Let me open by apologizing to New Jersey. I know its a tired trope, and Jersey has been cleaned up in a substantial way….but hear me out. First off, it is an understood trope. Just saying Jersey makes most people think stinky, filthy, and half dead. Secondly, that isn’t even why I chose Jersey for the comparison.
The real reason is because the Dead Zone is 900 square miles larger than it was forecast to be, so now it is closer in size to New Jersey than my former comparison to Connecticut.
The fact that people associate New Jersey with filth isn’t my fault either, by the way.
Back to the subject at hand.
Its so bad, that it is even being reported in USA Today, where I saw this article.
So what does that mean exactly?
Well it means that an area roughly the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico is devoid of life because our society dumps too many nutrients into our river systems and doesn’t clean them up. Those nutrients come from a variety of sources including farm run off, suburban lawn run off, city sewage incompletely treated, and of course industrial waste. In addition to that an area twice that size has substantial limitations to what life it can support, and an area triple the size of New Jersey is somewhat limited in what it can support.
Folks, never mind that Americas shrimp and other fishery industries are dependent on the Gulf of Mexico. Go ahead and ignore the fact that Gulf Tourism is substantially based on a beautiful Gulf. Our oceans and worldwide fisheries are in peril.
The Gulf of Mexico and ALL other river mouths worldwide are at similar risks. Besides overfishing, this is the largest risk to the health of our oceans….where roughly 17% of the already malnourished planets protein is sourced. Again, never mind that better than HALF of our oxygen is generated by marine plants.
The other thing it means is the issue is getting worse rather than better, which tells us that what we are doing now to fix it is not working. We have to start NOW.
Start with sharing this article, or my whole River Refugium Project Page. Make donations. Tell people about the issue. Tell wealthy people they can make money cleaning it up. Help write grants to get projects like this one (or this one specifically) funded. Be noisy about it.
So basically the same as always. Learn, educate, fund, act.
For more information on how to fix Dead Zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of other rivers, follow this link –>
