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“Dawn of the dead zones”: large swaths of the ocean becoming devoid of life are getting larger each year; ag runoff is to blame, says CNN article

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 21, 2008 at 5:12 am

From CNN:

It’s thousands of square miles wide, virtually devoid of oxygen and it has been blamed for an increase in shark attacks: the Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” is getting bigger and forcing marine life — including sharks - into shore.

The zone has been caused by a flood of nutrients, such as agricultural fertilizers, which boost algae production in the sea. These growths consume huge amounts of oxygen creating a “marine desert” almost devoid of life. The “Dead Zone” varies in size each year, but in 1999 it was 7,728 square miles — that’s nearly the size of Delaware and Connecticut combined. The huge size of the “Dead Zone’ is due to the increase in nutrient pollution flowing down rivers, including the Mississippi, which is estimated to have risen threefold in the last fifty years as chemicals become more and more common on farms.

Environmentalists fear that the drive to radically increase the amount of corn-based biofuels produced in the U.S. from 15 billion gallons to 36 billion by 2022 could increase pollution in the Mississippi by 19 per cent.

But the problem is by no means limited to U.S. waters. Similar “Dead Zones” are being discovered across the world and a major United Nations report in 2003 found that the number had doubled each decade since the 1960’s. The UN report also warned that the number will continue to increase as intensive agriculture spreads around the world and that they are already having a significant impact on commercial fish stocks.

Read the rest of this article from CNN by clicking here.

April 21, 2008 · Filed Under Agriculture, National water news, Oceans and Beaches (all), Other Oceans & Beaches Stories