Projects urged to limit dead zones
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The first step to limit nutrients in the Mississippi River that cause dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico is to get started on 40 pilot projects, a National Research Council report released Thursday recommends.
The pilot projects should be focused on the eight or nine states in the Mississippi River basin that contribute the most nutrients — usually in the form of fertilizer, urban runoff and other sources — to the river watershed.
“There’s a lot we need to learn yet; nevertheless, there’s enough we know to get started,” said David Dzombak. He is the director of the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research with the Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the National Research Council committee that wrote the report.
Reducing the amount of nutrients that get into the watershed is important because these nutrients feed the annual summer “dead zone” of low oxygen off the Louisiana coast.
The nutrient-rich water that ends up in the Gulf of Mexico feeds microscopic organisms, which in turn use up oxygen when they fall to the water bottom and decompose.
The lower layer of water becomes hypoxic and creates a dead zone in which there is not enough oxygen to support life.
This year, the dead zone measured 8,000 square miles during a survey from July 21 through July 27. The largest dead zone measured 8,400 square miles in 2002.
The report released Thursday is a follow-up to one issued in October 2007 that outlined nutrients and sediments as primary problems with the Mississippi River, Dzombak said.
“The EPA was quite receptive to the findings and recommendations of that study,” he said.
EPA funded the follow-up study, asking the National Research Council to identify potential initial steps in a long-term effort to reduce nutrient loading in the river, he said.
The report recommends EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture form a Nutrient Control Implementation Initiative to develop the pilot projects.
The initiative would be managed by a newly formed Mississippi River Basin Water Quality Center, also put together by EPA and USDA, the report recommends.
The pilot projects should be focused on the eight or nine states in the Mississippi River basin that contribute the most nutrients — usually in the form of fertilizer, urban runoff and other sources — to the river watershed.
“There’s a lot we need to learn yet; nevertheless, there’s enough we know to get started,” said David Dzombak. He is the director of the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research with the Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the National Research Council committee that wrote the report.
Reducing the amount of nutrients that get into the watershed is important because these nutrients feed the annual summer “dead zone” of low oxygen off the Louisiana coast.
The nutrient-rich water that ends up in the Gulf of Mexico feeds microscopic organisms, which in turn use up oxygen when they fall to the water bottom and decompose.
The lower layer of water becomes hypoxic and creates a dead zone in which there is not enough oxygen to support life.
This year, the dead zone measured 8,000 square miles during a survey from July 21 through July 27. The largest dead zone measured 8,400 square miles in 2002.
The report released Thursday is a follow-up to one issued in October 2007 that outlined nutrients and sediments as primary problems with the Mississippi River, Dzombak said.
“The EPA was quite receptive to the findings and recommendations of that study,” he said.
EPA funded the follow-up study, asking the National Research Council to identify potential initial steps in a long-term effort to reduce nutrient loading in the river, he said.
The report recommends EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture form a Nutrient Control Implementation Initiative to develop the pilot projects.
The initiative would be managed by a newly formed Mississippi River Basin Water Quality Center, also put together by EPA and USDA, the report recommends.
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