Troubled Waters: One year later, more trouble ahead By BRIAN DEVORE, TC DAILY PLANET19 September 2011 Algae growth caused by too many nutrients in a west-central Minnesota lake in June 2011. (Photo by Brian DeVore) BRANDON, Minn. — A three-hour drive separates the rolling hills of Minnesota’s Douglas County from the front steps of the [...]
Gulf champion Nancy Rabalais gets her due By Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune 19 September 2011Marine ecologist Nancy Rabalais has been mapping the dead zone that forms off Louisiana's coast for 27 years, work that has been critical in understanding and focusing attention on this important environmental issue. The Heinz Family Foundation has named her a 2011 recipient [...]
Effects of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee By TOM LEIGH and TIM JUNKIN Notes on the River 18 September 2011Drenching rains from remnants of Tropical Storm Lee produced the second-largest water flows from the Susquehanna River into the Bay since Hurricane Agnes in June 1972. Flows from Agnes were measured at more than 1 [...]
Chesapeake Bay fouled by Susquehanna flooding By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun15 September 2011The Chesapeake Bay looks like a dirty bathtub, its waters turned brown with mud and awash in pollution and floating debris, including uprooted trees, propane tanks, even a battered dining-room chair. Braving boat-damaging hazards, scientists are swarming over the bay to see if [...]
Oxygen level hits record low in Mobile Bay By Associated Press6 September 2011MOBILE -- Researchers say the water in Mobile Bay contained some of the lowest levels of oxygen on record last month. Scientists say heavy rainfall across Alabama earlier this year pushed large amounts of water carrying fertilizers, animal waste and other pollutants into [...]
AFTER IRENE: Last week's hurricane purges Chesapeake Bay's dead zones By AP News7 September 2011WASHINGTON — Hurricane Irene's high winds breathed a little life into the polluted Chesapeake Bay, bringing some short-term relief to wildlife by temporarily eliminating the estuary's vast dead zone, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The bay's dead zone [...]
Your Chicken Nuggets Are Killing Your Crab Cakes By Tom Philpott, Mother Jones28 July 2011Every year in the Chesapeake Bay, an algae bloom spreads out, sucking oxygen out of the water and destroying fish habitat. This year's "dead zone" stretches from Baltimore Harbor to south of the Potomac River, the Washington Post reports. It's on track to [...]
EPA Impaired Waters Listing May Open Door To Mississippi Nutrient Limits By Inside EPA23 August 2011 EPA is poised to decide in the coming weeks whether to list coastal waters in Louisiana as impaired for dissolved oxygen (DO), a decision that environmentalists hope could begin a regulatory process to restrict nutrients in upstream Mississippi River [...]
Friend and foe: Nitrogen pollution's little-known environmental and human health threats By Michael Bernstein and Michael Woods, American Chemical Society 28 August 2011DENVER, Aug. 28, 2011 — Billions of people owe their lives to nitrogen fertilizers — a pillar of the fabled Green Revolution in agriculture that averted global famine in the 20th century — [...]
Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other waters require a tougher approach: Donald Scavia By Donald Scavia, Times Picayune2 September 2011This year’s Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, an area with oxygen so low it cannot support life, covered 6,800 square miles. Had it not been for Tropical Storm Don stirring the waters, it [...]