Farm Runoff in Mississippi River Floodwater Fuels Dead Zone in Gulf By JENNY MARDER, PBS News Hour18 May 2011  A dead zone -- already the size of the state of New Jersey -- is growing in the Gulf of Mexico, fueled by nutrient runoff from the swollen Mississippi River. This year, with floodwaters from the [...]

Flood Water Plus Fertilizer Runoff Creates a Dead Zone the Size of New Jersey By BEN JERVEY, Good20 May 2011 Natural processes used to occasionally create a "dead zone" of oxygen-poor water grows in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It would happen when nutrients from upstream got washed out to sea, feeding phytoplankton [...]

Does a Monster Flood Have to Fuel a Monster Dead Zone Too? By Julia Whitty, Mother Jones13 May 2011  Sediment-laden water pours into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. Credit: Norman Kuring, Ocean Color Team. As you can see from the image above, a lot more than water comes down a [...]

Flooding could spur largest ever dead zone By Nikki Buskey, The Daily Comet14 May 2011 HOUMA — The massive amount of nutrient-heavy river water pouring out of spillways and through the mouths of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers will likely trigger a record-setting Gulf of Mexico dead zone, an area of low-to-no oxygen water that [...]

Mississippi River Flooding: Pollution, Fertilizers, Sewage in the Flood Waters; ABC News Does its Own Testing By Ned Potter, ABC News11 May 2011  Trash floats by flooded homes on the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn. on May 9, 2011. (Mark Humphrey/AP Photo)   The great Mississippi River flood of 2011, cresting south of Memphistoday, carries a mix of fertilizer, [...]

Governor Jindal Says State Preparing for Possible River Flooding, Corps of Engineers Considering Opening Morganza Spillway By State of Louisiana Office of the Governor4 May 2011BATON ROUGE – Governor Bobby Jindal today held a Unified Command Group meeting with the heads of state agencies and the US Weather Service along with the Army Corps of Engineers [...]

Bonnet Carre will open Monday as "massive amount of water" heads down Mississippi By By Matt Scallan, The Times-Picayune5 May 2011 BATON ROUGE -- The Bonnet Carre Spillway will be opened on Monday to relieve levees along the Mississippi River that are strained by what Gov. Bobby Jindal described as "a massive amount of water heading our way." "BRETT [...]

State prepares for water By Advocate Staff Report5 May 2011 Mississippi River water encroaches upon the levee system at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola ferry landing Thursday, May 5, 2011.(Richard Alan Hannon/The Advocate) Corps: Bonnet Carre Spillway to open Monday The Bonnet Carré Spillway will be opened on Monday, May 9, due to high [...]

Morganza Spillway may be opened next week to divert Mississippi River By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune4 May 2011The Corps of Engineers  may open the Morganza Spillway near Baton Rouge next week to divert massive amounts of Mississippi River water into the Atchafalaya Delta. It would mark the first time since 1973 that the diversion structure [...]

Environmental groups sue Chicago over its sewage By International Business Times4 May 2011Environmental groups on Tuesday sued the city of Chicago's water treatment authority, charging its sewage promotes algae growth that is choking Midwestern rivers and contributes to the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone." The federal lawsuit demands Chicago's Metropolitan Water Reclamation District deal with frequent [...]