Due largely to lagging runoff prevention efforts in the Midwest, the low-oxygen area in the Gulf of Mexico is bigger than expected this year, imperiling marine life across nearly 4 million acres.
This summer’s 'dead zone,' a low-oxygen area where the river empties into the sea, could span 5,827 square miles across the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana has the power to call for change.
While industry proponents still see the EPA’s administrator as their foe — deserving of Louisiana prison time, one says — environmental groups say that the agency’s lagging standards lead to increasingly polluted wastewater.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released earlier this month, warns of wide-ranging climate impacts throughout the United States. The implications for people and the environment in the Mississippi River basin are extreme, but experts stress that it is not too late to slow the worsening effects
