Increase in 'Dead Zones' Starving the World's Seas--Independent/UK

[Gloria]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=638531


Increase in 'dead zones' starving the world's seas
'Dead zones', where pollution has starved the sea of life-giving oxygen, are increasing at a devastating rate
By Andrew Buncombe and Geoffrey Lean

15 May 2005

It has arrived early; it's bigger than ever and it promises a summer of death and destruction. The annual "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico - starved of oxygen, and thus killing fish and underwater vegetation - has appeared earlier than usual this year.

This is just one sign of a rapidly growing crisis. The number of similar dead zones in the world's seas has doubled every decade since 1960, as a result of increasing pollution. The United Nations Environment Programme says that there are now 146 of them worldwide, mainly around the coasts of rich countries. Its executive director, Klaus Töpfer, calls their growth "a gigantic, global experiment ... triggering alarming, and sometimes irreversible, effects".

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone - which can cover more than 7,000 square miles - is mainly caused by fertilisers, flowing down rivers to the sea. Every year the Mississippi river - which drains 41 per cent of the United States - dumps 1.6 million tons of nitrogen in the gulf, three times as much as 40 years ago. Most comes from the highly productive corn belt, which helps to feed the world. The nutrients feed blooms of algae and phytoplankton. The algae drain oxygen from the water, as do the decomposing bodies of the plankton, when they fall to the seabed and die.

It hits a fishery that provides one-fifth of the country's entire harvest from the sea. As a result, catches of brown shrimp, the gulf's most important species, have dropped since 1990. The worst years match those with biggest dead zones, which appear to block juveniles from reaching their offshore spawning grounds. Last year, the dead zone was even blamed for a tripling in shark attacks on Texas bathers. Fish and swimming crabs flee the pollution for cleaner water, followed by the sharks.

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[Karenina]

1. The oceans are dying.

:kick:

[DrDebug]

2. I guess it means that the 40% reduction of

excess nutrition from the Mississippi river by 2003 has not been accomplished.

The Growth of the Dead Zone

As early as the 1950's and 1960's shrimp trawlers reported observing isolated patches of low or no catches as well as "dead" or "red" water, but it wasn't until the 1970's that hypoxia was scientifically documented off the Gulf Coast in several environmental assessment studies. Systematic survey of the size and timing of the Dead Zone began in 1985. These surveys show that from the years 1985 - 1992 (not including the low flow years of 1988-89) the Dead Zone grew from slightly below 4000 sq. miles to just above 4000 sq. miles, or around the size of Massachusetts. Then, after the floods of 1993, the Dead Zone exploded to a size of 7000 sq. miles, a size comparable to the entire state of New Jersey.

http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/waterquality/deadzone.asp

[HeeBGBz]

3. That makes me sick inside

It also is breaking my heart. We're in a downward spiral and there's no place to go. What will be left for our grandchildren?

[DELUSIONAL]

4. Not much will be left for the 7th generation

or even the next couple of generations.

That this would happen was predicted decades ago and my husband and I decided not to have children. BUT we do have nephews and nieces and we hope that they can cope -- and clean up the messes left by our generation and our ancestors.

As long as people have the - pie in the sky - religious nut case belief that they will go to "heaven" -- then I don't see much hope for saving the here and now.

[sweetheart]

5. funny the correlation of 41% to DU

When posted, the correlation of DU that is draining to the mississippi
is 39% living in the area where 41% of the united states is... so it
seems DU is a random population sample:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3649722&mesg_id=3649722&page=

[jwirr]

6. The sad thing about this is it means nothing

to the bushies and his right wing repugs. They just shake their heads and say, "It's another sign of the end times. Jesus is coming."