Goal is to shrink Gulf dead zone, but that’s not happening

NEW ORLEANS — Decades of work haven’t shrunk the oxygen-depleted “dead zone” that forms each year in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana and Texas. “The action plan to reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone was established over 20 years ago, yet this year’s forecast is comparable to the 35-year average zone,” said the University of Michigan’s Don Scavia, who leads one of several research teams working with NOAA. “The Gulf dead zone remains the largest hypoxic zone in United States waters, and we want to gain insights into its causes and impacts,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. The Interagency Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force uses NOAA’s hypoxia forecast models and USGS nutrient monitoring to set nutrient reduction targets across the Mississippi watershed states. “The Hypoxia Task Force has a transformational opportunity to further control nutrient loads in the Mississippi River Basin and reduce the size of the hypoxic zone using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding,” said John Goodin, director of EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds.