As oceans fall ill, Washington bureaucrats squabble By LES BLUMENTHAL, McClatchy NewspapersSunday, 11.08.09 , Miami HeraldEvery summer a dead zone of oxygen-depleted water the size of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico; others have been found off Oregon and in the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, and the Baltic and Black seas. Some studies indicate [...]

Ocean 'dead zones' hard to predict By ERIC BERGER , HOUSTON CHRONICLENov. 6, 2009, 10:25PM      Scientist stymied when trying to forecast size and severity Most dead zones, including the large recurring one in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, are produced largely by fertilizer runoffs carried by rivers into the ocean. [...]

Mississippi diary: Dead zone By Nick ClarkNovember 2nd, 2009, AMERICAS BLOGPhoto by Getty Images Less than 70 km from the Gulf of Mexico, huge industrial plants flank the banks of the Mississippi, making use of its water. Combine this with the run-off from farmers’ fields and you get perilous cocktail. The Mississippi River helped build [...]

Mississippi diary: Operation Cajun By Nick Clark October 29th, 2009, Americas Share Photo by Marion Post Wolcott/Library Of Congress/Getty Images The lay of the land in Louisiana's south is very different these days. The French dialect once dominant here - less than a century ago - is almost gone. And its 7,000-year-old coastline is rapidly [...]

LUMCON gets $4 million for dead-zone research By Nikki Buskey , Staff WriterSaturday, October 31, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.The LUMCON marine-research center in Cocodrie has been awarded the money as part of a $12 million, five-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to better understand the dead zone, an area of low-to-no oxygen [...]

Ocean task force meeting in New Orleans Monday to discuss new policy By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune October 16, 2009, 5:57PMSeveral senior environmental officials with the Obama administration will be in New Orleans Monday to discuss a wide-ranging new ocean policy that could eventually lead to new laws governing everything from pollution to sustainable fisheries [...]

U.N. Panel Finds Environmental Assessments of Biofuels Lacking By BEN GEMAN of Green WireOctober 16, 2009 , New York Times The U.N. Environment Programme's report (pdf) concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affects the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways. "The available [...]

Vilsack robs Peter to pay Paul to address the hypoxic zone By Dennis KeeneySeptember 30, 2009According to the USDA news release, the initiative will be managed by the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) at USDA. Partner organizations will include state and local agencies and agricultural producers. Partners mentioned in an interview of NRCS chief David [...]

Gulf of Mexico concerns aired as key federal officials visit New Orleans By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune October 20, 2009, 4:55AM Jane Lubchenco is administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.     Comments for the national ocean policy task force reflected the wide-ranging pressures on the Gulf of Mexico's resources: oil and gas [...]

Orthodox patriarch pleads for environmental action By CAIN BURDEAU 2009-10-22 07:31 AM , Associated Press Standing beside the Mississippi River, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, made a plea Wednesday for more action to save the planet and stop destroying it "as if there is no tomorrow." "The dilemmas [...]