Algae Bloom dead zone

capt 918

aha doh, gulf of mex hurt by oil and agribiz

warming interacts? acid?

CAUSE? // KELP?

AN 6 26

The beaches of Florida have become swamped with huge quantities of sargassum seaweed, with the majority of its Atlantic and eastern Gulf coasts seeing accumulations ranging from elevated to significantly above normal. State meteorologists say that while it’s a tourism industry “killer,” Florida politicians are doing little to address the crisis.

“Sargassum seaweed coverage has been brutal recently across parts of the Florida coast,” posted meteorologist Matt Devitt on Thursday. “Happens every year, but still can be quite annoying.”

Reports have been emerging of a “tsunami” of seaweed, which has been accumulating and rotting in massive piles, not only making beaches inaccessible but in many cases causing a wretched stench. While news outlets have noted beachgoers’ annoyance at the issue, some have asserted that what begins as annoying could develop into a full-blown economic crisis.

“I've lived in South Florida since I was a kid, & there's nothing normal about the breadth, depth and duration of sargassum weed choking beaches in recent years,” posted White House correspondent Marc Caputo, noting that the issue has also been plaguing the shores of Mexico. “It's an economy killer for the tourism industry. Politicians aren't talking about it enough.”

Sargassum is a dense, spongy seaweed that grows in large blooms that break free and drift atop the ocean, often accumulating in massive floating islands. When these islands of algae wash up on shore and amass, they begin to decay in the sun, releasing hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells much like rotten eggs. Beyond its stinky annoyance, another risk researchers have raised is the potential for the festering seaweed to act as a substrate for dangerous bacteria, such as “vibrio,” which cause roughly 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths in the U.S. each year.

While sargassum provides a vital habitat for marine life when on the open ocean, as it piles ashore, it not only hurts tourism, but can cost coastal communities millions of dollars as they try to clean it up. Experts say that the unusually large sargassum blooms are the result of rising ocean temperatures and the presence of more nutrients in the water, and the seaweed has become a growing problem for tourist-oriented beaches around the world. Currently, for example, 50 percent of the beaches near Cancun, Mexico, are on sargassum alert as massive islands of the stuff have marred shores.

Meanwhile in Florida, as communities race to bury or rake the sargassum back into the sea — which is practically the only solution — the mess is accumulating faster than they can remove it.

According to Pompano Beach Commissioner Audrey Fesik, it is a "never-ending task of trying to stay ahead of mounting seaweed.” He noted that within "12 hours it's all back.”

Lake Erie’s Toxic Green Slime is Getting Worse With Climate Change

:{:{BY: NICOLE POLLACK}:

Algal blooms are a hazard around the country. But Lake Erie is especially vulnerable to the scourge, and researchers are looking for explanations. :{Read More:(style="color:#a52a2a;"):}:}:

https://yyy.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/07/oceans-losing-oxygen-at-unprecedented-rate-experts-warn

no lnx guk

Oceans losing oxygen at unprecedented rate, experts warn

Sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish at risk from spread of ‘dead zones’, say scientists

Fiona Harvey in Madrid

Sat 7 Dec 2019

All fish need dissolved oxygen, but biggest fish such as tuna (above) are particularly vulnerable because they need much more to survive. Photograph: Mark Conlin/Getty Images

Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an unprecedented rate, with “dead zones” proliferating and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously depleted, as a result of the climate emergency and intensive farming, experts have warned.

Sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish species were at particular risk, scientists said, with many vital ecosystems in danger of collapse. Dead zones – where oxygen is effectively absent – have quadrupled in extent in the last half-century, and there are also at least 700 areas where oxygen is at dangerously low levels, up from 45 when research was undertaken in the 1960s.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature presented the findings on Saturday at the UN climate conference in Madrid, where governments are halfway through tense negotiations aimed at tackling the climate crisis.

Grethel Aguilar, the acting director general of the IUCN, said the health of the oceans should be a key consideration for the talks. “As the warming ocean loses oxygen, the delicate balance of marine life is thrown into disarray,” she said. “The potentially dire effects on fisheries and vulnerable coastal communities mean that the decisions made at the conference are even more crucial.”

All fish need dissolved oxygen, but the biggest species are particularly vulnerable to depleted oxygen levels because they need much more to survive. Evidence shows that depleted levels are forcing them to move towards the surface and to shallow areas of sea, where they are more vulnerable to fishing.

Some ocean areas are naturally lower in oxygen than others, but these are even more susceptible to damage when their oxygen levels are depleted further, the report’s authors said. Species that can more easily tolerate low oxygen levels, such as jellyfish, some squid and marine microbes, can flourish at the expense of fish, upsetting the balance of ecosystems. The natural oceanic cycles of phosphorus and nitrogen are also at risk.

The world’s oceans are already being overfished, and assailed by a rising tide of plastic waste, as well as other pollutants. Seas are about 26% more acidic than in pre-industrial times because of absorbing the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with damaging impacts on shellfish in particular.

Low oxygen levels are also associated with global heating, because the warmer water holds less oxygen and the heating causes stratification, so there is less of the vital mixing of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor layers. Oceans are expected to lose about 3-4% of their oxygen by the end of this century, but the impact will be much greater in the levels closest to the surface, where many species are concentrated, and in the mid to high latitudes.

Intensive farming also plays a major role. When excess artificial fertiliser from crops, or manure from the meat industry, runs off the land and into rivers and seas, it feeds algae which bloom and then cause oxygen depletion as they decompose.

The problem of dead zones has been known about for decades, but little has been done to tackle it. Farmers rarely bear the brunt of the damage, which mainly affects fishing fleets and coastal areas. Two years ago, the meat industry in the US was found to be responsible for a massive dead zone measuring more than 8,000 sq miles in the Gulf of Mexico.

This year’s UN climate conference, known as COP25, was originally billed as the “Blue COP”, with a spotlight on the oceans for the first time in the history of the negotiations. The focus was chosen because of the original location in Chile, a country with more than 4,000km of coastline and a strong reliance on the marine economy.

But the move to Madrid, forced by political unrest in Santiago, has meant many of the planned events have been curtailed. Scientists and activists gathered in landlocked Madrid are trying to highlight the issues by demonstrating how vital the seas are in protecting us from climate chaos – as they absorb so much of the excess carbon dioxide, and excess heat, in the atmosphere – and how much they are at risk from its impacts.

Protecting marine life could help the oceans to function better, soaking up more carbon and providing barriers against sea level rises and storm surges, in the form of coral reefs and mangrove swamps.

“A healthy ocean with abundant wildlife is capable of slowing the rate of climate breakdown substantially,” said Dr Monica Verbeek, the executive director of the group Seas at Risk. “To date, the most profound impact on the marine environment has come from fishing. Ending overfishing is a quick, deliverable action which will restore fish populations, create more resilient ocean ecosystems, decrease CO2 pollution and increase carbon capture, and deliver more profitable fisheries and thriving coastal communities.”

