June 28, 2010 5:32 PM

Gulf Dead Zone Grows as No-Fishing Area Expands

By
Charles Cooper
Topics
In The News ,
Tech Talk
As oil from the Deepwater Horizon explosion spreads across the Gulf of Mexico, the government has expanded the no-fishing area near Florida's panhandle.

Fishery Closure Boundary as of June 28, 2010

(Credit: NOA)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had decided to expand the fishing closure from its current northern boundary as a precautionary measure to make sure consumers don't eat seafood contaminated by the gulf oil spill. All told, a little more than 80,000 square miles, or 33 percent of Gulf of Mexico's federal waters, are now considered a closed area.

Because this remains an evolving situation, NOAA said that it will retest the area and reopen fisheries when they are deemed safe.

Meanwhile, commercial fishermen in the Gulf, who harvested more than one billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2008, face another threat to their livelihood: a growing "dead zone" with little or no oxygen in the water.

Growing Dead Zone

Scientists tracking this phenomenon for the last few years say the affected area measures between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles - a stretch approximately the size of New Jersey. The dead zone has averaged 6,000 mile the previous five years.

2010 Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Forecast

Until the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the chief culprit for the Gulf dead zone was thought to consist of farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste. Each spring, waste products carrying nitrogen and phosphorus flow down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf, feeding what's been explosive growth in algae. After the algae die and decompose bottom-dwelling bacteria consume oxygen that otherwise would be available for bottom and near-bottom waters. Thus, the creation of the dead zone.

Dead zone in the Gulf

(Credit: Donald Scavia)

The presence of millions of gallons of oil has the potential to exacerbate the problem. As the oil breaks down, the chemical process consumes oxygen and also reduces the diffusion of oxygen from the air into the water. At the same time, the oil might also restrict the growth of hypoxia-fueling algae, helping to limit the size of the Gulf dead zone.

The five largest Gulf dead zones on record have occurred since 2001. The biggest occurred in 2002 and measured 8,484 square miles.

"The growth of these dead zones is an ecological time bomb. Without determined local, regional and national efforts to control them, we are putting major fisheries at risk," said University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia.

He added that the presence of toxic oil this year has created a "one-two punch that could seriously diminish valuable Gulf commercial and recreational fisheries."

"While there is speculation out there as to how the oil spill might impact the dead zone, we are simply not sure at this point," he said in an email interview with CBSNews.com. "As bacteria decompose the oil, it will use up oxygen and that may make things worse. Also, oil in the water may impede the transfer of oxygen from upper layers to the lower layers and that could make it worse." Ironically, the presence of oily water may prove a short-term boon in terms of slowing the growth of algae. Scavia said the oil could be toxic to algae, reducing its production, and minimizing the amount of organic matter that gets decomposed in the bottom water.

"That would make things better," he said, adding that the oil may shade the algae and also reduce production, making the dead zone better this year.

"In either case, the combo of oil and the dead zone is not good for the coastal communities," he said.

  • Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.

Add a Comment
by Consumer007 June 29, 2010 12:14 PM EDT
Thanks to the dumb-a$$ reporter the map he posted is fuzzy. Obviously he doesn't work in the television part of CBS, I can just imagine the feedback he would get if that went on live television.

The internet should be no different. Fix it now.

Oh and on the other map, how nice you help BP minimalize the tragedy by making a pretty attractive rainbow map out of calamity.

Please somebody please fire Charles and hire a decent reporter.
Reply to this comment
by ganttbarb2 June 28, 2010 11:18 PM EDT
This is a survival decision.
Do we as a species make responsible decisions?
Do you choose to stand for a sustainable future?

Excerpts for more study: Copenhagen Climate Summit ANTHROPOCENEAN
AGE OF RESPONSIBILITY The "anthropocene"P.J. Crutzen Max-Planck-lnstitut for Chemistry, J.-J. -6echer- Weg 27, 551 28 Mainz, Germany Abstract Human activities are exerting increasing impacts on the environment on all scales, in many ways outcompeting natural processes. This includes the manufacturing of hazardous chemical compounds which are not produced by nature,such as for instance the chlorofluorocarbon gases which are responsible for the "ozone hole". Because human activities have also grown to become significant geological forces, for instance through land use changes,
deforestation and fossil fuel burning, it is justified to assign the term "anthropocene" to the current geological epoch. This epoch may be defied to have started about two centuries ago, coinciding with James Watt's design of the steam engine in 1784.

