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.
An estimated quarter of all phosphorus runoff in the Midwest and 40% of all nitrogen runoff from farming practices comes from just three states — Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.
Sluggish progress on reducing nutrient runoff into the Bay marks an inconvenient truth, but offers lessons for others seeking to clean their watersheds.
Worsening local effects on health and recreation in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin are spurring action on problems that also cause the Gulf of Mexico’s chronic 'dead zone.'
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.
One year away from a federal deadline to reduce nutrient runoff into the Gulf of Mexico by 20%, increases in tile drainage, livestock and fertilizer use have made success unlikely.
Many residents of Nebraska are unknowingly consuming nitrate, an odorless, colorless contaminant that’s widespread in the state’s groundwater. They consume it when they shower, when they cook, when they turn on the taps to get a glass of ice water to drink.
The so-called dead zone where the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico, an area of low oxygen that cannot sustain life, clocked in at 3,275 square miles this year — below the recent average and smaller than what was previously predicted, but almost twice the target goal set by the Gulf of