“Ending overfishing would strengthen the ocean, making it more capable of withstanding climate change and restoring marine ecosystems – and it can be done now,” explained Rashid Sumaila, professor and director of the fisheries economics research unit at the University of British Columbia. “The crisis in our fisheries and in our oceans and climate are not mutually exclusive problems to be addressed separately – it is imperative that we move forward with comprehensive solutions to address them.”

A study published at COP25 by Greenpeace International showed that restoring marine ecosystems could play a major role in tackling climate chaos.

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-admin-repeals-protections-for-smaller-streams-and-wetlands-2640338564.html

Trump Admin Repeals Obama-Era Clean Water Protections

Olivia Rosane Sep. 13, 2019

The Trump administration repealed the 2015 Clean Water Rule rule Thursday, a rule intended to protect 60 percent of the nation's waterways from pollution,The New York Times reported.

At stake is the definition of "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act. The Obama-era rule expanded that definition from larger bodies of water to include streams and wetlands. Thursday's repeal will return the country to more-limited 1986 water-protection standards, The Washington Post reported. The administration will also announce a new definition within months.

"Today, EPA and the Department of the Army finalized a rule to repeal the previous administration's overreach in the federal regulation of U.S. waters and recodify the longstanding and familiar regulatory text that previously existed," Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a press release. "Today's Step 1 action fulfills a key promise of President Trump and sets the stage for Step 2—a new WOTUS definition that will provide greater regulatory certainty for farmers, landowners, home builders, and developers nationwide."

Because court rulings have suspended the rule in 28 states, while keeping it in place in 22 others, Wheeler argued that a new rule would provide regulatory certainty across the board.

"We want to make sure that we have a definition that once and for all will be the law of the land in all 50 states," Wheeler told The Washington Post.

But environmental advocates say the repeal will endanger wetland wildlife and national drinking water.

"By throwing out the Clean Water Rule, Andrew Wheeler is acting like the former coal lobbyist that he is, putting the drinking water for one in every three Americans at risk just so he can placate corporate polluters who don't want to be held accountable," Dalal Aboulhosn, Sierra Club's Deputy Legislative Director for Land and Water, said in a statement provided to EcoWatch. "We will fight Wheeler's rollback to not only protect our communities from dangerous water pollution, but also restore order and common sense as to how we go about protecting our water in the future."

Wheeler made the announcement at the headquarters of the National Association of Manufacturers, one of the industry groups that opposed the Clean Water Rule.Critics argued it gave the federal government too much power over the actions of developers and farmers. Farmers were prohibited from planting certain crops near streams or wetlands, or using certain pesticides without an EPA permit, The New York Times explained.

"When you take private property rights from a man who's worked all his life," American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall told The New York Times, "that is very intrusive to him and it's something he just can't stand for."

President Donald Trump singled it out for repeal in a Feb. 2017 executive order, in which the President asked the EPA to start a review process that would lead to "the elimination of this very destructive and horrible rule," The Washington Post explained.

Its repeal means that farmers, developers or landowners will no longer need a permit to pollute the streams and wetlands now excluded from protection,according to The New York Times. When finalized, the new Waters of the United States definition is likely to include streams that feed into larger bodies of water and wetlands directly adjacent to them, but exclude streams that run only during rainfall or wetlands not directly connected to larger waterways.

But the 2015 rule was based on a review of 1,200 scientific studies that showed how important these streams and wetlands are to downstream waters, according to The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

"The Trump administration's wild-eyed attempts to reward polluters knows no bounds, so it is repealing these important protections without regard for the law or sound science," NRDC Director of Federal Water Policy Jon Devine said.

The Clean Water Rule repeal is the latest in a growing number of environmental rollbacks initiated by the Trump administration. Others include the repeals of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and tailpipe emissions standards. Wheeler said Thursday that the Trump EPA had finalized 46 deregulatory actions, and that an additional 45 were in the works, NPR reported.

https://www.ecowatch.com/gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-2638775648.html

june 2019

Every year the Gulf of Mexico hosts a human caused "dead zone." This year, it will approach record levels scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or NOAA— estimate, in a statement released Monday.

The researchers predict the hypoxic zone — an area with little to no oxygen that can kill marine life — to be nearly 8,000 square miles or roughly the size of Massachusetts.

NOAA wasn't the only organization to estimate a near record dead zone this summer. Researchers from Louisiana State University (LSU) released a statement on Monday predicting this year's dead zone to be 8,717 square miles, making it the second largest on record.

"We think this will be the second-largest, but it could very well go over that," said Nancy Rabalais, a marine ecologist who studies dead zones co-authored the LSU report, as CNN reported.

The Gulf of Mexico's dead zone is a result of nutrient pollution, including nitrogen and phosphorus from urban environments and farms, traveling through the Mississippi River watershed and into the gulf, according to NOAA's press release.

NOAA pointed to the overwhelming spring rains along the Mississippi River, which led to record high river flows and flooding, as a major contributing factor to this year's sizeable dead zone.

The record flooding brought a substantial amount of pollutants into the water. "This past May, discharge in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers was about 67 percent above the long-term average between 1980 and 2018. USGS estimates that this larger-than average river discharge carried 156,000 metric tons of nitrate and 25,300 metric tons of phosphorus into the Gulf of Mexico in May alone. These nitrate loads were about 18 percent above the long-term average, and phosphorus loads were about 49 percent above the long-term average," NOAA said in its press release.

What happens is the nitrogen and phosphorus stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, which fall to the bottom of the water and decompose with the bacteria that uses up the oxygen, creating an area with not enough oxygen to sustain life.

"The low oxygen conditions in the gulf's most productive waters stresses organisms and may even cause their death, threatening living resources, including fish, shrimp and crabs caught there," LSU said in a statement. "Low oxygen conditions started to appear 50 years ago when agricultural practices intensified in the Midwest."

To prevent the problem in the future, a task force of federal, state and tribal agencies from 12 of the 31 states that comprise the Mississippi River watershed set a goal of reducing the dead zone from an average of about 5,800 square miles to an average of 1,900 square miles, but that number is far from today's reality, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

"While this year's zone will be larger than usual because of the flooding, the long-term trend is still not changing," said Don Scavia, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Michigan who contributed to the NOAA report, in a University of Michigan statement. "The bottom line is that we will never reach the dead zone reduction target of 1,900 square miles until more serious actions are taken to reduce the loss of Midwest fertilizers into the Mississippi River system."

