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 [...]

Floods Raise Runoff Concerns By JEFFREY BALL, The Wall Street Journal5 May 2011  Workers use a boat to recover supplies from a flooded grain elevator in Caruthersville, Mo., a farm town along the swollen Mississippi River.  The Ohio and Mississippi River levels were falling Wednesday at the site where engineers blasted holes in a Missouri [...]

Cleaning up Cedar Creek By Gailsburg Radio 14 WGIL30 April 2011A group of about 30 volunteers walked along the banks of Cedar Creek in Galesburg Saturday to pick up trash.  The clean up is organized each year by the Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce and Knox County Soil and Water Conservation District.  Specialist Kara Downin [...]

Agriculture tied to gulf 'dead zone' By UPI.com28 April 2011CHAMPAIGN, Ill., April 28 (UPI) -- The spring rains drenching the U.S. Midwest may lead to an eventual environmental problem of oxygen "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers say. Researchers at the University of Illinois and Cornell University warn that phosphorus and nitrate pollution [...]