Researchers find elevated levels of heavy metals in North Texas fracking areas

Editor’s Note:  The AP Report below is one of many we could print that make a circumstantial link between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination.  How long are we going to go on reporting the damage and recommending “more studies?”  –Hardly Waite. 

ARLINGTON — Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington say there are elevated levels of arsenic and other heavy metals close to natural gas extraction sites in the Barnett Shale area of North Texas, according to a news release from the school on July 26, 2013.

Several scenarios — including disturbances from fracking, lower water tables from drought, removal of water used for fracking or industrial accidents such as faulty gas well casings — could release the dangerous compounds into shallow groundwater. “This study alone can’t conclusively identify the exact causes of elevated levels of contaminants in areas near natural gas drilling, but it does provide a powerful argument for continued research,” Brian Fontenot, the lead author on the new paper, said.

Arsenic, barium, strontium and selenium occur naturally at low levels in groundwater. But the release says fracking activities could elevate their levels. The results from the peer-reviewed study were published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Elevated levels for most of the metals were not found outside active drilling areas or outside the shale.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, uses chemicals along with water under high pressure to crack open rock formations and release oil and natural gas. Samples were gathered from 100 private water wells of varying depths within a 13-county area in or near the Barnett Shale during four months in summer and fall of 2011.

Additionally, the paper recommended further research on methanol and ethanol levels in water wells after 29 of the 100 wells in the study contained methanol. The highest concentrations were in the areas of fracking activity. The samples were compared to historical data on water wells from the Texas Water Development Board groundwater database for 1989-1999, before natural gas drilling activity ramped up.

Article Source:  Amarillo Globe News.

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BPA Plastics Study Yields Yet Another Disturbing “Less Is More” Finding

by Gene Franks

A recent Environmental Health News report on BPA plastic begins:

Baby mice exposed in the womb to low doses – but not high doses – of bisphenol A were fatter and had metabolic changes linked to obesity and diabetes, according to a new study published today. Building on previous studies that link the hormone-altering chemical to changes in body weight and glucose tolerance, the new research fuels an ongoing controversy over whether federal testing of chemicals is adequate to protect people from low doses. “What’s scary is that we found effects at levels that the government not only says is safe, but that they don’t bother to test,” said Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri, Columbia, professor and senior author of the study. Many of the effects were reported in the mice fed daily doses – just during pregnancy – that were one-tenth of the amount that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for daily exposure throughout life. Used in polycarbonate plastics, canned food liners and some thermal receipts, BPA is found in almost everyone’s body. Some earlier studies have linked it to obesity and diabetes in people.

The report goes on to explain that current water regulatory practices are carried out under the assumption that high doses are more potent than low doses, so if a chemical does not prove harmful at a dosage of 5 parts per billion, there is no reason to test it at a concentration of 1 part per billion.

Modern Science, like all belief systems, holds certain principles to be sacred and beyond challenge.  One of these is the idea that when a substance is present in a large amount it is more powerful than it would be in a smaller amount.  In other words, more is always more, and less is always less. On the occasions when less seems to be more, as with the current BPA issue,  the scientific establishment simply dismisses the finding as heresy.  If the heretic refuses to recant, he is burned at the stake.  Witness the case of the French scientist Jacques Benveniste, who in 1988 challenged the “more is always more” commandment and was  excommunicated by Orthodox Science.   Benveniste’s sin against scientific orthodoxy was to publish experiments demonstrating that water has the ability to remember substances whose physical presence has been entirely removed from it.  (See The Lost Genitals of Uranus, or How Is an Elephant like a Glass of Water?)

Less is more, of course, is not a revolutionary idea, although orthodox Science treats it like  one.  Less is more is a cornerstone principle of the science of Homeopathy, which calls it the Law of Infinitesimals,   There are countless well documented exceptions to the more is more dogma. The truth seems to be that more is most often more, but sometimes less is more.

