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Environment

Cuts In Nutrients Called For Mississippi

November 26, 2007 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 85, Issue 48

States, the federal government, and farmers need to do more to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds entering the Mississippi River, concludes a draft report released last week. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, characterized by extremely low levels of oxygen, has failed to get smaller despite efforts to curb introduction of nitrogen and phosphorus, both plant nutrients, into the Mississippi. Excess nutrients encourage large blooms of algae off the northern coast of the gulf in the spring. The tiny plants die and are decomposed by bacteria, a process that depletes oxygen levels in northern gulf waters. The draft report released by the federal-state Gulf Hypoxia Task Force suggests strategies designed to make greater cuts in nutrient levels during the spring, when algae begin to reproduce. It also recommends promoting more cost-effective conservation practices to prevent nutrient runoff from farm fields and measuring nitrogen and phosphorus discharges from wastewater treatment plants and industrial facilities in the Mississippi River Basin. The draft report is available at www.epa.gov/msbasin.

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