Dead Zones and Diets

Dead Zone isn't just the name of an Anthony Michael Hall vehicle. In the Chesapeake Bay, marine life face a scarier reality than anything Stephen King could conjure. As the Washington Post reports:

The phenomenon has been recurring in the Chesapeake whenever hot summer weather and pollution combine to trigger algae blooms that suck life-giving oxygen from the water. But this year’s dead zone was bigger than most, making 2014 the eighth-worst year since record-keeping began in the 1980s, according to monitoring data compiled by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.

That pollution is chemicals from fertilizer and wastewater that end up in the spring runoff that heads down rivers like the Susquehanna. Last week, the Baltimore Sun reported the Chesapeake's Dead Zone was at its 8th highest level. That was enough to spur declarations that the Dead Zone was "back with a vengeance" after a few relatively dormant years.

For the long term, however, there's at least one bright spot. Reporter Timothy B. Wheeler cites one example today near the point where the Susquehanna and Chesapeake meet that shows some life is starting to return.

But starting in the 1990s, the scientists say, there was a small decline in the amount of one nutrient, nitrogen, flowing from the Susquehanna. That alone was not enough to spur a rebound in underwater grasses, but a prolonged dry spell from 1997 to 2002 proved the tipping point, clearing up the water enough to allow more sunlight to reach the bottom and fuel new plant growth.

The Gulf of Mexico, which receives 40 percent of the country's runoff every year from the Mississippi River, has a Dead Zone problem the size of Connecticut.

The Dead Zone has become such a fact of life at the mouth of the Mississippi River that the research team now label their annual trip to measure its size as a cruise. On the 30th anniversary of the cruise, the Gulf's Dead Zone wasn't quite as big as it has been in record years, primarily due to lower rainfall totals than in those big years.

But it's not the rainfall that is producing the Dead Zone, it's the pollutants -- more specifically, the polluters. With the new levels in the Chesapeake making them feel fat once again, Maryland is going on a diet.

The pollution "diet" drawn up by the Maryland Department of the Environment calls for reductions in nutrients ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent in four of the five bays – Assawoman, Isle of Wight, Newport and Chincoteague. No pollution cutback is needed in Sinepuxent, the state determined, while reductions of up to 55 percent may be called for to improve water quality in the Bishopville Prong of Isle of Wight Bay, a particularly poorly flushed area, according to Tim Rule, who oversaw development of the state report.

Even though the pollution cutbacks won't completely stop the problem, they at least show that officials are willing to acknowledge Dead Zones and their crazy, choking algae. The Mississippi River could use the same kind of diet, with a formula that's tweaked for their state-sized problem. But the fish that inhabit the waters off the coast of Southeast Louisiana aren't holding their breath. There's no oxygen for them to breathe right now, anyway.