Despite promises to fix it, the Gulf dead zone is growing.

[Maddy McCall]

Source: Chris Kirkham, West Bank bureau NOLA.com

Every late spring, it forms 12 miles off the Louisiana coast and lasts for months: a sprawling, lifeless band of water known as the "dead zone."

Shrimp trawlers steer clear, knowing the low oxygen in this part of the Gulf of Mexico makes it uninhabitable for fish and other marine life. It starts at the mouth of the Mississippi River and can extend all the way to the Texas border, many years growing to the size of Connecticut.

snip/

In 2001, the federal government, nine states and two American Indian tribes signed an agreement that, among other things, pledged to cut down on nitrogen in the river by 20 percent to 40 percent and reduce the size of the dead zone to 1,930 square miles by 2015. Last year, the dead zone measured more than 6,600 square miles, and early predictions for this year point to it being even larger.

snip/

"When states don't get money to do something, it becomes an unfunded mandate. It's not even really a mandate," said Len Bahr, a Louisiana representative on the hypoxia task force and a science adviser in Gov. Kathleen Blanco's Office of Coastal Activities. "What the feds have done is they've kicked the can down the road."



Read more: http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/despite_promises_to_fix_it_the.html

[OneBlueSky]

1. important story . . . there are also dead zones in the Atlantic . . .

and, I would imagine, other oceans as well . . .

the recent proposal to make 30% of the oceans environmental preserves is not only good, it's absolutely necessary . . . and the fishing industry should be the first in line to support it, if they expect their industry to have any future whatsoever . . .

[OHdem10]

2. I certainly can empathize--one of the biggest problems

as I see it, is Republican Government, both at the
state and national level.

Fiscal Conservates ideollogically resist funding
anything. If forced, minimal amount will be allocated.

This is serious. Good Luck.

[Lasher]

11. Republicans are actually fiscal liberals, not conservatives.

You are correct to say that Republicans are reluctant to fund efforts such as reduction or elimination of this dead zone. But despite the widespread belief that they are fiscal conservatives, the facts tell a different story. They wring their hands about the tax-and-spend policies of Democrats. But they cut taxes (defer taxes for someone else to pay later, I should say) mostly for rich people and their corporations, then they go on to borrow and spend more than Democrats do. It is a matter of record.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20059-2005Apr1.html

With them it is certainly not a matter of frugality. It's all about priorities. Republicans would rather spend money on Junior's Maginot Line in the sky than on levees for New Orleans. They would rather pay mercenaries and diesel mechanics six figures in Iraq than fund medical care for active duty military and veterans. Republicans who want to eliminate our social programs (because we can't afford them, they say) are the very same people who are eager to spend money on yet another monster aircraft carrier, named after yet another loser Republican president.

It's common to see references to Republican fiscal conservatives, as this myth is widespread. But it is just that, a myth. Democrats are more fiscially conservative than are Republicans and the numbers prove it.

[glitch]

14. K & R especially for this post nt

[Uncle Joe]

28. Well said Lasher.

:thumbsup:

[pokercat999]

3. I recently saw an article about a plastic filled area

in the Pacific that was twice the size of Texas! It seems the currents and winds are light in this area and allow the plastic (floating and suspended) to just gather. There was more plastic in this area than plankton! The article said there were areas like this in all the oceans (no wind or little or no currents) and they suspected they would be full of plastic also.

[emmadoggy]

12. I saw that too. It was horrifying.

:cry:

[Lasher]

20. Me too.

You would have to think that the Sargasso Sea is in the same condition. This stuff has to be removed somehow. Otherwise it will continue to build up. Maybe the UN could organize something and get contributions from all nations that have helped cause the problem.

[intheflow]

4. Kick n/t

[jus_the_facts]

5. More worthless talk....with NO ACTION....

....the environment...healthcare...poverty...education...blah blah blah....same ol' worthless spew from politicians and gov't...year after year...decade after decade... :banghead:

[Massachusetts]

6. "same ol' worthless spew from politicians and gov't"

and may I add, its fueled by the Ignorance and Apathy of most of the American public.

[okoboji]

7. Divers begin to clean tires from ocean floor

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/128813.html


Divers begin to clean tires from ocean floor
Associated Press

Divers began removing up to 2 million old tires from the ocean floor Monday in an attempt to undo a failed plan to create an artificial reef -- a plan which has become an ecological disaster.

The well-intentioned idea was to create new marine habitat and alternate dive sites with what was touted as the world's largest artificial tire reef. The plan also served to dispose of tires that were clogging landfills.

But little sea life formed on the tires dumped about a mile offshore in 1972. Some of the bundles bound together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor and washing up on beaches. Others are wedging up against the nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.

