As we discussed in the first part of this series, the cause of these dead zones is anoxia brought on by natures defense of an excess of nutrient in the water. We further identified that excess of nutrient to come from a variety of sources. To save you from revisiting that article, some of the main culprits are:
So basically, every part of our current societal culture is feeding into the destabilization of life in our rivers, estuaries, and coastal regions. The fact that the contributions are so wide spread and diversified is one of the main reasons this problem seems so difficult to solve.
In an ideal world, we would collectively look at this and see that it was an issue, everyone would cooperate, and we would just stop all of the activities that are causing excess nutrient and other pollutants from entering the river system.
The thing is, even if we had the collective mind set this would require, many of the inputs feeding this problem are necessities rather than choices. For instance, under our current level of technology we HAVE to fertilize our crops and produce enough protein from animals that run off from our farms in virtually unavoidable. Well, at least as long as being able to afford feeding people is important.
Next to that, our population levels and density create a situation where water pollution is a difficult if not impossible issue to avoid. Even the things that are not necessary (lawn fertilization comes to mind), are so wide spread and endemic to our culture that eradicating them in the near term is just not a realistic goal.
So the next question has to be, what do we do about it? In our next section we will look into our current efforts to alleviate this nutrient pressure, why it doesn’t work, and start to explore some real solutions.
For more information on how to fix Dead Zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of other rivers, follow this link –>
