http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2010/05/04/17880/efforts_to_shrink_gulfs_dead_zone_face_serious_setbacks_from_oil_spillEfforts to shrink Gulf's 'dead zone' face serious setbacks from oil spill
By Sharon Schmickle | Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The massive environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico — oil gushing uncontrolled from a damaged well — threatens to compound a different problem that originates 1,200 miles north of the Gulf in Minnesota.
The Gulf's so-called dead zone, caused by nitrogen runoff along the banks of the Mississippi River, already was suffocating oysters, clams and other sea creatures during the summer months.
Now, the growing oil slick could exacerbate that problem by further depleting oxygen that is vital to a myriad of marine life forms, said John Gulliver, a civil and environmental engineer who conducts research at the University of Minnesota's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory in Minneapolis.
Timing will be a key. And time does not appear to be on the side of those working to avert the union of the two man-made assaults on life in the Gulf's waters.
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