Low doses of BPA spurred weight gain and other metabolic changes in baby mice.  Of the doses fed to the pregnant mice – 5, 50, 500, 5,000 and 50,000 micrograms per kilogram – 500 caused the most metabolic changes.  The number of fat cells doubled at the 500 dose. No effects were seen at doses higher than 5,000.

The entire belief system on which modern water treatment practices are based depends on upholding the principal that more is always more.  Without it, there would be chaos. How can we regulate water contaminants if we have to contend with the absurd notion that reducing their quantity may actually be making them more potent threats to human health?  And even it a contaminant is removed to a non-detectable level,  how can we be sure that humans are not being affected by water’s memory of the contaminant?

References: Environmental Health News .

Thanks for the Memory. Experiments Confirm Benveniste’s “Heretical” Research.

Why is cheap tea a threat to your health? For the same reason that tap water is.

 

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell:  New British research shows that the tea plant accumulates fluoride as it grows, with mature leaves containing the most fluoride. When tea is harvested, the older leaves are used to produce lower quality, stronger teas such as economy teas. The bud and newer top leaves are used in the  higher grade and specialty tea products. It is suggested that an adult consume no more than three mg of fluoride a day. The new study showed that on average, four cups of cheap supermarket tea provided six mg of the substance. Excessive intake of fluoride can cause a variety of health problems including joint pain, muscle weakness, osteoporosis, brittle teeth, kidney problems. Excessive fluoride has even been linked to cancer.

Adapted from  Could Cheap Tea Bags Make You Ill?  by Fiona Macrae.

Opting for cheap supermarket tea bags over artisan blends could have long-term health consequences, according to new research.

A study has found that cheap tea bags from supermarkets including Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco can push a person’s fluoride intake over daily recommended levels and put them at a higher risk of bone and dental disease.

Experts have now called for supermarkets and tea manufacturers to consider stating fluoride concentration as part of the nutritional information found on food packaging.

Levels of fluoride found in 38 tea products were compared by PhD student Laura Chan, Professor Aradhana Mehra and Professor Paul Lynch from the University of Derby.

Using Ion Selective Electrode analysis – which analyses trace elements, such as fluoride, in a liquid – of the dry tea, and of the tea infusions brewed with boiling water for two minutes, the researchers compared the fluoride levels consumed by someone drinking the average intake of four cups or a litre of tea a day.

It is recommended that an adult does not consume more than three to four mg of fluoride per day.

Yet researchers discovered that economy blends of tea contained between 75 per cent and 120 per cent of the recommended daily intake.On average, a litre of cheap supermarket tea contained six mg of fluoride.

They found significant differences in fluoride levels when economy black tea blends from supermarkets Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s were compared with branded black tea blends such as PG Tips, Twining’s and Typhoo.

They also found significant differences in fluoride levels between green tea blends including Clipper Organic leaf, Green Twining’s bags; pure blends such as Assam, Dilmah and Ceylon; and Oolong and Pu’er blends from India and Sri Lanka.

Economy black tea blends, such as Asda Smartprice, Tesco Value, Morrisons Value, Sainsbury’s Basics, and Waitrose Essential,  were found to have the highest concentration of fluoride – an average of six mg per litre.

Waitrose Essential was significantly lower in fluoride compared to the other economy black blends, however.

Infusions of green tea blends had the next highest concentrations of the substance, followed by branded black blends such as PG Tips, Twining’s and Typhoo, with an average of 3.3 mg per litre, compared to pure blends.

More specialist teas such as oolong and pu’er had the lowest concentrations of fluoride with an average of 0.7 mg per litre.

Excessive intake of fluoride can cause a variety of health problems.

In addition to tea, fluoride can be found in some seafood, fluoride-enriched toothpaste, drinking water in some areas of the country and in processed foods using fluoridated water.

Less seriously dental fluorosis can occur, which causes white and brown spots appear on the enamel of the teeth, and results in an unsightly ‘mottled’ effect.