In the meantime, farmers along the Mississippi can build embankments to stop runoff, diversifying their crops and using sustainable perennials like wheat grass, which will hold more nitrogen and soil in the ground since it has a longer root than corn and soybeans, according to CNN.

new way to curb nitrogen pollution: Regulate fertilizer producers, not just farmers

by The Conversation January 20, 2019

Nitrogen pollution is produced by a number of interlinked compounds, from ammonia to nitrous oxide. While they have both natural and human sources, the latter increased dramatically over the past…

https://www.ecowatch.com/red-tide-florida-2626179993.html

A Record 589 Sea Turtles Killed By Florida's Toxic Red Tide

Florida's longest red tide in more than a decade has killed scores of the state's most iconic marine animals.

The current outbreak, which began in October 2017 off southwest Florida, has been tied to a record 589 sea turtle deaths and 213 manatee deaths, the Herald-Tribune reported, citing figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

As of December 20, 127 bottlenose dolphins have been stranded along the southwest coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mammals showed positive results for the red tide toxin, brevetoxin.

That's not to mention the massive fish kills that resulted from the toxic algae bloom.

Sea turtle species that have been affected by the poisonous brew including loggerhead and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, both of which are federally protected. Kemp's ridleys are considered the world's most endangeredmarine turtle.

Local turtle patrollers, including Suzi Fox, the director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring, told the Herald-Tribune that the outbreak could affect next year's sea turtle nesting season, an unfortunate turn after several record

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https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-funding-restrictions-are-preventing-scientists-figuring-out-whats-fouling

Our nation’s first national river, the Buffalo River in Arkansas, was befouled last summer by algae that sickened people, but the U.S. Geological Survey under Trump can’t decide if a nearby pig farm and more than 3 million gallons of pig waste each year are to blame.

“If there’s more money, we’d love it,” Justus said.Biologist Billy Justus said the agency doesn’t have the funding to do the research to figure out whose pollution caused the algae to grow.

Cousins Jason Henson, Philip Campbell and Richard Campbell own C&H Hog Farms which was awarded an operating permit by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in 2012. The state recently denied the business a new permit, but the farm is continuing to operate while it fights that decision.

The hog farm supplies the U.S. operations of JBS SA, the world’s largest meat processor. In Brazil, police recently arrested a controlling shareholder of the firm in connection with an investigation into illegal campaign contributions.

Former President Richard Nixon signed legislation in 1972 putting the Buffalo River in the stewardship of the National Park Service. The river runs for 153 miles from its start in the Boston Mountains through limestone bluffs and forests before joining the White River. People were baptized in the Buffalo River. Tourists hike along the Buffalo or kayak on it.

Former NASA astronaut Jim Reilly was confirmed by the Senate in April to lead the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Trump administration’s lack of interest in determining whether pig shit is contaminating our nation’s first national river is just one more example of Trump and his administration coddling up to polluters. Trump shrunk Bears Ears National Monument in Utah which could be explored for oil drilling and wants to lease 2.85 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve.

“People swim, fish, and paddle in the Buffalo River, and may be subject to contact with untreated swine waste,” said Dane Schumacher of theBuffalo River Watershed Alliance.

The hog farm is on Big Creek near Mount Judea in Newton County, 6.6 miles upstream of the Buffalo River. The liquefied manure is temporarily stored in holding ponds before workers spray it on fields.

The Buffalo River area is riddled with caves and sinkholes in land that water flows easily through. Many Newton County residents get their drinking water from wells.

Scientists injected dye into wells near the hog farm and found the ground was so porous that the colored water flowed into sinkholes and then beneath the Buffalo River and also migrated upstream.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14112018/crab-fishermen-climate-change-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-companies-ocean-algae-neurotoxin-fishery-closure

dunno if this is class action

Crab Fishers Sue the Fossil Fuel Industry Over Climate Change as the Ocean Warms

BY: DAVID HASEMYER

The West Coast's largest commercial fishing association is the latest group seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change as it damages lives and livelihoods.}:

Crab fishing on the West Coast has become so threatened by warming oceans that a coalition of commercial fishers has now joined the climate litigation fray with a lawsuit filed Wednesday to hold 30 fossil fuel companies accountable for losses caused by climate change.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, seeks damages on behalf of crab fishers, their businesses and families, and local communities in California and Oregon.

It describes losses caused by the closing of crab fishing waters over the past four years because of algae blooms in the warming Pacific waters, and warns that these closures will keep happening as warming continues.

"These changes threaten both the productivity of commercial fisheries and safety of commercially harvested seafood products," the lawsuit says. "In so doing, they also threaten those that rely on ocean fisheries and ecosystems for their livelihoods, by rendering it at times impossible to ply their trade."

At the heart of the 91-page lawsuit are claims similar to those being used by several California cities that are suing the fossil fuel industry over sea level rise. It accuses some of the world's largest oil and gas producers, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, of negligence, defective-product liability, creating a nuisance, and failing to warn about the dangers of fossil fuel products that the companies knew would result in warming of the oceans and atmosphere.

But this case is unusual in pitting one industry against another.

Because of the ocean warming brought on by greenhouse gas emissions, the crab fishing industry has been deprived of fishing opportunities, and consequently suffered severe financial hardships, the lawsuit says. "These injuries derive from rising ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean generally and periodic extreme marine heat waves—the results of anthropogenic ocean warming caused by the foreseeable and intended use of defendants' products," the suit says.

Significant portions of the Dungeness crab fishing region along the Pacific Coast have been closed repeatedly since 2015, including parts along the West Coast this year, according to the lawsuit.

Warming water can generate algae blooms that can cause a buildup in shellfish of domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin that is a health threat to people and an economic threat to the entire crab fishery. Earlier this month, the California Department of Public Health issued a warning not to eat the internal organs of Dungeness crab from the Bodega Bay or Russian River areas because of high levels of domoic acid.

'It's Obvious the Oceans Are Getting Warmer'

Although the lawsuit does not specify a damage amount, the federationestimates crab fishing contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy in Oregon and California each year.

"We're out fishing all the time, and it's obvious the oceans are getting warmer," said John Beardon, who fishes for Dungeness crab out of Crescent City, California. "That's bad for crabs and other fish, and it's bad for those of us who make a living on the water.

"The last three years have been really hard. Our community came together and held a fish fry to help our crew members. But fish fries and disaster relief are no solution to these closures we're now seeing year after year after year."

Disaster relief approved by Congress in 2018 will aid crabbers who were harmed by the poor season three years ago, but it provides only partial relief for fishers like Beardon.

The crab fleet is responsible for thousands of jobs on the boats and thousands more in the local businesses that support the fishery, according to Noah Oppenheim, the Pacific Coast Federation's executive director.

"We're taking a stand for the captains and crew, their families, and the business owners that support the fleet," he said. "The fossil fuel companies named in our lawsuit knowingly caused harm, and they need to be held accountable. We are seeking to implement measures, at the fossil fuel industry's expense, that will help crabbers adapt to a world in which domoic acid flareup's will be increasingly common, and also help those crabbers who suffer financial losses as a result."

