Contact: Eliot Hurwitz FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(301) 713-3066 11/17/95
A six-year study has established the critical role of Mississippi River-borne nutrients in oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico, and mapped the extent and severity of the Gulf's so-called "dead zone," the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced.
The Nutrient Enhanced Coastal Ocean Productivity project study was funded by NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program. Researchers will highlight their findings at the Louisiana Coastal Hypoxia Conference to be held in New Orleans, La., on Dec. 5-6, 1995.
Study findings have aroused concern over oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in the dead zone, so-called because fish and shrimp cannot flourish in the low-oxygen bottom waters. This low-oxygen condition (hypoxia) results from high nutrient inputs that encourage algal growth. In the summer of 1995, the dead zone covered a 7,000-square-mile area off the Louisiana coast that stretched to the upper Texas coast.
The Louisiana Coastal Hypoxia Conference will bring important stakeholders in the Gulf together with scientists to develop a plan of attack in dealing with the hypoxia problem. The conference is in response to a January 1995 call for action -- based largely on the studies of project investigators -- made in a letter from a group of eighteen environmental organizations, social justice groups, and fishing associations to the governor of Louisiana and other Louisiana and federal officials. The letter requested that action be taken to deal with violations of Louisiana water quality standards caused by nutrients carried into the Gulf from the Mississippi River watershed.
According to Mark Davis, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, "The health of our coast and the health of the Gulf are inseparable. The research on the dead zone funded by NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program has helped make that dramatically clear. When it comes to responsible stewardship of our natural resources, what we don't know can hurt us. Indeed, without the NOAA-funded dead zone research, we wouldn't be seeing the concerted effort to deal with the management of nutrients in the Gulf and the Mississippi River that is now getting underway. That's something that people who question the value of research should think about."
Nutrient Enhanced Coastal Ocean Productivity project researchers speaking at the conference represent many organizations including NOAA, universities and the private sector. Dr. Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Drs. Eugene Turner and Bill Wiseman of Louisiana State University, key project researchers who have been studying and mapping the dead zone, will speak at the conference. Dr. Victor Bierman of Limno-Tech Inc. has developed a project water quality model about which he will speak. The model will be helpful to water quality managers in the Gulf in understanding the impacts of nutrients on the Gulf inner shelf and in testing nutrient control strategies. Dr. Don Harper of Texas A&M University at Galveston will delineate effects of low oxygen on benthic and demersal organisms; Dr. Churchill Grimes, director NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service Panama City (Fla.) Laboratory, will address fisheries issues.
The Coastal Ocean Program was formed to provide a focus in NOAA that cross-cuts the agency's coastal missions and funds high-quality research through a partnership approach joining NOAA scientists with academic researchers. This research is aimed at finding management solutions that will protect coastal resources and ensure their availability now and in the future.