This can be the first sign that fluoride has poisoned enzymes in the body.

Osteoporosis

But it can also cause skeletal fluorosis, a crippling disease that causes symptoms including bone and joint pain, muscle weakness and gastrointestinal disorders.

This tends to occur in people who have routinely consumed 10 to 20mg of fluoride per day for 10 to 20 years or  2.5 to five mg per day for at least 40 years. In the most severe cases, the spine becomes completely rigid.

Excessive fluoride consumption has also been linked to osteoporosis.

A higher incidence of kidney stones has also been recorded in areas with high fluoride levels in drinking water.

Research has also linked excessive fluoride exposure to bone cancer in young men. A 1992 study found that osteosarcoma rates were three to seven times higher in fluoridated water areas than non-fluoridated areas.

Ms Chan said: ‘The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, is a fluoride accumulator, with mature leaves accumulating most of the fluoride.

‘When tea is harvested, these older leaves may be used to produce lower quality, stronger teas such as economy teas, whereas the bud and newer top leaves are used in the manufacture of higher grade and specialty tea products.

‘Although fluoride is considered an essential micronutrient for human health, in the prevention of tooth decay and promotion of healthy bone growth, excess fluoride in the diet can have detrimental effects.

Dental fluorosis, the mottling of tooth enamel, and skeletal fluorosis, pain and damage to bones and joints through calcification, can occur.

‘People may be drinking excessive volumes of tea in addition to other dietary sources of fluoride and may not realise these potential health implications.

‘Indeed, there have been cases, in both the UK and the USA, of skeletal fluorosis in individuals who drank more than the average amount of economy tea,’ added Ms Chan.

‘All tea products should be considered as a main source of fluoride in the diet, and we would urge supermarkets and manufacturers of tea to consider stating fluoride concentration as part of the nutritional information found on food packaging,’ added Ms Chan.

The study is published in journal Food Research International

Source:  DailyMail.co.uk

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A New Online Tool from the Department of the Interior called Streamer

The US Department of the Interior has recently released a nifty online tool that they call Streamer.  Depending on your objective, it can be  a valuable research device or a lot of fun.

Streamer’s purpose is simple.  It is an interactive  map that allows you to trace a stream in either direction—upstream to its source or  downstream to where it ultimately empties. It also shows statistics for the  stream, such as its length, the political entities it passes through (states,  counties, and cities), origin elevation, and other information. A more detailed  report also shows all the US Geological Survey’s stream gages for that stream.

Following a stream in its entirety gives new meaning to the term watershed, which is a difficult concept for most of us to grasp.  Below is a Streamer map of the mighty Mississippi, with all its tributaries.  It shows all the 7,000 streams and 1.15 million square miles of surface area that drain into it.

The complete Mississippi

As good as it is, the Streamer is not complete.  McElligot’s Pool, for example, is omitted, and I could not find Cement River, which is what I call the drainage canal that carries a raging torrent near our business on rainy days in spring.

To trace the torturous wanderings of the streams that link with McElligot’s pool, you’ll have to rely on Dr. Seuss’s text.  It isn’t included in Streamer.

Go here to use the Streamer.

The new water technologies that could save the planet

by Will Henley

What are the new and emerging technologies that will help business overcome the scarcity of clean, fresh water?

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: The well was invented nearly 10,000 years ago–long before the wheel.  Countless subsequent inventions, some brilliant, some frivolous, and some downright fiendish, have changed the way we interact with water. Some of today’s innovative technologies seem to promise hope for the future. This article takes a look at new methods to process, conserve, and recycle water.

The well was a transformative invention, though it is often overlooked. This source of freshwater, vital for the expansion of inland communities, dates back nearly 10,000 years – 3,000 years before the wheel was ever imagined.

