|
July 30, 2008
Matt Rota
(504) 525-1528 x206
As Gulf Dead Zone Grows, Groups Petition EPA for Immediate Action
New Orleans, LA—Responding to another massive Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico,
conservation groups from nine states bordering the Mississippi River, including
Louisiana, petitioned the federal government today to set and enforce standards to
limit nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River
basin, and to develop cleanup plans for those water bodies.
The petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency follows Monday’s
announcement of the Gulf of Mexico’s second largest Dead Zone to date, measuring
8,000 square miles. Researchers who mapped the Dead Zone said it would have
been substantially larger if Hurricane Dolly had not passed through, churning up the
waters and thus restoring some oxygen to the Zone’s edges. The Gulf Dead Zone, an
area of water where oxygen levels are too low for marine life to live, is caused every
year by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi
and Atchafalaya Rivers.
The groups say the EPA has neglected its responsibility under the federal Clean
Water Act to limit pollution in the Mississippi River and Gulf. The Dead Zone will
continue to grow, they argue, unless the EPA sets numeric standards for nitrogen
and phosphorus pollution and requires all states in the river basin meet those
standards. The EPA is required by law to respond to the petition within a reasonable
time frame. The Gulf Restoration Network is also submitting over 1,300 postcards
signed by citizens throughout the Mississippi River Basin, asking the EPA to take
immediate action to limit the Dead Zone.
“This year’s Dead Zone is the second largest that we have seen,” said Matt Rota,
Water Resources Program Director for the Gulf Restoration Network. “The Dead
Zone is a national catastrophe that has been overlooked for decades and it is time for
the EPA to step up and bring the Gulf of Mexico back from the brink of potential
ecological disaster.”
Not only does the Dead Zone threaten the $2.8 billion Gulf fishing industry, nitrogen
and phosphorus pollution cause environmental problems throughout the entire
Mississippi River Basin such as toxic algae blooms resulting in the death of livestock
and pets, fish kills, and damages to drinking water supplies. The groups say that
because of the basin-wide implications of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, it is the
EPA’s responsibility to take a leadership role in preventing further pollution.
The National Academy of Sciences, in a report published earlier this year, agreed
that the EPA had shown little leadership and called the Mississippi River an “orphan.”
The report concluded that, “the EPA has failed to use its mandatory and discretionary
authorities under the Clean Water Act to provide adequate interstate coordination
and oversight of state water quality activities along the Mississippi River.”
“There has been a dead zone at the EPA almost as big as the Dead Zone in the Gulf
of Mexico,” said Matt Rota of the Gulf Restoration Network. “The EPA has the
responsibility to protect the Gulf from pollution and we ask the agency to act before
it’s too late.”
The EPA called on states in 1998 to adopt specific limits on nitrogen and phosphorus
pollution, threatening to enact its own limits if states had not complied by 2003. Every
state along the Mississippi has thumbed its nose at that and other deadlines set by
EPA, but so far, the federal government has not stepped in to supply the urgently
needed protections. As a result, inland water pollution problems have multiplied and
the Dead Zone has continued to grow.
The academy of sciences report confirmed the importance of numeric standards for
nitrogen and phosphorus, stating that without them, “there is little prospect of
significantly reducing or eliminating [the Dead Zone] in the northern Gulf of Mexico.”
The full petition and list of petitioners can be found here: [rokdownload menuitem="83" downloaditem="256" direct_download="true"]Dead Zone Petition[/rokdownload]
# # #
|
