square-miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River toward the Texas coast. The condition, known as hypoxia, occurs when the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Agricultural runoff is triggering massive algae blooms that could harm marine life in the Gulf of California, one of Mexico's most important fishing regions, according to a study published Thursday. Stanford University researchers found a direct link between fertilizer runoff from Mexico's Yaqui River Valley and sudden bursts of marine algae in the 700-mile-long gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, which separates the Baja California peninsula from mainland Mexico....