The “dead zone” is in the news, and I’m not talking about the USA Network show.
This AP story in the Chronicle, says the zone, an oxygen-depleted area in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, is growing:
Fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico are threatened by loss of coastal wetlands and agricultural runoff, from which a “dead zone” of oxygen-depleted water has grown, experts say.
To stop expansion of the 5,000-square-mile area where low oxygen levels make it difficult for marine life to survive, studies show that wetlands must be reclaimed and fertilizer use in the Mississippi River basin cut by 25 percent, said Andrew Solow, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
Solow was one of five experts who addressed environmental attorneys attending the first of two days of discussions Thursday at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort.
Shrimp and fish can escape from the zone, which for the first time this past summer stretched toward the Texas coast, Solow said. But he said crabs and other slow-moving species can be killed in the area where trillions of tiny sea plants called phytoplankton sink, die and decay.
KHOU-11 also has a story on the “dead zone,” although it notes that this year the zone has almost disappeared:
DiMarco says part of the reason for the change is the currents. Strong, coastal currents normally not seen until September came early this year, churning along the coast, breaking the Zone apart.
Then came a tropical storm and a couple hurricanes.
Active hurricane seasons may be good news when it comes to reducing the size of the Dead Zone, DiMarco says, because wind mixing is pretty much the enemy of the Dead Zone.
But just as the weather is unpredictable, there’s no way to say how long the Dead Zone will last next summer, or if it will upset the big fish along the Texas Coast.
