Hydrologists find Mississippi River network's buffering system for nitrates is overwhelmed By ScienceDaily.com11 May 2014  The map shows the fractional amount of surface water that is likely to enter the hyporheic zone, where it can undergo filtration. Orange and red represent areas experiencing a lower fraction of water entering the hyporheic zone. Dark blue areas [...]

CORRECTION: BIOFUELS-GLOBAL WARMING STORY By Dina Cappiello, Associated Press22 April 2014WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a story April 20 about new research showing biofuels made with corn leftovers are worse for global warming than gasoline in the short term, The Associated Press erroneously reported that cellulosic biofuels that failed to release 60 percent less carbon than [...]

Geography in the News: The Gulf of Mexicos Dead Zone By Neal Lineback and Mandy Lineback Gritzner, Geography in the NewsTM30 March 2014The Gulf’s Growing Dead Zone With rising demand over the past decade for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol, American farmers have grown more corn than at any time since World War II. Unfortunately, [...]

Mississippi Basin Water Quality Declining Despite Conservation By Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic11 April 2014 Canals crisscross the Mississippi River Delta near Golden Meadow, Louisiana, where nutrient pollution remains a problem.  PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. U.S. federal scientists say water quality has declined in the massive Mississippi River Basin in recent years due [...]

E.P.A.s Proposed Rules on Water Worry Farmers By Ron Nixon, The New York Times12 March 2014Water rarely flows in one of the streambeds — it really seems to be little more than a small ditch — that Dean Lemke points out to a visitor on his 800-acre farm in Dows, Iowa. “I wouldn’t even call [...]

Portman hopes bill floats in House By Tom Jackson, Sandusky Register1 April 2014   U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, hopes to convince the U.S. House that his water bill holds water.   The Senate has approved Portman’s bill to combat harmful algal blooms. The measure has now advanced to the House. “There is no companion bill in the [...]

Wal-Mart pushes plan to reduce fertilizer By Jonathan Ellis, USA Today16 March 2014Retail giant Wal-Mart could hold a key to reducing water pollution while making agriculture production more efficient in a program that conservationists and agricultural groups are touting as a "win-win." Wal-Mart, which embarked in 2009 to develop sustainability measurements of products it sells, [...]

Portman algae bill waiting for House By Heather Rutz, civitasmedia.com27 February 2014WASHINGTON — A bill that would put more federal money into combating algae blooms has passed the Senate and been introduced in the House. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, and Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, co-sponsored the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research [...]

Portman Bill to Combat Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Passes Senate By PoliticalNews.me21 February 2014Washington, D.C. – Bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2013, passed the United States Senate. The Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research [...]

$1-million contest for solution to 'dead zones' By Bill Capo, WWLTV Eyewitness News17 February 2014      Many summers a so called "Dead Zone" appears in the Gulf of Mexico, an area with oxygen levels in the water so low marine life can't survive. It can be a huge problem for Louisiana. "The overall impact [...]