EPA turns a blind eye to Gulf of Mexico dead zone
Every year, agricultural runoff from Midwestern states pumps extraordinary amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi River. These chemicals collect at the mouth of the river, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. This causes a dead zone in the Gulf, in which low oxygen levels decimate marine life, rendering it devoid of fish and aquatic plant life:
Scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium led by Nancy Rabalais, PhD., found this year's dead zone is the second largest on record since measurements began in 1985 and is larger than the land area of Massachusetts.
Rabalais said the dead zone would have been even larger if Hurricane Dolly had not passed through the area, churning up the waters and restoring some oxygen to the zone's edges.
This year marks the second largest dead zone recorded in the Gulf (8,000 square miles), yet the EPA refuses to regulate agricultural runoff from those Midwestern breadbasket states. Apparently, agribusiness is more important than water quality:
In a report last October, the National Academy of Sciences that the EPA had shown little leadership to clean up these waters, calling the Mississippi River an "orphan." The report concluded that, "the EPA has failed to use its mandatory and discretionary authorities under the Clean Water Act to provide adequate interstate coordination and oversight of state water quality activities along the Mississippi River."
While the EPA twiddles its thumbs, our coastal waters and the main river basin of this country become ever more polluted. Such failures of policy and of leadership are no longer a surprise, given the long dark years of the Bush administration. Whichever candidate wins the election, he should clean house at EPA on day one.