Latest in a Growing List of Climate Lawsuits

The federation's lawsuit adds to a growing list of municipalities that have turned to the courts in the last two years seeking to hold fossil fuel companies financially responsible for the threat posed by climate change.

The fossil fuel companies' legal teams have pushed back hard, and judges have dismissed some of the lawsuits, saying it's not up to the courts to decide climate policy but rather the job of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

"This case will face similar obstacles as the other cases," said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Beyond the lawsuit being filed by a private party and the particular harms cited to the crab fishing industry by warming oceans, the complaint appears to similar to other climate litigation, he said.

The federation, like many of the other litigants, alleges the fossil fuel companies knew for nearly 50 years that the production and use of fossil fuel created greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

"Instead of working to reduce the use and combustion of fossil fuel products, lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the damage associated with continued high use and combustion of such products, and ease the transition to a lower carbon economy, defendants concealed the dangers, sought to undermine public support for greenhouse gas regulation, and engaged in massive campaigns to promote the ever-increasing use of their products at ever greater volumes," the lawsuit says.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricanes-oysters-industry-gulf-coast-2618270457.html

urricanes, Water Wars Threaten New High-End Oyster Industry on Gulf Coast

By Daniel R. Petrolia and William C. Walton

For Cainnon Gregg, 2018 started out as a great year. After leaving his job as an installation artist to become a full-time oyster farmer in Wakulla County, Florida in 2017, Gregg began raising small oysters in baskets or bags suspended in the shallow, productive coastal waters of Apalachicola Bay.

Raising oysters "off-bottom" this way takes a lot of time and money, but has a big potential payoff. They are destined for the high-end raw bar market, where offerings are denoted by specific appellations, like "Salty Birds" (Cainnon's oysters), "Navy Coves" (from Alabama) and "Murder Points" (also from Alabama), and can retail for twice the price of oysters harvested from traditional on-bottom reefs.

When Hurricane Michael made landfall at Mexico Beach, Florida, on Oct. 10, it dealt a devastating blow to this nascent industry. Preliminary reports indicate significant damage and heavy crop losses. Raising oysters by any method is not an easy job, but if off-bottom farming can become established along the Gulf Coast, it could give the industry a much-needed boost, give consumers more choices, and provide a new stream of environmental benefits.

Premium Products

...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18102018/florida-governor-election-gillum-desantis-environment-hurricane-toxic-algae-young-voters

aha gop denial ~ sea level rise red tide could lead to tip pt?

big issue fla 2018 election

https://www.ecowatch.com/red-tide-plagues-floridas-coasts-2610279647.html

https://www.alternet.org/environment/corporate-food-brands-drive-massive-dead-zone-gulf-mexico

loki

Whole Foods bills itself as “America’s healthiest grocery store,” but what it’s doing to the environment is anything but healthy. According to a new report, the chain is helping to drive one of the nation’s worst human-made environmental disasters: the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

By not requiring environmental safeguards from its meat suppliers, the world’s largest natural and organic foods supermarket — and most of its big-brand counterparts in the retail food industry, like McDonald’s, Subway and Target — are sourcing and selling meat from some of the worst polluters in agribusiness, including Tyson Foods and Cargill. The animal waste and fertilizer runoff from their industrial farms end up in the Gulf of Mexico, where each summer, a growing marine wasteland spreads for thousands of miles, leaving countless dead wildlife in its oxygen-depleted wake.

“The major meat producers like Tyson and Cargill that have consolidated control over the market have the leverage to dramatically improve the supply chain,” according to the report, which was released by Mighty Earth, an environmental action group based in Washington, DC. “Yet to date they have done little,” the report’s authors note, “ignoring public concerns and allowing the environmentally damaging practices for feeding and raising meat to expand largely unchecked.”

How animal feed moves through the meat supply chain. (image: Mighty Earth)

On August 2, the day the report was released, those public concerns found a voice as citizens, environmentalists and sustainability advocates gathered outside Whole Foods headquarters in Austin, Texas, to deliver 95,000 petition signatures demanding that the company hold its meat suppliers accountable for their role in destroying the environment.

“Grocery stores like Walmart and Whole Foods and meal outlets like McDonald’s and Burger King have the power to set and enforce standards requiring better farming practices from suppliers,” states the report, which Mighty Earth says is the “first comprehensive assessment of major US food brands on their environmental standards and performance for sourced meat.”

Feeding the Nation, Failing the Environment

Ranking the largest food companies in the US based on their sustainability policies for meat production, the report found that the biggest players in the food industry — including major fast food, grocery and food service companies — are failing to protect the environment from the impact of their supply chains. Remarkably, the researchers found that not a single one of the 23 major brands surveyed have policies in place to require “even minimal environmental protections from meat suppliers.”

Even more startling is that so-called “green” brands like Whole Foods that have built their reputations on providing sustainable food options have, according to the report, “failed to commit to environmentally responsible farming practices that protect drinking water, prevent agricultural runoff and curb climate emissions.”

The 23 companies surveyed were evaluated on their requirements for meat suppliers regarding where they source their animal feed, how they process their animals’ manure and how they manage their greenhouse gas emissions.

All but one of the companies scored an “F” overall for their environmental policies (or lack thereof) for meat sourcing. The only company to score better than an “F” was Walmart, which received a “D” due to its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across its supply chain, as well as the launching of programs meant to improve the management of manure and increase the sustainability of corn and soy farming.

Dead Cows on Your Plate, Dead Fish in the Ocean

In oceans and large lakes across the globe, human activities are creating oxygen-depleted areas where marine life can no longer survive. These hypoxic areas, currently numbering more than 400 around the globe, are commonly known as “dead zones,” and are caused by an increase in certain chemical nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that drive the massive growth of algae, causing the spread of deadly “algal blooms.” As the algae decomposes, their biomass consumes the oxygen in the water, suffocating fish and other marine life.

[Algal blooms are harmful to ecosystems because the blooming organisms contain toxins, noxious chemicals or pathogens. They also suck up all the oxygen, killing fish and other marine life. (image: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)]

In the United States, the largest recurring dead zone is located in the Gulf of Mexico, mainly off the coast of Louisiana, and extending east to the Mississippi River Delta and west to Texas. The Gulf acts as a massive drainage basin for polluted water containing manure and fertilizer runoff coming from the American heartland, from major beef-producing states like Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. During summer months, this area becomes a 7,000-mile-wide lifeless region — the only reminders of past life being the bodies of fish, crabs, shrimp and other marine animals that have suffocated due to a lack of oxygen. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is thesecond-largest human-caused dead zone in the world, after the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Oman.

