When Fertility Leads To A Dead Zone

For the last century, Americans have been stuck in a simplistic mechanical model of prosperity: The more we produce, the more prosperous we become. One of the most profound refutations of that model is the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, a great area of the Gulf of Mexico, spreading from the delta of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where no marine animals can live.

This dead zone is created by the great industrial agricultural push in America’s MidWest. For generations, farmers have been told by the government that they’ll be most successful if they fertilize their fields with fertilizers created, not through the natural decay of plant materials, but in factories far from the field. Those fertilizers then run off into streams that feed into rivers that feed into the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico. There, the fertilizers create such an intense bloom of plant growth in the water that the decaying plant material creates a vast stretch of water in the Gulf of Mexico that is starved of oxygen, and kills any animal unlucky enough to swim into it.

The maps below show the results of a recent study by the US Geological Survey, tracing these fertilizers, nitrogen and phosphorus back to the states upstream where they enter the Mississippi River watershed.

The following states have only 31 percent of the area in the Mississippi River watershed, but they contribute 75 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus that lead to the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone:
Illinois
Iowa
Indiana
Missouri
Arkansas
Kentucky
Tennessee
Ohio
Mississippi

That study ought to have been done by the US Department of Agriculture, given that it’s agriculture that delivers so much of the pollution into the dead zone. People ask what good organic, sustainable farming does us. This new USGS study makes it clear. Organic, sustainable farming could spare us dead zones.

Support Gretchen Clearwater’s Challenge to Baron Hill

Baron Hill has a troubled history with the people in the 9th congressional district of Indiana, which he currently represents in Congress. He’s been voted out of office before, and only regained his seat in the 2006 congressional election. In 2008, Baron Hill is up for re-election, not just in November, but also in the Democratic primary.

Though he is a Democratic politician, Baron Hill’s position with Democratic voter is not strong. Congressman Hill has a long, sad history of voting in support of the policies of George W. Bush.

On the issue of liberty in America, Baron Hill has a particularly troubling record. Recently, Hill voted for the Protect America Act, a rotten new law that enables the federal government to engage in massive unsupervised electronic surveillance programs, reading our emails, listening to our telephone calls, and tracking us as we move around the Internet – and to do it all without getting a search warrant or providing any other evidence that the spying is anything other than politically motivated.

Why would Baron Hill vote in favor of such a thing?

Baron Hill has a lot of powerful allies who are determined to keep him in Congress, but he also has a dedicated challenger: Gretchen Clearwater. Clearwater wants to end Baron Hill’s arrogant abuse of Democratic voters in Indiana. Her platform is simple:

Complete, prompt and safe withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq

Civil liberties, equal rights and justice for all

Single payer universal healthcare

Jobs for American workers that provide, at minimum, a living wage

Affordable, quality education for all
Strong environmental protection, renewable energy and ending dependence on oil
Protection of the election process to ensure fair elections and campaign finance reform

If you live in Indiana’s 9th congressional district, please support Gretchen Clearwater and her challenge to Representative Baron Hill.

Indiana Focuses on BP Dumping Plan

Right now, the Hoosier Environmental Council, as with many environmental organizations in the Great Lakes region, has been focused on the attempt by BP to get permission to dump noxious chemicals in Lake Michigan. Now, there’s news about BP’s attempt to get a special exemption for spewing pollution into the air.

The Hoosier Environmental Council provides a link to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management page devoted to the request for wastewater dumping.

The Indiana Sierra Club explains that BP has agreed not to dump extra waste into Lake Michigan, even if its permission to do so is upheld. No wonder, given that BP’s reputation in the region has taken a substantial hit.

However, BP’s community responsibility in Indiana was further tarnished this month when it leaked oil into a stormwater sewer in Munster.