Gulf Dead Zone
Nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River basin and surrounding waters has been an issue of great importance for water quality consultants, regulatory bodies and other invested parties. One organization that holds a stake in the efforts to curtail such pollution is the Hypoxia Task Force, which recently announced that it has created new strategies to speed up the reduction of nutrients in the waterways of the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin.
The looming issue of Mississippi River nutrient pollution
Excessive levels of nutrients can do great harm to water quality and aquatic ecology, as a surplus of phosphorus and nitrogen can give rise to algae blooms that use up oxygen needed by plants and animals living in the waters. These excess nutrients are generally caused by runoff from wastewater treatment plants, city streets and farm fields, among other sources.
"The Gulf of Mexico dead zone spans thousands of square miles."
Nutrient pollution has become a growing concern for the Gulf of Mexico, where phosphorus and nitrogen carried by the Mississippi River have accumulated to create a dead zone. This dead zone, in which living flora and fauna have difficulty thriving and surviving, spans thousands of square miles. The key to tackling this problem in the Gulf of Mexico is reducing the amount of such nutrients in the source: The Mississippi River and its distributaries.
The Hypoxia Task Force and its proposed strategy
The Hypoxia Task Force, which is affiliated with the U.S. Geological Survey and made up of a dozen state agencies, was developed in 1997. The aim is to better comprehend the causes and effects of over-enrichment of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico as well as to develop solutions to reduce the dead zone created from hypoxia.
On Feb. 12, 2015, the task force announced its new set of strategies for expediting the reduction of the amount of nutrients in the Mississippi River basin as well as that of the tributary, Atchafalaya River. Each summer, the flow of nutrients from these sources causes the Gulf of Mexico dead zone to grow, so each state in the task force has created an outline of the steps it will take to decrease the flow of phosphorus and nitrogen from stormwater and wastewater to these basins.
The Gulf of Mexico is plagued by a massive dead zone caused by excess nutrients delivered by the Mississippi River.
Task force states' plans for nutrient reduction
Some of these state-specific proposed solutions include:
Wisconsin intends to use funding from the state government and the Clean Water Act to broaden the reach of its conservation efforts. It will allow for nutrient pollution reduction in 45 watersheds and critical sites of the Mississippi River Basin.
Iowa has developed a Water Quality Initiative that focuses on education and outreach, tracking and accountability, water quality practices across the state and the development of watershed projects.
Minnesota will allot $221 million in state funding to back watershed restoration and protection, groundwater protection, aquatic ecology monitoring and other initiatives.
In addition to supporting state-led strategies, the task force as a whole will concentrate on a set of nutrient reduction efforts. These include identifying funding needs and potential resources for such funding, developing effective quantitative measurement techniques and working with federal agencies implementing their own nutrient-reduction strategies.
The task force will also create new partnerships and expand on old ones with other invested parties, such as businesses, universities and various nongovernmental organizations actively working toward the reduction of nutrient pollution and improvement of aquatic ecology. However, the efforts to decrease pollution in the water basins have been left largely up to each separate state.
"The task force will concentrate on various nutrient-reduction efforts."
"Each of the states within the Mississippi River Basin are best able to understand what they need to do to achieve these aggressive goals," Bill Northey, Iowa co-chair of the task force and the state's agriculture secretary, said. "The Hypoxia Task Force has been supporting the states as they develop voluntary, science-based strategies that work to achieve the shared goals of our states."
Patience is a virtue
The task force originally intended to decrease the dead zone from its current span of 6,000 square miles down to 2,000 by 2015; however, it has changed that target date to 2035. While there has been great progress in certain areas, a much larger cutback in phosphorus and nitrogen than initially expected will be required, as Ellen Gilinsky, senior advisor for Water for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and co-chair for the task force, explained in a press release.
"It's going to take time to vastly improve water quality in very large bodies of water like the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico," Gilinsky said. "Federal agencies and states are committing to comprehensive actions and increased resources to spur progress on the ground and in the water."