global sustainable environmental management
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
ESSP Earth systems science partnership
http://www.essp.org/
France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland
sustainability of ecosystems
4 principles
Reliance on Solar Energy
Biodiversity
Population Control
Nutrient Recycling
global sustainable environmental management
To develop a world-wide accepted strategy
leading to sustainability of ecosystems
against human induced stresses will be
"population explosion and "unbridled consumption"
one of the great future tasks of mankind,
requiring intensive research efforts and
wise application of the knowledge thus
acquired in the no?sphere, better known as
knowledge or information society.
An exciting, but also difficult and
daunting task lies ahead of the global
research and engineering community to guide
mankind towards global,
sustainable, environmental management (15).

http://geology.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=37&gps=96_154_1259_848&f=00&su=p897.9.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/%7Eair/anthropocene/Text.html
IGBP Scientific Committee,

http://www.stanford.edu/~jonallan/Chakrabarty.pdf
Alan Weisman?s
The World without Us
Barry Commoner,
The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology (1971)
Paul Ehrlich, The End of Affluence:
A Blueprint for Your Future (1974)
Just consider the 65-million year-old K-T boundary extinction event.
More recently, think long and hard about the 1908 Tunguska Event,
in which an asteroid spectacularly self-destructed and produced an
http://www.psi.edu/projects/ktimpact/ktimpact.html
impact comparable to about 185 Hiroshima bombs in the Siberian
wilderness.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
4.5 million different seed samples.
So far, 400,000 seed samples from 22 countries
have entered the buried halls of Svalbard.
Enter the New York University-based
Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC),
which, along with the European Space Agency,
really wants to establish a vault on the moon.
Hadean Eon meteor bombardment
Medical Hypotheses, researcher Sergio Dani of Brazil's
Medawar Institute for Medical and Environmental Research,
explored the fate of human societies. A prior theory,
formulated by UCLA's Jared Diamond, hypothesized that guns,
germs and steel strongly affect our outcome.
Toni Lopes, who is associate director of global energy
management programs
at the University of Colorado Denver
The Earth is in the middle of its sixth mass extinction.
Kasey-Dee Gardner finds out
why they happen in the first place,
Frank Fenner
He says the Earth has entered the Anthropocene.
Although it is not an official epoch on the geological
timescale, the Anthropocene is entering
scientific terminology. It spans the time since
industrialisation, when our species started to
rival ice ages and comet impacts in driving the
climate on a planetary scale.
Fenner will open the Healthy Climate,
Planet and People symposium at the
Australian Academy of Science next week,
as part of the AAS Fenner conference series,
which is designed to bridge the gap between
environmental science and policy.
Fenner says the real trouble is the
population explosion
and "unbridled consumption".
Reply to this comment
by wyodutch June 28, 2010 10:18 PM EDT
Big deal... so there's a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
.
You people think that's the only concern the Empire has????
.
Good Lord... the Empire has the perpetual "war on terror" to keep rolling... not to mention the $3,000,000,000 a week cost of keeping Iraq and Afghanistan occupied. Now the Empire has also got Yemen and Iran as the next enemy, so there's at least two more wars to plan.
.
YOU try being an Empire for a day or two... see how YOU do.
Reply to this comment
by MNBantisbanned June 29, 2010 1:44 AM EDT
Geeze I couldn't agree with you more. This gulf gusher seems like its barely a blip on Obama's radar he is so focused on those darn Talliban. The big infrastructure rebuilding president we hope for he is not. I am wondering if they are softening us up for a big currency devaluation so we can go back to being a big world-class manufacturing center with 3rd world wages. I hope this doesnt sound too idiotic..
by notsosuretoo June 29, 2010 8:36 PM EDT
Please, don't compare the US to an Empire. If the government acts like an Empire sometimes, it is because WE let them do it. WE elected our leaders, they don't assume their position because of royal status or because they take control like a military coup or dictator. So if you aren't happy about what your elected leaders are doing, DO WHAT THE REST OF OF DO, and get involved in the political process and work for change. After all, that is how Obama got elected in the first place.
by MNBantisbanned June 28, 2010 7:40 PM EDT
haha. They could have plugged up this gusher a month ago but according to President Bill Clinton, they don't want BP to lose any money from their well. I was asking my friend earlier this morning who stands to gain from the BP oil gusher and Pres Bill answered it for me. The only one who stands to gain is BP. The only way Pres Obama could have come out ahead is if they would have blown the well right away. Now he looks like an oil company shill who will never be reelected.
Reply to this comment
.

Follow Tech Talk

Scroll Left
Scroll Right More »
CBS News on Facebook
  • Building You a Better Morning

  • CBS This Morning

    "CBS This Morning," anchored by Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill, airs weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. ET and at the same time in other time zones.
    Learn more...