From Farmer to Shrimper: The Dead Zone
(pg 1 of 8)
Twenty years ago, Louisiana fishermen netting
the Gulf of Mexico for shrimp noticed their nets
were bringing up less and less-except the stench of
Further study revealed a growing "dead zone"
spreading from the mouth of the Mississippi across
the Louisiana-Texas shelf of the Gulf. Dissolved
oxygen along the seabed often dipped to less than 2
milligrams per liter, driving away fish and
stressing or killing organisms, such as crustaceans
and shellfish, that couldn't flee.
The dead zone developed each spring and summer.
It varied in size from year to year, once growing
to 8,500 square miles, about the size of