[Divernan]

18. This was a gift to private landfill operators - untested as to feasability in ocean

If someone knows otherwise, please correct me. "The plan also served to dispose of tires that were clogging landfills." Someone had to fund this - it cost a bundle to move 2 million tires from landfills onto trucks to some location where they were bundled with steel cables and from there onto boats and then put in place on the ocean floor. The waste management/landfill industry is not given to charity - it IS noted for mob control, money laundering and double book-keeping. So the likeliest scenario is that the state of Florida funded this. God forbid that the Miami reporter actually research back 35 whole years to find out the history on who profited from this project.

Sounds like someone went cheap or stupid or both on the (1) "bundling", not using stong enough cable/nylon to withstand ocean currents, and (2) running some tests to see whether sealife would actually adhere to the tires to cover them with coral. It is my understanding that those tires would leach all kinds of chemicals into the water. What a cluster F of a project.

Between the longline fishermen regularly scraping the ocean bottom with their nets, and these tires "scouring" the ocean bottom, coral has little chance. As to the creation of "alternate divesites" - what a crock. Back in the 70's, the reefs around Florida were in much better condition than now - and there were relatively few recreational scuba divers visiting them. Places which want to increase their appeal for divers sink old ships, such as the tanker, Tears of Allah, sunk in the Bahamas in the early 80's and used as a set in a James Bond movie. Those definitely attract lots of fish life, and can be the basis for coral growth. I have dived on the Japanese merchant marine WW II ships sunk in Micronesia in the 1940's - they are lush with fish life and beautiful soft coral.

[FloridaJudy]

8. They don't even give a hoot about the *people* who live there

What on earth makes anyone think the Bushies care about some stupid fish? They don't vote, and they can't be forced to serve in Iraq.
:sarcasm:

The bloody canary is lying on its back in the Republican's coal mine, and Bush is reprising the Python's "Dead Parrot Sketch"!

[riverwalker]

9. follow the money

Who is profiting from the massive use of fertilizers? Huge corporate farms and the chemical companies.

[XemaSab]

15. It all goes back to ag subsidies, depressingly

HUGH subsidies for corn farmers to dump nitrogen on the soil, cheap corn for factory farmers to grow pigs, chickens, turkeys, cows, and other animals with, and nonpoint exemptions so farmers don't have to comply with the clean water act and other environmental laws regulating discharge into waterways.

The next step in the chain? A giant dead zone and an obesity epidemic due to high fructose corn syrup and animal growth hormones.

We need a major overhaul of farming policy in this country.

Read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for more about corn policy and how it's messing up our country and our health. :(

[be inspired]

10. Yuck!

Thanks for making me aware of this. How disgusting and sad.

[emmadoggy]

13. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!! Have those bastards funded ANYTHING besides their

freaking WAR???!!! This crap makes me livid. Do none of them have any children or grandchildren?? Don't they care about whether or not there will be a habitable planet for them to live on? It boggles my mind.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Zorra]

16. The "dead zone" in the White House will have to be fixed first.

Until then, the federal government will not do anything genuinely productive toward cleaning up our environment .

[Lord Balto]

17. We're talking about Bush's brain, right?

What'd they do, put an air hose in his ear?

[kestrel91316]

19. They call this eutrophication, IIRC. We used to wring our hands

about it when it happened to lakes in the 60s, but then we stopped polluting so much and, amazingly, things improved.

Dead oceans are the logical outcome of treating oceans like sewers. It's past time to DEMAND proper farming techniques to minimize runoff. Eat less meat, so there's less animal waste and less need for fertilizer for animal feeds. Buy organics, which use composted rather than raw manure for fertilizer.

Of course, if we hadn't channelized the Big Muddy and the Mississippi Delta were still a functioning wetland, very little of the pollution would make it to the Gulf. Arcata, CA has a wetland as part of its sewage treatment facility and it works beautifully, IIRC.

[Botany]

21. So how is your lawn?

[okoboji]

22. I don't do jack to my lawn....

Even the moles run rampant in my yard. Crab grass? You bethcha! Dandelions? Everywhere. And when I mow, the grass clippings are not bagged.

[IndyOp]

31. I am with you Okobohi -- my yard is a sanctuary for dandelions, clover,

violets, a variety of broadleaf grasses, and...



It is an itty-bitty yard, but it is NOT polluted.

[BornagainDUer]

24. Now see what happens when the Ortho fertilizer interests feel threatened

by government restrictions on their products. The co's that sell lawnmowers, garden supplies, etc.

They will all fight like hell to keep their products in high demand.

We are totally fucked!!

[kineneb]

35. what is a lawn?

we live next to Clear Lake (CA), and almost no one has a lawn, mostly because it costs so much to water the damned things. I keep the yard as a meadow, and just cut down the dry grass/weeds/native wildflowers only when it is dried out...once a year. Water is for plants that do something: smell good (heirloom roses) or produce food (the garden and fruit trees). Clear Lake has also had run-off problems, and we try not to contribute to them.

