Largest-ever dead zone 'a disaster in the making' for La. fishermen

Paul Quinlan -

Louisiana's shrimpers expected 2010 to be a good year. Instead, they got the oil spill. Although many found temporary jobs working cleanup for BP PLC, hopes for recovery turned to 2011.

Now the swollen Mississippi River is expected to deliver another heavy blow to a seafood industry already on the ropes: a massive flush of fertilizer, animal manure, treated sewage, pesticide and urban runoff.

Scientists predict this polluted wash will give rise to the Gulf of Mexico's largest-ever "dead zone," a large swath of ocean devoid of fish, shellfish and other marine life.

"It's a disaster in the making," said Clint Guidry, a third-generation Louisiana fisherman and president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association. "Everybody paid their taxes and fixed their boat up, and they were ready to go back to work this year. It's not looking good."

The same dirty water is expected to wreak havoc on Lake Pontchartrain, just north of New Orleans, by setting off a toxic algae bloom this summer predicted to fill the lake with slime, kill fish, and cause respiratory problems to those who go near it.

"We expect them to have to close the lake, and we expect it to last for months," said Gene Turner, a professor in the oceanography department at Louisiana State University. "It'll really be a soup out there."

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is anticipated to be the largest measured since the early 1970s, when scientists began studying the annual phenomenon that generally appears in March and lasts through September.

The Gulf is essentially fertilized when phosphorus and nitrogen from farm runoff throughout the Corn Belt and treated sewage and wastewater from cities as far north as Chicago wash down the Mississippi River. The result is an algae bloom in the warm, shallow waters of the Gulf that create a lifeless zone 60 miles out from the coastline. The dead zone runs from the Mississippi Delta as far as west as Galveston, Texas.

Both the algae and the bacteria that feed on algae after they die consume the Gulf's dissolved oxygen, creating a state of hypoxia that forces the fish and shellfish that can to flee and leaves the rest to suffocate.

This year's dead zone will likely be at least 5 to 10 percent larger than the largest to date, which appeared in 2002 and spanned 8,500 square miles, said Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

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