...[maps, pix]

Excess nutrients bleeding off fertilized crops constitute the overwhelming source—over 70 percent—of the nutrient pollution that causes the Gulf Dead Zone,” Donald Boesch, a professor of marine science and former president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told the Independent Media Institute.

In August 2017, scientists measured the Gulf of Mexico dead zone and found that it was at its largest since the mapping of the zone began in 1985 — more than 8,000 square miles. But recently, scientists reported that the area is only about 40 percent of its average size. That doesn’t mean that it is no longer an issue. “Although the area is small this year, we should not think that the low-oxygen problem in the Gulf of Mexico is solved,” Nancy Rabalais, a marine ecologist at Louisiana State University and the lead scientist of the study, toldThe Associated Press. “We are not close to the goal size for this hypoxic area.”

Nearly half (45 percent) of the Earth’s landmass is being farmed by the global industrial livestock system, which includes both the animals killed for human consumption and the crops used to feed those animals. The current human population, 7.6 billion, is expected to swell to 9.8 billion by the year 2050. And if most ofthemwill be meat-eaters, the negative impact of the meat industry on marine ecosystems and coastal communities, if not addressed soon, will surely get worse. According to NASA, “The number and size of ocean dead zones is closely connected to human population density.” It’s basic math: More people means more meat-eaters, and more meat production means more and bigger dead zones.

Red circles show the location and size of many dead zones. Black dots show dead zones of unknown size. The size and number of marine dead zones — areas where the deep water is so low in dissolved oxygen that sea creatures can’t survive — have grown explosively in the past half-century. (image: NASA Earth Observatory, 2008)

More Pathogens, More Pollutants, Less Profit

Dead zones could also introduce a host of public and animal health issues. Boesch points out that “various pathogenic microorganisms can thrive” in hypoxic areas. A 2012 study published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology discovered “sequences affiliated with Clostridium,” a human pathogen that causes botulism and diarrhea, in the hypoxic zone of China’s Lake Taihu. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns that algal blooms contain cyanobacteria, “which are poisonous to humans and deadly to livestock and pets.”

Renee Dufault is a former environmental health officer for the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the founder of the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute. Dufault told the Independent Media Institute that the antibiotics and hormones injected into animals raised for food “are pollutants themselves when they are released from manure via surface water runoff into streams that may be used as drinking water supplies.”

Dead zones also have economic impacts that harm local communities. The NOAA estimates that marine dead zones cost the US food and tourism industries $82millionevery year.

Risky Business: Eating Meat

The main source of water contamination in the United States is the manure and fertilizer coming from industrial farms that grow feed to raise animals to be killed for human consumption.

The production of meat isn’t just one of the most polluting of all human activities, contaminating waterways and driving the growth of dead zones across the world; it’s literally bulldozing the planet’s landscape. By converting rainforests and prairies into industrial farms, large-scale meat producers are responsible for the widespread destruction of many of the planet’s native ecosystems, which threatens wildlife by destroying native habitats and releases stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further exacerbating climate change. Animals raised for food produce 42 percent of agricultural emissions in the US. Two-thirds of those gases are emitted directly by those animals in the form of belches and farts. And the majority of those emissions—around 44 percent—is methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

A report released in July by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy offers some perspective: The top five meat and dairy companies, including Tyson and Cargill, emit more greenhouse gases combined than ExxonMobil, Shell or BP.

NASA satellite image shows deforestation in the state of Rondonia in western Brazil, where land has been converted for cattle farming. In 2017, Brazil exported [1.3 million metric tons of beef to the United States, worth $6.2 billion. (image: NASA)

A Few Bright Spots

The Mighty Earth report does note a few positive developments. Of the sectors studied, the food service industry that caters meals to universities and hospitals “is doing the most to promote plant-based diets, with Aramark reporting that 30 percent of its menus offer non-meat options and Sodexo reducing beef consumption through its mushroom-blended burger initiative.” And McDonald’s states that it is moving toward 100 percent sustainably certified soy by 2020 to feed the chickens it sources in Europe. (Unfortunately, that requirement isn’t in place for US suppliers.)

“Bright spots were few and far between,” the report states, “but indicate that awareness is growing and improvements are possible.”

Possible, yes. But probable? The food industry has shown a reluctance to enact sustainable practices, but has sometimes responded to consumer demand for change. “Many of these companies have set requirements for meat suppliers to improve practices around animal welfare and antibiotic overuse when the public pressured them to do so,” Mighty Earth campaign director Lucia von Reusner told the Independent Media Institute. Her organization is hoping that their report will help raise public awareness, and that in turn will spur change within the industry.

“The public is now waking up to the industry’s polluting practices and demanding improvements,” she said.

Reforming the Meat Industry

One of the biggest misperceptions that the general public has about dead zones, says Boesch, is that “there is nothing we can do about them.” He points out that, “although experience in other parts of the world shows that while it may take years for the excess nutrients to wash out of the watershed and [be] purged from bottom sediments, we can eventually breathe life back into dead zones if we reduce nutrient pollution. We are now seeing the dead zone in the Chesapeake gradually becoming less severe and smaller.”

The Mighty Earth report recommends that meat producers start employing better farming practices to help curtail the destruction. One way to reduce the need of fertilizers on crops used to feed livestock, for example, is to use cover crops, which involves planting certain species on fields that can suffocate weeds, control pests and diseases, reduce soil erosion, improve soil health, boost water availability and increase biodiversity — all of which would benefit any farm. Mighty Earth also recommends that meat producers employ better fertilizer management, conserve native vegetation and centralize manure processing.

“The environmental damage caused by the meat industry is driving some of the most urgent threats to the future of our food system — from contaminated waters to depleted soils and a destabilized climate,” von Reusner said. “More sustainable farming practices are urgently needed if we are going to feed a growing population on a planet of finite resources.”

Map of nitrate levels by watersheds, 2016 overlaid with Tyson and top feed supplier facilities. (View Interactive Map)

Unfortunately, there is little that the federal government is doing on this front. “Runoff pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from producing meat are largely unregulated in the US,” von Reusner notes. “There need to be much stronger regulations that protect our waters and climate from the meat industry’s pollution.”

Boesch notes that an action plan agreed upon in 2001 by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force was meant to scale down the amount of nutrient pollution in the Gulf by 30 percent. But, he says the plan “lacks teeth.” Consequently, he said, “not only has the Gulf’s dead zone not shrunk, but the concentrations of polluting nutrients in the Mississippi River have not declined — and may have even increased.”

In the meantime, polluting the Gulf with meat production runoff continues apace. The 2001 federal and state action plan, which was reaffirmed and amended in 2008, hasn’t achieved its goal to reduce the hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA scientists have forecasted this summer’s dead zone to be “similar to the 33-year average Gulf dead zone of 5,460 square miles,” which the agency points out is about the size of Connecticut. “This should be getting more attention by regulators, lawmakers and industry,” said Boesch. “Unfortunately, the industry has worked with politicians to prevent regulations.”

