Noaa Predicts Dead Zone Size Of New Jersey In Gulf Of Mexico...

[Kelroy]

Interesting article on the nitrate/hypoxia relationship, from last year. ~K

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/mississippi-river-nitrate

[Wayne SW/MO]

We don't prioritize as a nation. We fall into the gloom and doom of global warming while ignoring chemicals in our water supply, pandemic threats, overuse of fertilizer, the consequences of a global warming, no matter the cause, that is out of our control and the list goes on.

[DLM84]

You know there are people out on the water that don't give a frack and just toss crap into the river. But try and tell a farmer that stuff he is spraying on his fields is going down the drain and into the streams and you will get laughed at. try and show him how this is culminating into that "Dead Zone" and he will recommend you to the nearest insane asylum. We just got to get the word out better. This sort of stuff needs to be on the evening local news every time it comes out till people realize our impact on the planet as a society.

[Al Agnew]

People have an unlimited capacity to believe what they want to believe and disbelieve what they don't want to believe. Farmers know about this, but won't do anything about it until forced to do so, because anything they do cuts into their profit margin one way or another. So they'd rather not believe it's the problem it is. And when there is money involved, that's to be expected. And even if forced to do something about it, that would probably mean higher food prices for everybody.

The thing about most pollution issues is that they involve hidden costs. Somebody pays those costs. Either the farmer pays them by doing something that cuts into his profit margin, the consumer pays them because of higher food prices, or the Gulf of Mexico "pays" them, and the fishermen and the towns along the Gulf that depend upon the fishing industry pays them. In most pollution problems, it's the local people and the environment they have to live in that pays the costs, while the rest of us enjoy lower food prices, lower natural gas prices, lower energy costs, etc.

[drp shot dandy]

I have been meaning to see if I can find some urban pollution numbers to do with yard and garden fertilization. I have worked in landscaping and in agriculture and I have to say that when it comes to responsible use of fertilizer the homeowners and lawn care companies do their share of damage over applying fertilizer on yards and landscaping that are planted in a shallow amount of topsoil layered over very poor soil in the case of the Ozarks, solid rock which has no nutrient retention value, after the fertilizer comes the over watering which transports the nutrients.

As someone who has set in classrooms full of Ag students and listened to their take on the environment the problem not only of over fertilization but most environmental issues is generational. As more and more people who are involved agricultural production become educated and move away from the "well that's how dad did it" mindset combine with the fact that fertilizer cost money and that cost is going up the problem of over application should fade more so because producers are starting to realize that over fertilization is as good as throwing away money than any other, but there will always be a few that refuse to realize the impact they have on everyones world and their own bottom line.

The issue that the amount of nutrients in the water this year is skyrocketing is largely because of the drought. No one I have ever met can tell me if its going to rain in a month let alone two months or more, which means when row crop farmer fertilizes in most cases late April he has no clue if its going to rain in May, June and July when his crop would use the nutrients. In the case that no rain falls and your crop dies and the nutrients are not used but left in a fallow field and then like this spring very large amounts of rainfall before the next crop can even be planted the nutrients in the soil will leach down through the soil which will filter to a point in a good situation in a bad situation if the fertilizer is applied after the last rainfall and remains on top of the soil which becomes baked hard and loses its ability to take on water very well followed by rain which will become largely runoff and taking with it anything small and water soluble, like most fertilizers. Is the actual size of the kill due to the amount of fertilizer used? yes. Is the fact that if every producer did exactly what they should this would still happen? yes. Unless you follow the idea that no fertilizer should be used and in case we should all get used to spending 30% or more of our income on food instead of the average 9.4% here in the USA. As stated above someone somewhere will pay the cost of producing food be it at the store, people in the gulf, or people starving when they can't buy and don't have the resources to grow their own or when we refuse to give it to them.

[Bill B.]

Reread this quote from the story:

"They occur in oceans all over the place, but the one in that consumes vast swaths of the Gulf of Mexico is especially huge. Here's how huge: this year, NOAA expects that dead zone will be between 7,286 and 8,561 miles wide."

The entire PLANET is only 24,000 miles in circumference at the equator. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico cannot be 7,000 or 8,000 miles wide. Perhaps the writer meant the DZ will cover that many square miles? That would make more sense.

[joeD]

The destruction of our planet is caused by mega corporations filling the needs of the billions of humans who exist on Earth. This is the downside of 21st century life. Yet, there are untold multitudes of people and businesses that try to ease our consumptive burdens with constant innovations. Such is human life. Yin and yang.

PS: An asteroid Al? Huh. I guess. Makes sense. "Hey, since we cannot explain why the dinosaurs expired, let's just say the earth got hit with a rock from outer space long ago. Caused mass destruction. Sound good? Excellent. Done and done. Case closed."

[Bill B.]

There is GOOD physical evidence that a large object struck the Earth 65 million years ago--at the exact point in history when the dinosaurs disappeared. No one is just pulling an explanation out of nothing.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, although some archaeologists believe that the dinosaurs were already declining, perhaps due to volcanic eruptions and accompanying climate change, there's little dispute that a large object struck the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous. It's believed to have struck in the Gulf of Mexico along the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula. It also left evidence in the form of a thin layer of iridium in rock formations all over the world. That layer forms the "K-T Boundary", (Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary) and marks the end of the Cretaceous. Iridium is very rare in the Earth's crust, but is a common ingredient of asteroids. The Chicxulub Crater is about 112 miles in diameter, and caused one of the world's greatest extinction events, wiping out around 75% of the world's species (not just dinosaurs). Dinosaur fossils are common right up to the boundary, and none have ever been found above it.