The well is but one of a long list of innovations in water technology that have enabled human development to continue apace. Sophisticated pipeline networks and treatment plants today furnish us with this elixir of life and industry. As intense pressure is placed on the planet’s limited water supplies, businesses are again turning to technological innovation. New and emerging inventions should see human civilisation through the 21st century and, with any luck, the next 10,000 years.

Tank from a high-tech British desalination plant.

Nanotechnology in filtration: According to the World Health Organisation, 1.6 million people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases attributable to lack of safe drinking water as well as basic sanitation. Researchers in India have come up with a solution to this perennial problem with a water purification system using nanotechnology.

The technology removes microbes, bacteria and other matter from water using composite nanoparticles, which emit silver ions that destroy contaminants. “Our work can start saving lives,” says Prof Thalappil Pradeep of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “For just $2.50 a year you can deliver microbially safe water for a family.”

It is a sign that low-cost water purification may finally be round the corner – and be commercially scaleable.

Membrane chemistry: Membranes, through which water passes to be filtered and purified, are integral to modern water treatment processing. The pores of membranes used in ultrafiltration can be just 10 or 20 nanometres across – 3,000 times finer than a human hair.

But while membrane chemistry has been around for several years, it remains a source of intense research and development. “Chemistry significantly contributes to innovative water treatment solutions, such as turning salt water into fresh water suitable for human consumption,” says Yannick Fovet, head of global development for water at chemical company BASF.

Recent breakthroughs have been credited with forcing down the cost of desalinated water from $1 per cubic metre to between $0.80 and $0.50 over five years. New ceramic membranes are helping to make treatment more affordable. “Membrane technology is increasingly important because system integrity, longevity and costs have improved,” explains Paul Street, business development director for engineering firm Black & Veatch.

Seawater desalination: Although holding much promise for the future, seawater desalination is still extremely expensive, with reverse osmosis technology consuming a vast amount of energy: around 4 kilowatt hours of energy for every cubic metre of water.

One solution being explored in Singapore, which opened its first seawater desalination plant in 2005, is biomimicry – mimicking the biological processes by which mangrove plants and euryhaline fish (fish that can live in fresh briny or salt water) extract seawater using minimal energy. Another new approach is to use biomimetic membranes enhanced with aquaporin: proteins embedded in cell membranes that selectively shuttle water in and out of cells while blocking out salts.

Harry Seah, chief technology officer for PUB, Singapore’s national water agency, says: “If science can find a way of effectively mimicking these biological processes, innovative engineering solutions can potentially be derived for seawater desalination. Seawater desalination can then be transformed beyond our wildest imagination.”

Smart monitoring: In developing countries alone, it is estimated that 45m cubic metres are lost every day in distribution networks. Leaks are not only costly for companies, but increase pressure on stretched water resources and raise the likelihood of pollutants infiltrating supplies.

“It does not make commercial sense to invest billions in additional reservoirs and water catchment, treatment plants [and] pumping stations, when as much as 60% of water produced is unaccounted for,” says Dale Hartley, director of business development at SebaKMT, a water leak detection specialist.

New monitoring technologies help companies to ensure the integrity of their vast water supply networks. Electronic instruments, such as pressure and acoustic sensors, connected wirelessly in real time to centralised and cloud-based monitoring systems will allow companies to detect and pinpoint leaks much quicker.

Smart sensors can detect pinhole leaks. Leaks now account for a significant amount of the world’s water usage.

Intelligent irrigation: Approximately 70% of the world’s freshwater is used by the agricultural industry. Applying a more intelligent approach to water management by deploying precision irrigation systemsand computer algorithms and modelling is already beginning to bring benefits to farmers in developed countries.However, while this approach embraces new instrumentation and analytical technologies, innovation comes from a change in mindset that emphasises the importance of measuring and forecasting.

“In the old days there was not so much stress on measuring because we thought we had plenty of water,” says Carey Hidaka, smarter water management expert at IBM. “It’s a bit of a paradigm switch for the water industry, which like others is used to throwing new engineering developments at problems.”