He notes that the plan to revive the Chesapeake Bay has each state “allocated a certain amount of reduction in nutrient pollution and is under a legally binding agreement under the Clean Water Act to accomplish this by 2025.” But there is no such legal force when it comes to the Mississippi Basin states that are polluting the Gulf. Those states, says Boesch, “have never even been assigned an amount of pollution reduction for which they are responsible, much less been bound to it. The states have resisted even this first step in accepting responsibility. All efforts are strictly voluntary. So, there can be little wonder why, despite the commitment to reduce the size of the dead zone by two-thirds, there has been virtually no reduction in polluting nutrients discharged by the river after 17 years.”

While reforming the meat industry’s unsustainable practices is a way to stop the spread of dead zones, change from within isn’t coming quickly enough. That’s where consumers can play a vital role, says von Reusner. “Consumers need to demand that their favorite food companies provide more sustainable options by requiring more sustainable farming practices from meat suppliers.”

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and was originally produced by Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gop-governor-declares-state-emergency-over-algae-pollution-after-cutting-700

GOP Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Algae Pollution After Cutting $700 Million From Agencies That Control It

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/16/nutrient-pollution-florida-toxic-algae-crisis-sanibel-island

yikes, drinking water:

https://www.alternet.org/environment/algal-blooms-are-spreading-threatening-drinking-water-wildlife-and-ecosystems-across-us

OLEDO, Ohio -- In the middle of a muggy summer night, Keith Jordan got an urgent text: Toledo's tap water wasn't safe to drink.

"I thought it was a joke," said Jordan, who works with at-risk youth in Toledo’s inner city. He went back to sleep. When he got up a few hours later, he took a shower and had a cup of coffee, then turned on the news.

"They were saying don't drink the water, don't take a shower—the water is messed up," Jordan said. "You couldn't even touch the water. It was something you could not believe was happening here in Toledo."

That was August 2, 2014. For the next three days, half a million people in and around this industrial city at the western edge of Lake Erie scrambled to find safe water. [vid]

Many drove hours across state borders to stand in long lines at stores that hadn't sold out of bottled water. Some stores were charging $40 for a case of water that usually costs less than $5. Jordan, unaffected by his shower and coffee, helped set up distribution centers for free water, and helped deliver it to seniors and mothers with babies. The National Guard sent tanker trucks full of drinking water to the city.

The panic was set off by a toxin called microcystin, the byproduct of an enormous bloom of blue-green algae that had invaded Lake Erie. The bloom—technically not algae, but photosynthetic single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria—blanketed vast expanses of the lake with what looked like thick, sickly green split-pea soup. It was triggered by chemical pollution from farm fertilizers and industrial sources into the lake, which supplies the region's tap water.

Toledo was the first large U.S. city where toxic blooms made tap water unsafe for human consumption. But it may not be the last.

No government agency collects nationwide data on toxic blooms. But Environmental Working Group's research found news reports of almost 300 blooms in lakes, rivers and bays in 48 states and the Gulf of Mexico since 2010. Based on those reports, the problem appears to have worsened over the past few years.

In 2010, there were just three reports of toxic blooms in the U.S. In 2015, there were 15, including the largest to date in Lake Erie, although the bacteria did not get into Toledo's drinking water. In 2016, there were 51, including a huge bloom in Florida that prompted the state to declare an emergency in four counties on the Atlantic Coast. Last year, 169 blooms were reported. And in March, Ohio Gov. John Kasich declared the open waters of western Lake Erie "impaired for recreation"—an unprecedented designation that under the federal Clean Water Act will require the development and enforcement of plans to reduce toxic blooms.

*...*

..much more, maps

EWG’s interactive nationwide map shows locations of reported toxic blooms in green. Orange locations have links to vivid satellite photos of blighted lakes from California to Florida. Click on the image below to access the interactive map.

===

together at last:https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-sprayed-on-gmo-crops-linked-to-lake-eries-toxic-algae-bloom-1906543478.html

glyphosate Sprayed on GMO Crops Linked to Lake Erie’s Toxic Algae Bloom

Glyphosate, the controversial main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup and other herbicides, is being connected to Lake Erie's troubling algae blooms, which has fouled drinking water and suffocated and killed marine life in recent years....

https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-turtles-dead-red-tide-southwest-florida-2590387089.html

Scott Pruitt’s record reveals a long history of industry favoritism

As Oklahoma’s Attorney General, Pruitt has a history of slowing environmental regulation, cutting enforcement, and siding with industry.

NATASHA GEILING

JAN 18, 2017, 1:02 PM

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt gestures as he answers a question during a news conference in Oklahoma City. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File

OKLAHOMA ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT GESTURES AS HE ANSWERS A QUESTION DURING A NEWS CONFERENCE IN OKLAHOMA CITY. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/SUE OGROCKI, FILE

In 2005, former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson (D) filed a lawsuit against 14 poultry firms?—?including Tyson Foods, the largest meat processing company in the world?—?arguing that they were not holding up their end of a 2003 agreement aimed at reducing pollution into Oklahoma’s northeastern Illinois River.

That lawsuit was brought to federal court in 2009, with both sides resting after 52 days of arguments. The trial ended in February of 2010?—?just months before Scott Pruitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), took over as Oklahoma Attorney General.

Despite Pruitt’s claims that states are best positioned to be the arbitrators of air and water protections, there has never been a decision on the Oklahoma poultry pollution lawsuit because Pruitt never took further action on the case, despite some clear evidence that the Illinois River suffered from agricultural-related pollution.

Trump to tap vocal EPA opponent to head the EPA]

Instead of pursuing a resolution in court, Pruitt sidestepped the lawsuit. Two years later, when presented with a chance to deepen Oklahoma’s 2003 phosphorous pollution requirements, Pruitt chose instead to conduct a three year-long study into the problem. As part of that study, Oklahoma agreed to suspend the deadline for compliance with its phosphorus pollution limits.

The final report, released in December of this year, found that the state of Oklahoma had based its 2003 limits off the best available science. Put another way, the state’s chief law enforcement officer stalled state anti-pollution efforts for three years, conducting a study to reaffirm what the state already knew?—?while water quality in the Illinois watershed continued to fall short of state standards.

“Regulation through litigation is wrong in my view,” Pruitt said in an interview with the Oklahoman newspaper in 2015, explaining why his office chose not to pursue the case further. “That was not a decision my office made. It was a case we inherited.”

But legal experts and environmental advocates say Pruitt’s decision not to follow through on the poultry pollution lawsuit is evidence of his deference to polluting industries at the expense of the environment?—?a consistent thread in his continued opposition to the agency he now wants to head.

