After years of study and work, federal agencies, the states, and Native-American tribes have now agreed on how to attack hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental Scientist Kenneth Teague of EPA-Dallas says many scientists believe the problem is caused by too many nutrients flowing down the Mississippi River. Discharges from sewage and industrial wastewater treatment plants throughout the Mississippi Basin.
Nutrients are good.
Too many nutrients cause algae to grow too fast and consume too much oxygen from the waters. Fish and marine life need oxygen to breathe just like we do. The size of the Gulf hypoxic zone varies from year to year, extending every summer from the mouth of the Mississippi westward toward Texas. Sometimes it can be as large as the state of Connecticut, and form as early as February and last until October. The Action Plan Developing a hypoxia plan for Gulf was not easy, not only because so many government groups were involved, but also because many of the answers to the problem were hundreds of miles north in the cornfields and cities of the Midwest.