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Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico Essay

Decent Essays
One World Essay: Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico

Scientific Reasoning:

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is a human problem, like most other disasters. What this means is that once the place thrived and was ecologically balanced, but we tipped the balance slightly and wrecked havoc upon the environment. It has been noted to occur since the 1950’s and is ongoing. The reason that this dead zone occurs is because of a phenomenon known as eutrophication. Eutrophication is when there is an excessive amount of nutrients in a body of water and it causes an abundance of plants to grow. In this case the nearby farms had been using nitrogen in their fertilizers. The nitrogen got carried into the ocean through rain and other forms of
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Some species might thrive in conditions that other struggle to survive. For example some predators might need more oxygen then a smaller prey. With less predators being around, there is a huge burst in prey, which can eat up all of the bacteria. When the bacteria all die, the prey can’t find any food and all die out. This causes a very unreliable food chain and can be dangerous to live in. In hypoxic zones what tends to happen is that marine life such as fish or shrimp die out quickly while the smaller organisms live. This causes whole species to die out leaving a dominance of gelatinous creatures such as jellyfish to thrive in. Economic Problems:

There are many economical problems due to the dead zone ranging from fisheries going out of business to illnesses. The economical problems have paid their toll on nearby fishers whom in total have paid over 10 billion US dollars to repair the problem. Sadly though, no matter how much they pay, the problem is still on going. The gulf’s massive fishing industry is trying to focus its efforts on the parts that have been affected in an attempt to save their sea. According to many sources, EPA views this problem as unimportant and hasn’t helped yet. The reason that it is so hard to come to an agreement is because there is no solution that pleases everyone. Right now the farmers up north of the gulf are having an easy time because of easy and cheap waste disposal while downstream the fishers are
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