“This isn’t about regulation by litigation, this is about law enforcement,” Valerie Baron, ?Equal Justice Works Law Fellow at Natural Resources Defense Council, told ThinkProgress. “Pruitt’s actions speak very loud and clear. This is really, at its heart, about enforcing the law. Pruitt was the state’s chief law enforcement officer and he showed that he would rather polluters dictate their own terms rather than hold them accountable.”

Stalling on enforcement

In 1993, Oklahoma began gathering data on water pollution?—?especially phosphorus, which is found in high amounts in chicken manure. That data was compiled into a report, released in 1996, which found that phosphorus and other nutrients in the Illinois River were feeding algal blooms and endangering Lake Tenkiller, a reservoir in Oklahoma fed by the Illinois River. In 2003, as a result of that study, Oklahoma and Arkansas agreed to work together to reduce nutrient pollution in the Illinois River watershed, setting a goal of reducing phosphorus pollution by 40 percent.

Two years later, however, Edmondson filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that several poultry firms were not doing enough to help stop nutrient pollution from entering into Oklahoma’s waterways. The lawsuit claimed that there were 2,363 chicken houses in the Illinois watershed, and that those chicken houses produced enough manure to equal the waste from 10.7 million people per year.

That waste was then being spread onto farmland in the watershed?—?and while chicken manure is a great fertilizer, if too much is spread onto a small area, the ground can become saturated with nutrients, meaning things like phosphorus and nitrogen can easily wash into waterways during precipitation events.

Trump’s EPA pick stood by while human-caused earthquakes spread across his state

The lawsuit stalled in federal court as Pruitt took office in 2010. But in 2012, just as the initial 2003 phosphorus reduction agreement was set to expire, Arkansas regulators issued a report questioning Oklahoma’s phosphorus standards. In response, Pruitt got Arkansas to agree to let a researcher at Baylor University study the phosphorus levels in the Illinois River watershed. That study, which concluded in December of this year, found that Oklahoma’s phosphorus standards had been based on the best available science. Based on the results of that study, it’s unlikely Oklahoma’s phosphorus limits will be weakened, a Pruitt spokesperson told E&E News.

Critics argue that Pruitt basically spent three years studying an issue that had already been resolved years before?—?effectively slowing down the rate of improvement in phosphorus pollution of the Illinois River. And while phosphorus levels in the Illinois River have declined in recent years, the bulk of that improvement happened before Pruitt even took office.

A friend of industry

Pruitt’s stated reason for not pursuing the poultry lawsuit further was his insistence that regulation should not be decided through litigation?—?an interesting line of reasoning from a man who has been party to more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA aimed at rolling back pollution regulations. But as the Environmental Working Group points out in an investigation released January 14, Pruitt might have had more than philosophical reasons for quietly letting the lawsuit against major poultry firms languish in court: political donations.

According to the EWG report, executives of the poultry companies named in the 2005 lawsuit, as well as the companies’ lawyers, gave more than $40,000 to Pruitt’s campaign for Attorney General in 2010. Moreover, more than 90 percent of those contributions came from people living in Arkansas?—?an interesting phenomenon for a state-wide political race.

“Scott Pruitt has said that he chose not to pursue that case because he felt like it was regulation through litigation,” Kristen van de Biezenbos, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma, told ThinkProgress. “I suspect that Scott Pruitt felt that it would set a bad precedent?—?he doesn’t want to be seen as someone that is anti-agriculture, which is the other big industry here in Oklahoma.”

Senators dig into Scott Pruitt’s fossil fuel connections before confirmation hearings begin

The poultry lawsuit is not the only example of litigation that mixes Pruitt’s role as Attorney General with donors to his political campaigns and political action committees (PACs). According to the New York Times, Pruitt filed 14 cases as Oklahoma Attorney General challenging federal environmental regulations; in 13 of those cases, co-parties on the lawsuit had contributed money either to Pruitt’s political campaigns or a Pruitt-affiliated PAC.

Tyson Foods Linked to the Largest Toxic Dead Zone in U.S. History America's largest meat producer must clean up its act. 10/17 see Meat and Ocean.

Tyson Foods? A chicken nugget? A big red logo? How about the largest toxic dead zone in U.S. history? It turns out the meat industry—and corporate giants like Tyson Foods—are directly linked with this environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, and many others.

Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a “dead zone” (in red above) because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts. (image: NOAA)

That's why Mighty Earth has launched the "Clean It Up, Tyson" campaign in order to hold this industry accountable to our communities and the environment. Corporations can and should respect the health and well-being of their customers, and the landscapes that allow them to profit. Considering America's current political climate, and the increasing severity of environmental problems across the globe, collective action and corporate-targeted campaigns like this one have never been more urgent.

In a country with five times as many livestock animals as humans, it takes a lot of land to grow feed for the meat that ends up on consumers' plates. Over a third of America's agricultural land is dedicated towards the production of corn and soy, but humans consume less than 10 percent of this, according to Mighty Earth's campaign report. The vast majority is consumed by livestock.

What many people don't realize is that this livestock feed production is controlled by a very small number of large and powerful corporations, making huge upstream profits, but creating massive downstream pollution. These companies—ADM, Bunge, Cargill (often referred to as "the ABCs")—don't have much of a public reputation, as they don't sell directly to individual consumers. Under our current regulatory system, they're also not responsible for their run-off or excess fertilizer use, both of which are classified as "non-point source" pollution. In other words, soil erosion and run-off from enormous swaths of America's crop fields are washing into the waterways, and taxpayers shoulder the burden. These two factors mean that industrial agriculture companies operate with impunity while polluting the land, rivers and oceans.

A recent report by Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that more than 200 million Americans—over half of the people in our country—are exposed to contaminated drinking water due to fertilizer pollution. The estimated clean water costs to taxpayers are over $2 billion per year. The nitrate and phosphorous in fertilizer that leaches into our drinking water are associated with various types of cancers, birth defects and other health problems. This burden disproportionately falls on rural communities, whose water treatment systems were not built to deal with the levels of chemicals they're now facing.

"The EPA ordered Pretty Prairie, Kansas, to build a new water treatment plant last year to lower nitrate levels that could cost $2.4 million—well over $3,000 for every person in town," EWG reports. "Eighty-five percent or more of the communities with elevated levels of nitrate have no treatment systems in place to remove the contaminant."

Another alarming characteristic of industrial agriculture is that because it's so intensive, fields are quickly exhausted, and the industry must continuously expand to new areas. For this reason, the American prairie and grassland ecosystems are being altered faster than the Amazon rainforest.

A recent University of Wisconsin study estimated that this loss of natural grassland "could have emitted as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as 34 coal-fired power plants operating for one year—the equivalent of 28 million more cars on the road," notes Mighty Earth. These unique landscapes are among the most threatened in the world, and are irreversibly damaged after conversion into crop fields, often to grow corn and soy. At a time in our country when public lands are being attacked from many angles, industrial-scale agriculture to support the meat industry is the biggest challenge these ecosystems face.