Wastewater processing: Engineering still has its place, however. Many people living in urban areas, even in advanced economies, still do not have their sewage adequately treated and wastewater is often discharged, untreated, into rivers and estuaries or used as irrigation water.

New technologies are promising to transform wastewater into a resource for energy generation and a source of drinking water. Modular hybrid activated sludge digesters, for instance, are now removing nutrients to be used as fertilisers and are, in turn, driving down the energy required for treatment by up to half.

“There is an urgent need for wastewater systems that are more compact, so that new plants can be built in urban areas where land is scarce and for upgrading and expanding extant facilities,” says Dr David Lloyd Owen, an advisor to the board of Bluewater Bio, a specialist in wastewater treatment.
Mobile recycling facilities: An unexpected by product from the explosion of the global hydraulic fracturing industry has been demand for highly mobile water treatment facilities. Investment is being channelled into reverse osmosis units that will allow companies to treat high volumes of water to extract gas and injected into the subsurface.

“There will be knock-on benefits as products [will be developed] with new applications where the price tolerance is much lower,” says Peter Adriaens, professor of environmental engineering and entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan.

Adriaens adds: “As these technologies develop and learn to treat high volumes of water, we will see cheaper, more potable treatment systems and we will start to move away from massive centralised treatment systems.”

Source: The Guardian.

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Getting Water to Undersink Water Filters and Reverse Osmosis Units

 by Gene Franks

The recent rise in popularity of flexible hoses to connect sink faucets has made undersink water filter installation a lot easier. The convenient flexible connectors have replaced rigid copper tubing as the connectors of choice.

For sinks that still have a solid copper pipe that takes water from the undersink shutoff valve up to the sink faucet, the old standby “saddle valve” is still the most frequently used inlet device.  Saddle valves are convenient and relatively easy to install, but they have their long-term disadvantages.

The saddle valve pierces the pipe with a small hole to allow water to flow to the water treatment device, so if you ever decide to remove the saddle valve, you’ll be left with a pipe with a hole in it and you’ll have to replace the pipe.  If you uninstall the water filter, the best solution is to leave the saddle valve in place and cap it. Go here for more saddle valve installation and use information.

Classic Saddle Valve.  The valve is used on solid copper pipe only.  After the valve body is clamped around the pipe and tightened, the red handle is screwed in, piercing the wall of the pipe.  The handle is then screwed out, allowing water to leave the pipe and enter the white tube on its way to the water filter. This type valve should be installed only on the riser going up to the faucet–never on the copper pipe upstream of the shutoff valve.

For installation on faucets with flexible risers (either stainless or plastic), water can be taken from the line by installing a special adapter into either the bottom connection, where the riser attaches to the shutoff valve, or to the top connection, where the riser connects to the stem of the sink faucet.  Although there are exceptions, in most cases the bottom connection is a 3/8” compression fitting and the top connection is a 1/2” pipe thread.

These easily inserted adapters are easily installed and easily removed if you uninstall the water filter.

The “Max Adapter” for installation on the lower end of the flexible riser.   To install, simply remove the 3/8″ compression nut, screw on the adapter, then screw the nut from the riser onto the top of the adapter. The fitting is easy to install, easy to remove. The blue handled valve is the on/off valve for the water filter.   

The inlet kit above is for installation on the top end of flexible risers.  All Pure Water Products undersink filters and reverse osmosis units come with an inlet kit suitable for the customer’s installation.  All kits include and inline valve (blue handle) that serves as the on/off valve for the water filter.   Inlet kits are also sold separately.

Phosphate giant Mosaic pumps from Florida’s aquifer to dilute its pollution

by Craig Pittman 

In a Nutshell:  Although this is hard to believe,  some mining companies are allowed to pump millions of gallons of fresh water from aquifers to dilute polluted wastewater from mining operations so it can be dumped into creeks without violating state regulations.  Florida’s Mosaic, the world’s largest phosphate mining company,  is permitted to pull 70,000,000 gallons per day from 250 wells in an area that has no water to waste.

