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Deadzones UQ---Squo Efforts Fail

Dead zones are caused by nutrients that overtake the ecosystem, and clean up efforts other than OMEGA have proven to be ineffective in the Gulf of Mexico in the past 15 years

Paine, Victor. "What Causes Ocean "Dead Zones"?" Scientific American Global RSS. Scientific American, 25 Sept. 2012. Web. 14 July 2014.

So-called dead zones are areas of large bodies of water—typically in the ocean but also occasionally in lakes and even rivers—that do not have enough oxygen to support marine life. The cause of such “hypoxic” (lacking oxygen) conditions is usually eutrophication, an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, leading to excessive blooms of algae that deplete underwater oxygen levels. Nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff are the primary culprits, but sewage, vehicular and industrial emissions and even natural factors also play a role in the development of dead zones.¶ Dead zones occur around the world, but primarily near areas where heavy agricultural and industrial activity spill nutrients into the water and compromise its quality accordingly. Some dead zones do occur naturally, but the prevalence of them since the 1970s—when dead zones were detected in Chesapeake Bay off Maryland as well as in Scandinavia’s Kattegat Strait, the mouth of the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the northern Adriatic—hints at mankind’s impact. A 2008 study found more than 400 dead zones worldwide, including in South America, China, Japan, southeast Australia and elsewhere.¶ Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath (about the size of New Jersey) of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out. Besides decimating the region’s once teeming shrimp industry, low oxygen levels in the water there have led to reproductive problems for fish, leading to lack of spawning and low egg counts. Other notable U.S. dead zones today occur off the coasts of Oregon and Virginia.¶ Fortunately, dead zones are reversible if their causes are reduced or eliminated. For example, a huge dead zone in the Black Sea largely disappeared in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union, after which there was a huge spike in the cost of chemical fertilizers throughout the region. And while this situation was largely unintentional, the lessons learned have not been lost on scientists, policymakers and the United Nations, which has been pushing to reduce industrial emissions in other areas around the globe where dead zones are a problem. To wit, efforts by countries along the Rhine River to reduce sewage and industrial emissions have reduced nitrogen levels in the North Sea’s dead zone by upwards of 35 percent.¶ In the U.S., dead zones have also been reduced in the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay following clean-up efforts. Hypoxic conditions continue to plague the Gulf of Mexico, however, with matters made worse by pollution unleashed by Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, as well as by a federal push to increase Midwest corn production, which effectively loads even more algae-inducing nutrients into the already overloaded system. The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, a coalition of federal, state and tribal agencies, has been busy monitoring the dead zone and recommending ways to reduce it since its formation in 1997. But with industrial and agricultural activity throughout Gulf and Midwestern states only increasing—and Mother Nature not making the job any easier—the task force has an uphill battle on its hands to say the least.

The dead zones around the US are getting worse and current efforts to stop it are all failing

Alexander, Heather. "New $1M Prize Seeks to Reduce 'dead Zone' in Gulf."Houston Chronicle. Houston Chronicle, 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 14 July 2014.

Tulane University is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can come up with an effective way to reduce the size of the annual dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where water quality deteriorates and marine life disappears each year.¶ The dead zone is caused by nutrient runoff in the form of fertilizer from farming and sewage processing all along the Mississippi River. Nutrients cause hypoxia, a condition where oxygen levels in the water drop dramatically, decimating the marine population.¶ Despite efforts on a state and federal level, the problem is getting consistently worse.¶ "There are a lot of people frustrated," said Nancy Rabalais, executive director and professor of the Louisiana univerisities marine consortium laboratory. "Since 1985, when we started monitoring it, there has been no improvement in the dead zone. It is getting worse."¶ Last year, the dead zone measured 5,840 square miles, an area bigger than Puerto Rico. Two years ago, flooding in Memphis caused the level to rise even higher to almost 7,000 square miles. It can stretch all along the coast of Louisiana and into Texas and peaks in July and August.¶ "Normally where we see hundreds of fish, we'll see hardly any fish," said Jerry Mambretti, Sabine Lake Ecosystem leader. "We'll see exoskeletons (shell remains) of crabs, that's about it."¶ Tulane University said the $1 million prize is to motivate someone to come up with a solution. ¶ "This is a big issue, it has a huge economic impact on us and it's increasing all around the world," said Tulane President Scott Cowan. "The initial reaction has been extremely good."¶ The $1 million prize is coming from philanthropist Phyllis Taylor. The federal Office of Science and Technology plus agencies on a state level are working on the parameters for success, then Tulane will adminster the competition. ¶ "We need to get grounded in the specifics of what defines success here, then the process of finding a winner could take two to four years," Cowan said.¶ The hope is that the contest will inspire scientists and entreprenuers to accelerate programs they're already working on or come up with new better ideas to curb nutrient runoff. ¶ With millions of dollars already being pumped into this issue and little or no impact being seen, the fear is another million will be a drop in the ocean.¶ Central to the issue is the fact that the problem is caused many hundreds of miles from where the effects are felt. Plus there are political forces at work, according to Nancy Rabalais.¶ "We have a social and political situation that supports continued supplements for farming and we have a global economy that's demanding more and more corn and soy beans," said Rabalais.¶ Corn and soy bean production accounts for 52 percent of the nitrogen flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The majority of the other main culprit, phosphorous, comes from pasture and range farming.¶ Producers in up-river states like Iowa have to be persuaded to change their ways and specific rules over nutrient levels have not been forthcoming. Even in states that are directly affected, like Florida, the U.S. environmental protection agency has failed to enforce them.¶ In 2011, Pinellas County, Fla., sued the EPA saying that restrictions would cost them millions of dollars to implement.¶ Rabalais would not comment on the Tulane competition specifically but said in the current climate it's highly unlikely the goal of a dead zone reduced to 200 square miles will ever be met.

