Dead in the Gulf

Dead in the Gulf

A “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico May Reach Historical Proportions this Year

August 26, 2011 Lindsey Blomberg

By: Simal Ali. 9/13/2011

Summary: In this picture The low-oxygen or “dead zone” portions of the Gulf of Mexico stretch across thousands of miles. Dead zones are oxygen-depleted, lifeless expanses of water. The dead zone in the Gulf, which is 60 miles off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, is one of the largest in the world and has more than doubled since the 1980s. In 2002, an shocking 8,400 square miles of the Gulf lacked quality oxygen for most of the marine life to survive. The lowest oxygen levels appear in red.Scientists predict that a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico could expand to between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles this year, and is roughly the size of New Jersey and Delaware combined. The Gulf’s dead zone is mostly caused by farming waste , according to the article some of the toxins in the dead zone include sewage,animal waste and car exhaust.And just to throw in an interesting fact the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the 164,000 tons of nitrogen that reached the Gulf this May was 35% higher than average!Aside from just the facts the massive dead zone poses as a serious threat for the future of Gulf fisheries and marine life populations already suffering from the ongoing effects of the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
The dead zone now has smaller than average testes and lower sperm counts. Reproduction rates that should average a 40-80% hatching rate were instead only producing a 10% hatching rate.Though the Gulf dead zone continues to expand, future restoration and recovery is possible. Examples of these types of recoveries has been seen in the Black Sea ,which contained the largest dead zone in the world during the 1980s. So maybe together we can make a change!

Opinion: To be honest at first I thought of this article, that this is just another problem that the living things on this planet have created for ourselves that we can not control or fix. Although as I read the entire article I decided maybe we can make a change! However before getting to that part I do have to say that I think that this is something that effects a lot of different things.for example it is effecting the marine life population because they are not producing as many testes and sperm as they were previously to the oil spill and the " dead zone". However on a more positive note the article also said that the record flooding along the Mississippi this spring has caused twice the amount of average runoff to drain into the Gulf, as this year’s high corn prices encouraged additional planting that resulted in excess amounts of fertilizer. So as you can see this event has created negative and positive effects on the earth. So while we might feel that this problem in our environment really does not effect us, it probably will eventually.

Questions:

-What types of things can we avoid using on a daily basis to maybe help recover from this problem?

- How long might it take to recover from this problem?

- Dead zone effect local areas to for example streams, lakes, and beaches?