[BornagainDUer]

23. ONe of the most "progressive" regions in the US

Seattle, with its reputation for being avante garde on the environment, is now faced with Puget Sound waterways dying. The pollution levels continue to increase while biomass declines. Dead zones are already there with more to come.

The Atlantic Coast will have large swaths of fetid cesspools in the future.

We are totally fucked!! :scared:

[n2doc]

25. If they can't fix something as "simple" as hurricane damage there is no hope

At least, under this administration. I've used this problem as a teaching tool for years. You have 2 (at least ) groups fighting, the Gulf States vs. the farm states. Throw in big agribiz, fertilizer makers and big oil, and Lousiana has alot of power stacked against it. Unlike when ponds get eutrophied, and a small number of people can change their habits to change the environment, this problem affects people with a lot of money, and most importantly big agribiz couldn't give a s**t about the Gulf, except to the extent that it provides oil. It simply doesn't affect the farmers to have the Gulf die. They can still buy their imported shrimp and crabs at the local wallyworld.

And yes, this is coming to a coastline near you. If it hasn't already.

[StarryNite]

26. This is not good at all.

:scared:

[Uncle Joe]

27. Thanks for the thread Maddy McCall

Kicked and recommended

[19jet54]

29. Let's just pull a magic-wand out of our ass...

... in a democracy, the people vote "what's in it for me"? Just how do you purpose in stopping fertilizing the great plains, stopping over fishing the seas, and/or taking away the livelihood of so many voters?

[hatrack]

30. And the ethanol boom is only going to make this worse, for a couple of reasons

For one thing, ethanol subsidies and corn prices mean that there's going to more acreage planted in corn this year than ever before. Unlike soybeans, corn doesn't fix nitrogen, making even more nitrogen fertilizer applications necessary.

Also, higher corn prices mean that the Cargills and ADMs of the world are going to likely get rid of the Conservation Reserve areas remaining on their properties - buffer zones of natural prairie vegetation designed to break down and absorb excess nutrients in runoff.

[IndyOp]

33. Holy hell. Thanks hatrack. I was becoming disillusioned with biofuels -

and you helped! George Monbiot got me thinking:

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to talk about the role of hybrid vehicles, biofuels. In this year's State of the Union address, President Bush called for more investment into ethanol.

<snip>

GEORGE MONBIOT: This is a total disaster, and the reason it is a disaster is twofold. Number one, you set up a competition between feeding people and feeding cars, because you're producing those crops for biofuel on the same arable land which is currently being used to feed people. That competition will necessarily be won by the car drivers. The reason for that is that, by definition, those who are rich enough to run cars are richer than those who are in danger of dying of starvation. Already, with far less than 1% of the world’s transport fuel coming from biofuel, we’ve seen a doubling in the price of corn and a near doubling in the price of wheat. And this is having an impact on people all over the world.

The second reason why it's a disaster is that much of the new planting of biofuel is taking place on rainforest land or land which had other high carbon crops on it. And what we're seeing there is a massive impact, not just on biodiversity and on local habitat and environment, but also on climate change. In Malaysia and Indonesia now, the planting of palm oil for the biofuel market is the primary cause of deforestation. And one recent study shows that because you are cutting down tropical forests in order to plant it and draining peaty soils in order to plant it, every barrel of palm oil produces up to ten times as much carbon dioxide as a barrel of gasoline. Palm oil and most of the biofuels are actually worse for the planet than petroleum.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/18/1429219

[LibertyorDeath]

32. Plastic-Ocean

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we.shtml


By Susan Casey, Photographs by Gregg Segal
Feb 20, 2007 - 12:03:05 PM
A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse.

Captain Charles Moore Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life’s purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Little wind. Water the color of sapphires. Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.

Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita’s course, veering slightly north. He had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. For one thing, it was becalmed. “The doldrums,” sailors called it, and they steered clear. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had grown up in Long Beach, 40 miles south of L.A., with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He’d seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand; things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we.shtml

[IndyOp]

34. Okay. I'm stunned. Twice the size of Texas. Decreased fertility, cancer,

avoid polycarbonate baby bottles, deformed reproductive organs in embryos, epidemic of obesity...?

Whoa.

:shakes head slowly and sadly:

[LibertyorDeath]

36. Yes it's a very sobering article

We are destroying Nature bit by bit
there's a tipping point not to far off I think.

I have 2 young children & I fear for their future...

[emmadoggy]

37. "I have 2 young children & I fear for their future..."

Me too, LibertyorDeath, me too. :scared: :scared: :scared: