Red Tides

Red tide and the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone (aka the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone) are conditions caused by toxic algal growth in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Tulane University website (linked to above) these conditions are caused when "greater quantities of dissolved nutrients" are carried from the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Rivers into the Gulf of Mexico. What are these "dissolved nutrients"?

"The Mississippi River Basin covers forty-one percent of the continental United States, contains forty-seven percent of the nation’s rural population, and fifty-two percent of U.S. farms. The waste from this entire area drains into the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi River. Included in this agricultural waste are phosphorus and nitrogen, the primary nutrient responsible for algal blooms in the Dead Zone. Nitrogen and phosphorus were first used in fertilizers in the United States in the 1930s. Concentrations of nitrate and phosphate in the lower Mississippi have increased proportionately to levels of use of fertilizers by agriculture since the 1960s, when fertilizer use increased by over two million metric tons per year. Overall, nitrogen input to the Gulf from the Mississippi River Basin has increased between two and seven times over the past century."

The majority of the 41% of the Continental US that dumps into the Mississippi River basin is corn country. States like Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and Nebraska - to name a few. For a while, these algal blooms only took place every 2-5 years. Now however, it is a yearly event. What has changed to cause this? Some say ethanol production...

"What has caused this sudden ecological catastrophe? The culprit is believed to be the sharp increase in ethanol production in the Midwest -- 19% more corn in 2007 than in 2006."

Now I don't know if I am ready to go this far. This problem HAS been building for 30 years. However, there is no doubt that if ethnol production goes up, the use of phosphates and nitrates in fertilizers will go up. If that goes up, the run-off will end up in the Mississippi River and eventually it will end up in the Gulf of Mexico causing the Dead Zone to grow and last longer. That is not what I would call "conserving" the environment.