Luckily, there are a number of simple, cheap and effective ways in which the meat industry could adopt sustainability measures into supply chains to and protect clean water. For example, currently less than 30 percent of fertilizer applied to massive industrial-scale crop fields is actually absorbed by the plants. Instead, most of this washes off as fertilizer pollution and contaminates waterways.

This is what has caused the largest dead zone in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico. It is currently over 8,000 square miles, where no marine life can survive due to toxic fertilizer pollution. By using more precise application methods, farmers could save money on fertilizer, and less of it would contaminate the water. Additionally, techniques like using cover crops, diversifying crops beyond corn and soy, and limiting tillage are proven ways to reduce soil erosion.

A few months ago, Mighty Earth conducted a comprehensive study into which areas of America are experiencing the worst water contamination from fertilizer pollution (Figure 1), and the most dramatic land conversion into livestock feed crop fields (Figure 2). This groundbreaking research also identified the agricultural and meat industry corporations most present in these areas. The clear culprit driving these destructive agricultural impacts was identified: Tyson Foods.

The country's largest meat company, the second largest globally and the pioneer of the industrial meat system, Tyson Foods produces one in every five pounds of meat: over 20 percent of all chicken, beef and pork. They are therefore uniquely placed to drive solutions, incentivize their suppliers to farm more responsibly, and reduce the catastrophic effects that industrial-scale agriculture has on the environment and public health.

Figure 1

Figure 2

"Recent commitments from a growing number of food companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Walmart, PepsiCo, and even Tyson's competitor, Smithfield, are showing the way forward," reports Mighty Earth. "These companies have committed to improve fertilizer and soil-health practices in their U.S. crop supply chains and have launched programs and practices that Tyson and other meat producers can adopt to drive improvements in their supply chains."

Tyson Foods has the power to make these changes too, and therefore to change the entire meat industry for the better—and we have the power to ask them to do it.

Tyson's prior commitments to sustainability are admirable, but don't go far enough. With the demand for meat rising, and the threats to our environment increasing, the stakes could not be higher.

This issue affects all of us. As far back as 2013, the majority of American waterways were contaminated by fertilizer pollution, according to the EPA. That's why Mighty Earth is organizing in communities across the country to ask Tyson to protect our water and our environment. By signing the petition or making a call to Tyson’s corporate headquarters, you can add your voice to the rising chorus calling for cleaner meat. Tyson Foods must lead the way to a more sustainable food system and protect the one planet we have.

Shana Gallagher is one of seven organizers around the U.S. launching Mighty Earth's #CleanItUpTyson campaign, an effort to reduce fertilizer pollution and preserve American waterways. Based in Dallas and originally from California, she holds a degree from Tufts University

https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-algae-blooms-2466592096.html

https://www.ecowatch.com/california-salmon-extinct-2412724180.html

http://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-algae-blooms-20-states-1993109050.html

Toxic Algae Blooms Threaten People and Waterways in More Than 20 States

Jax Jacobsen

More than 20 states have seen occurrences of toxic algae blooms this summer, which have had far-reaching environmental and human health impacts across the country. The algae blooms can also be found around the world, in all climates from Greenland to Oman.

A bloom of toxic algae in the Baltic sea, taken by NASA's Operational Land Imager this month.

Norman Kuring, NASA Earth Observatory

Utah swimmers have been sickened by the toxins, while beaches in Florida have been closed to protect beachgoers. In California, complete ecosystems are under threat due to the toxic blooms, NPR reported.

Some beaches in South Florida have been covered by a toxic algae sludge for months prompting Florida Gov. Rick Scott to declare local states of emergency in St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach and Lee counties in June.

California has reported the blooms in at least 30 lakes and reservoirs, California Water Resources Control Board scientist Bev Anderson told NPR.

"There's no question that we are seeing more harmful blooms in more places, that they are lasting longer and we're seeing new species in different areas," University of Maryland researcher Pat Glibert told the National Geographic earlier this month. "These trends are real."

A similar trend happened last year, when algae blooms practically covered the West Coast. In summer 2014, an outbreak in Lake Erie forced Toledo, Ohio to cut off city water to almost half a million residents.

The levels of toxins in the toxic blooms are what's most concerning, Anderson said. Twenty micrograms per liter would cause concern, but these blooms are reporting readings as high as 15,000 micrograms per liter.

Though the quality of drinking water is unlikely to be impacted due to screening in water plants, bathers and boaters can be sickened by the toxins.

One boater in California has noticed the change this summer.

"We've been here since 2002," kayaker Dave Holmes said. "It is by far the worst we've ever seen."

Local resident Wade Hensley had to be hospitalized because of the toxins, after his body became numb from the waist down after he dove into Discovery Bay in the middle of July. He still hasn't recovered feeling in half his body.

"It was about three days of swimming," he said. "Not constant, but in and out. And they can't pinpoint exactly what it is," Hensley said.

The increase in algae and the change in its composition is likely due to warming temperatures, Anderson said.

"We're getting higher temperatures than we've seen ever in the past," she said. "California had an unprecedented drought for the last five years which [has left] the water levels very low in a lot of areas."

Toxins are unusual in algae blooms, she noted.

"Some areas have been monitoring and seeing blooms for decades, but they've never had toxins," she said.

Blooms are also appearing in places that are unusual, including streams and mountain lakes.

Scientists are grappling with how to understand the impact of the blooms on local ecospheres.

"What emerged from last year's event is just how little we know about what these things can do," University of California-Santa Cruz toxic algae expert Raphael Kudela said.

Algae can have a variety of effects on nearby organisms, National Geographic noted. Some algae can alter the color of the waters around it and cause local air to be dangerous for humans to inhale. Other algae forms can cause fish and shellfish to die, and with them the humans that consume these fish and shellfish.

Other blooms can be so large that they deplete the local area of oxygen and force the death of other organisms.

"We expect to see conditions that are conducive for harmful algal blooms to happen more and more often," University of Maine's Mark Wells said. "We've got some pretty good ideas about what will happen, but there will be surprises, and those surprises can be quite radical."

Joaquim Goes, a researcher at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, thinks an increased use of fertilizers and substantial population growth are creating the conditions for these toxic algae blooms. But rapid glacial melt in the Himalayas, and the ensuing changes to monsoon patterns, are also causing problems.

It's also unclear how long toxic algal blooms have been a problem, especially in sparsely populated regions such as the Arctic, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center scientist Kathi Lefebvre said.

"It's a weird thing," she said. "We saw domoic acid in every species we looked at, so they are all being exposed to it. It's pretty clear that if you change temperature, light availability and nutrients, that can absolutely damage an ecosystem. But is it just starting? Is it getting worse? Is it the same as always? I have no idea."