Last year, a state water agency granted the world’s largest phosphate mining company a permit to pump up to 70 million gallons of water a day out of the ground for the next 20 years.Some of those millions of gallons of water — no one can say how much — is being used by the phosphate giant known as Mosaic to dilute polluted waste so it can be dumped into creeks without violating state regulations.The permit allows Mosaic to withdraw water from more than 250 wells in Hillsborough, Manatee, Polk, Hardee and De Soto counties, an area that since 1992 has been under tight restrictions for any new residential and commercial water use.”The water use is crazy,” said John Thomas, a St. Petersburg attorney who challenged the Mosaic permit on behalf of a client who ended up settling. “They’re pulling an awful lot of water out to discharge with their waste.”Odd though it may sound, that’s a standard practice for the phosphate industry, according to Santino Provenzano, Mosaic’s environmental superintendent.It’s allowed under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s rules, said Brian Starford of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, the agency commonly known as Swiftmud. Without that freshwater to dilute it, what Mosaic is discharging would violate the DEP’s limits on a type of pollution called “conductivity,” he explained. That term refers to the solids that are left in the waste after it’s processed.”If they were exceeding the standards, the DEP would not allow the discharge,” explained Starford, whose agency issued the Mosaic permit.

DEP press secretary Patrick Gillespie said using freshwater to dilute a phosphate plant’s discharge “is permissible and used only in closure activities or in storm-related activities in order to meet department water quality standards.”

Mosaic spokesman David Townsend said the company is only using freshwater for dilution with waste from inactive processing plants, which he said complies with DEP rules. He could not provide a list of where those were located or how many there were.

The diluted waste is discharged “usually into a creek or smaller water body that feeds into a larger one at some point,” he said.

The issue of how much water Mosaic pumps out of the ground was explored by a recent environmental impact study on phosphate mining that was commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The report found that the miners’ water use in some areas could lower the aquifer by up to 10 feet, but contended the aquifer would eventually recover when the pumping stopped.

The same agency that issued Mosaic’s water permit, Swiftmud, declared a 5,100-square-mile area covering all or part of eight counties south of Interstate 4 to be the Southern Water Use Caution Area in 1992. The reason: so much water had been pumped out of the aquifer in that region that the water table had fallen 50 feet.

Mosaic previously had a permit that allowed it to take up to 99 million gallons a day from underground, so the permit issued last year is a reduction. As of last month, the mining giant was pulling only 30 of its allotted 70 million gallons a day out of the ground, Provenzano said.

Half of that was being used in the mining process and the other half was being used at production facilities, he said. He said he could not specify how much was being used to dilute the pollution from some plants, a process the industry prefers to call “blending.”

In approving the Mosaic permit, Swiftmud officials had to rule that the company had offered “reasonable assurances” that its use of the water isn’t wasteful and won’t adversely affect downstream users and the environment.

But Thomas questioned whether Swiftmud or Mosaic have ever considered coming up with a different way to deal with the pollution. By repeatedly pumping millions of gallons of water from underground just for blending, he said, the company will leave behind “a swiss cheese aquifer with pools of groundwater contamination and cascades of diluted gyp stack waste for decades.”

Source:  Tampa Bay Times.

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Jordan’s Huge New Water Project

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: Jordan, one of the world’s 10 driest countries, just completed a billion dollar project to pump water from a 300,000-year-old southern aquifer.  Although the water is tainted with 20 times the safe amount of  radiation,  the pressing need for water is causing the government to put aside health concerns.  Having half a million Syrian refugees in the country has obviously made the water situation more intense.

Parched Jordan on Wednesday officially inaugurated a near-billion-dollar project to supply the capital with water from an ancient southern aquifer to help meet a chronic shortage.