Nutrient-caused dead zones around the US are proven to be harmful to aquaculture and local economies, and all solutions have failed thus far.

NOAA, (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). "NOAA, Partners Predict Possible Record-setting Dead Zone for Gulf of Mexico." NOAA, Partners Predict Possible Record-setting Deadzone for Gulf of Mexico. NOAA, 18 June 2013. Web. 15 July 2014. .

Scientists are expecting a very large “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico and a smaller than average hypoxic level in the Chesapeake Bay this year, based on several NOAA-supported forecast models.¶ NOAA-supported modelers at the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium are forecasting that this year’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic “dead” zone will be between 7,286 and 8,561 square miles which could place it among the ten largest recorded. That would range from an area the size of Connecticut, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia combined on the low end to the New Jersey on the upper end. The high estimate would exceed the largest ever reported 8,481 square miles in 2002 .¶ Hypoxic (very low oxygen) and anoxic (no oxygen) zones are caused by excessive nutrient pollution, often from human activities such as agriculture, which results in insufficient oxygen to support most marine life in near-bottom waters. Aspects of weather, including wind speed, wind direction, precipitation and temperature, also impact the size of dead zones.¶ The Gulf estimate is based on the assumption of no significant tropical storms in the two weeks preceding or during the official measurement survey cruise scheduled from July 25-August 3 2013. If a storm does occur the size estimate could drop to a low of 5344 square miles, slightly smaller than the size of Connecticut.¶ This year’s prediction for the Gulf reflect flood conditions in the Midwest that caused large amounts of nutrients to be transported from the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf. Last year’s dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was the fourth smallest on record due to drought conditions, covering an area of approximately 2,889 square miles, an area slightly larger than the state of Delaware. The overall average between 1995-2012 is 5,960 square miles, an area about the size of Connecticut.¶ A second NOAA-funded forecast, for the Chesapeake Bay, calls for a smaller than average dead zone in the nation's largest estuary. The forecasts from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Michigan has three parts: a prediction for the mid-summer volume of the low-oxygen hypoxic zone, one for the mid-summer oxygen-free anoxic zone, and a third that is an average value for the entire summer season.¶ The forecasts call for a mid-summer hypoxic zone of 1.46 cubic miles, a mid-summer anoxic zone of 0.26 to 0.38 cubic miles, and a summer average hypoxia of 1.108 cubic miles, all at the low end of previously recorded zones. Last year the final mid-summer hypoxic zone was 1.45 cubic miles.¶ This is the seventh year for the Bay outlook which, because of the shallow nature of large areas of the estuary, focuses on water volume or cubic miles, instead of square mileage as used in the Gulf. The history of hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay since 1985 can be found at the EcoCheck website.¶ Both forecasts are based on nutrient run-off and river stream data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with the Chesapeake data funded with a cooperative agreement between USGS and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Those numbers are then inserted into models developed by funding from the National Ocean Service’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS).¶ "Monitoring the health and vitality of our nation’s oceans, waterways, and watersheds is critical as we work to preserve and protect coastal ecosystems,” said Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and acting NOAA administrator. “These ecological forecasts are good examples of the critical environmental intelligence products and tools that help shape a healthier coast, one that is so inextricably linked to the vitality of our communities and our livelihoods.”¶ The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico affects nationally important commercial and recreational fisheries, and threatens the region’s economy. The Chesapeake dead zones, which have been highly variable in recent years, threaten a multi-year effort to restore the Bay’s water quality and enhance its production of crabs, oysters, and other important fisheries.¶ During May 2013, stream flows in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers were above normal resulting in more nutrients flowing into the Gulf. According to USGS estimates, 153,000 metric tons of nutrients flowed down the rivers to the northern Gulf of Mexico in May, an increase of 94,900 metric tons over last year’s 58,100 metric tons, when the region was suffering through drought. The 2013 input is an increase of 16 percent above the average nutrient load estimated over the past 34 years.¶ For the Chesapeake Bay, USGS estimates 36,600 metric tons of nutrients entered the estuary from the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers between January and May, which is 30 percent below the average loads estimated from1990 to 2013.¶ “Long-term nutrient monitoring and modeling is key to tracking how nutrient conditions are changing in response to floods and droughts and nutrient management actions,” said Lori Caramanian, deputy assistant secretary of the interior for water and science. “Understanding the sources and transport of nutrients is key to developing effective nutrient management strategies needed to reduce the size of hypoxia zones in the Gulf, Bay and other U.S. waters where hypoxia is an on-going problem.”¶ “Coastal hypoxia is proliferating around the world,” said Donald Boesch, Ph.D., president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “It is important that we have excellent abilities to predict and control the largest dead zones in the United States. The whole world is watching.”¶ The confirmed size of the 2013 Gulf hypoxic zone will be released in August, following a monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium beginning in late July, and the result will be used to improve future forecasts. The final measurement in the Chesapeake will come in October following surveys by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s partners from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.¶ Despite the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Nutrient Task Force’s goal to reduce the dead zone to less than 2,000 square miles, it has averaged 5,600 square miles over the last five years. Demonstrating the link between the dead zone and nutrients from the Mississippi River, this annual forecast continues to provide guidance to federal and state agencies as they work on the 11 implementation actions outlined by the Task Force in 2008 for mitigating nutrient pollution.¶ NOAA’s National Ocean Service has been funding investigations and forecast development for the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico since 1990, and oversees national hypoxia research programs which include the Chesapeake Bay and other affected bodies of water.¶ USGS operates more than 3,000 real-time stream gages and collects water quality data at numerous long-term stations throughout the Mississippi River basin and the Chesapeake Bay to track how nutrient loads are changing over time.