Voluntary Fertilizer Cuts Not Enough To Shrink Gulf Dead Zone: Study

"Major voluntary strategies used on Midwest farmland to curb fertilizers that feed the annual low oxygen "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico don't remove enough nutrients to succeed, according to a new, peer reviewed scientific study.   

But combining those strategies with new techniques, including strategically restoring wetlands in some Midwest locations, could reduce nitrogen runoff from farmlands by 45 percent, said the study published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association.

The Environmental Protection Agency has set a 45 percent reduction goal in nitrogen pollution as necessary to reduce the size of the Gulf dead zone to less than 1,930 square miles. Last August the dead zone was 5,052 square miles, according to measurements by a team of scientists with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium."
 
Mark Schleifstein reports for the New Orleans Times-Picayune February 3, 2015.