King Abdullah II pushed the start button to begin pumping water from the 300,000-year-old Disi aquifer, 325 kilometres (200 miles) south of Amman.

“The Disi project will provide the capital and other governorates with 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of high quality drinking water every year,” water minister Hazem Nasser told a ceremony.

Jordan. One of the ten driest countries in the world.

“This amount covers 20 to 25 percent of Jordan’s drinking water needs.”

He said Turkey’s GAMA Energy firm built the water system in 48 months.

The water ministry started an experimental pumping of water from wells of the Disi aquifer last Wednesday.

Officials say the much-awaited $990 million project required 250,000 tonnes of steel and the digging of 55 wells to pump water from Disi to Amman, where the per capita daily consumption of its 2.2 million population is 160 litres (42 gallons).

The water ministry says Jordan, where 92 percent of the land is desert, will need 1.6 billion cubic metres of water a year to meet its requirements by 2015, while the population of 6.8 million is growing by almost 3.5 percent a year.

The demand for water is constantly rising in Jordan, which mainly depends on rainfall and is currently home to more than 500,000 Syrian refugees.

A 2008 study by Duke University, in the United States, shows that Disi’s water has 20 times more radiation than is considered safe, with radium content that could trigger cancers.

But the government and some independent experts have brushed aside such concerns, stressing that Disi water can be treated by diluting it with an equal amount of water from other sources.

Source:  SpaceDaily.

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The Iceman Cometh

If the climate takes your glacier away, why not build another?

In the Gazette’s effort to inform its readers of the very latest in water information, we offer the following recipe from The Economist for do-it-yourself glaciers.  If it works in India, it should work in Las Vegas. — Hardly Waite.

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2013 Hypoxia Zone Is Expected to Approach 9,000 Square Miles

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Gulf of Mexico may be far from the corn fields of the Midwest, but it’s those fields that are causing a big problem for the gulf coast water this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts a record-size “dead zone” in the Gulf this summer, stretching from South Texas all the way to Alabama.

Dr. Paul Montagna, Chair and Professor for the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI), has studied these “dead zones”, also known as hypoxia zones, for more than 20 years.

“The zone sets up in late spring and lasts throughout the summer,” said Montagna.

The “dead zone,” is caused when nitrogen-based fertilizer washes off farm fields, in the Midwest corn-belt, and ends up in the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf.     Just as nitrogen-based fertilizer makes corn grow, it also stimulates the growth of plants in the water, mainly algae.  The algae bloom and eventually die and decay.  This process removes oxygen from the water, resulting in oxygen-depleted water where marine life can’t live.

Hypoxia. A Dead Zone.

“The hypoxia zones are not dangerous to fish, but cannot support bottom-dwelling life such as clams, crabs and shrimp,” said Montagna.  “Because fish avoid these areas, commercial shrimp boats and recreational fisherman must go further out, to open water, to make their catch.”

Dr. Larry McKinney, Executive Director of HRI, says this yearly threat to the Gulf is caused by one thing, ethanol.

So what does the large size of this year’s hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico have to do with ethanol, made from corn grown in the Midwest?  Corn prices are high right now, so farmers are planting more of it.  While you can grow many crops without fertilizer, corn requires it.  The USDA estimates as much as 40 percent of last year’s corn crop was used to make ethanol.

Last summer was one of the smallest “dead zones” on record at 2,889 square miles.  Experts with NOAA say the drought in the Midwest last year kept runoff out of the Mississippi River.  This year will be just the opposite.  Heavy rainfall in the Midwest this spring led to flood conditions, with states like Minnesota and Illinois experiencing one of the wettest springs on record.  All of that flooding, along with bigger corn crops, means more fertilizer flowing into the Gulf.

“Dead zones” normally peak in July and August, and start to break-up in the fall.  The only thing that would fix the situation sooner is a tropical storm or a hurricane to stir up the water and re-oxygenate the area.

Source: Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi.  Reprinted in StormWater.