Another Dead Zone of Our Very Own!

It’s called “hypoxia” – oxygen-deprived ocean waters, life-killing effects of chemical, wastewater and/or agricultural runoff. A dead zone. The one above left is an annual spring-summer phenomenon that averages the size of the state of Connecticut. “The zone is formed by nutrients that wash into the Gulf's waters -- largely agriculture fertilizer and wastewater coming down the Mississippi River. These boost algae blooms [known as “harmful algae blooms” – HABs] that suck up the oxygen in deep water, according to NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Marine life struggles to find enough oxygen to survive within the zone… Fish and shrimp can migrate to areas with oxygen-rich water, but some life forms in the deep water and ocean floor -- including those that serve as food for the fish and shrimp -- can't get out of the zone and eventually die.” CNN.com, August 5^th. Good news, sort of… the zone is contracting a bit every year.

But as we are making progress here, even as this killing oceanic morass continues to rage against sea life “down there,” dead zones are blossoming all over this planet. “‘The number of dead zones throughout the world has been increasing in the last several decades and currently totals over 550,’ [according to Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.] Dead zones amount to an expensive hit for America's fishing industry. [The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] estimates the annual cost of algae blooms to U.S. seafood and tourism industries at $82 million or more.” CNN.com. Forgetting about the cruel slow suffocation of the life below, from a crass perspective of an overwhelming increase in the world’s population, we need these resources for our own deeply selfish purposes.

While some of these algae blooms are perfectly natural occurrences, it is precisely this population growth that creates the rather significant increase in the underlying pollutants that foment HABs and dead zones. But we have a new variable in the mix… climate change. And warming water only is a stimulant that accelerates algae growth. Some of these HABs form the infamous toxic red tides (as seen along the Florida coast). About 300 of the approximately 4,000 species of algae are, at one level or another, are able to generate such blooms.

SeaWeb.com provides us with Examples of the range of [HAB] impacts and their potential seriousness [that] include:

The initiation of recent cholera epidemics in South America; cholera bacteria thrive in zooplankton blooms, which are stimulated by algal blooms, where they are then widely available to be vectored into seafood and drinking water.

The recent emergence of Pfiesteria, the tiny "ambush predator"; this species has caused massive fish kills and human illness in North Carolina, and has recently become a problem in Maryland.

The death of 4 people and the hospitalization of over a hundred more in 1987 in eastern Canada when they consumed mussels contaminated with a previously undescribed toxin.

The death of over 150 endangered manatees in Florida in 1996; a ‘red tide’ of the species Karenia brevis, which produces brevetoxin was considered the cause.

“[These HABs are] everywhere and [they’re] hard to exterminate -- but when the sun comes up it doesn't scurry to a corner, it's still there, and it's growing, as thick as 3 feet in some areas… The algae have been linked to digestive, neurological and skin diseases and fatal liver disease in humans. It costs municipal water systems many millions of dollars to treat in the United States alone. And though it's more prevalent in developing countries, it grows on key bodies of water across the world, including Lake Victoria in Africa, the Baltic Sea, Lake Erie and bays of the Great Lakes, Florida's Lake Okeechobee and in the main reservoir for Raleigh, N.C.” ScienceDaily.com, April 7, 2008.

As you may have noticed by the references to fresh water sources in the above citations, these HABs are definitely not limited to oceans! They’re everywhere and getting worse. And sometimes, these hot little algae show up in some of the most inconvenient places. For example in Ohio, in early August, “Toledo's 400,000 residents were sent scrambling for bottled water because the stuff from the tap had gone toxic—so toxic that city officials warned people against bathing their children or washing their dishes in it. The likely cause: a toxic blue-green algae bloom floated over the city's municipal water intake in Lake Erie.” MotherJones.com, August 6^th. Appetizing, huh? Oh, they called off the alert when the algae level was reduced to “safe levels.”

The number of people who remain climate change deniers is narrowing, and there are now even evangelical ministers who are calling for greater human responsibility in creating the greenhouse gasses that have most certainly made this situation a whole lot worse. Yet our energy excesses are still costing us more and more at every turn. Nevertheless, we are still only talking about slowing the rate of our fossil fuel emissions growth, and we seem unable as a planet to reduce the overall level… at all. That the impact is cumulative doesn’t really seem to sink in. Frack away! Explore for more fossil fuel resources. China’s banning coal around Beijing by 2020… but their overall usage of coal-for-energy is exploding everywhere else. Come on people, we are running out of time!

 I’m Peter Dekom, and what does it take to get massive popular demand to stop adding to these malevolent greenhouse gasses?