It sounds like something out of a zombie movie, but the spreading "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is real. Extending from the mouth of the Mississippi River, the zone is almost barren of marine life. This void, an area the size of New Jersey, is caused largely by nutrients, primarily nitrogen, washing down from farms in the Midwest.

The greatest threat to our coastal waters today is nutrient pollution from diffuse "non-point" sources such as agricultural and urban runoff and airborne nitrogen pollution that settles on land and water.

In the Gulf of Mexico, nitrogen from the Mississippi causes algae blooms and red and brown tides, which block sunlight and devastate the marine ecosystem. When the algae dies, decomposition uses up available oxygen. Seagrass communities are destroyed. Bottom feeders like red snapper, red and black drum, croaker, sting rays and some sharks can't find food. Worms, clams, starfish and crabs disappear.

"The fish swim out of the area, but the others can't escape," says our Oceans program director Dr. Bob Howarth.

Howarth has been studying nutrient pollution in coastal waters for 15 years and leads an international coalition of 250 scientists researching the problem. This work led to a federal assessment of what causes the dead zone, and a National Academy of Sciences committee chaired by Howarth last summer endorsed the assessment.

An Environmental Defense recommendation for prompt government action helped bring about a multi-state agreement to reduce nutrient pollution of the Mississippi 30% by 2015. This would reduce the dead zone to one-third its present size.

"This goal can be achieved voluntarily by farmers with little or no loss of crop productivity if the federal government comes through with appropriate encouragement and incentives," said Howarth.

Will Washington listen?

Environmental Defense sees the upcoming reauthorization of the federal farm bill as a chance to restore the gulf and other degraded coastal waters around the nation. Direct support for farmers increased from $9 billion in the early 1990s to $32 billion in 2000. Yet only about $2 billion went to conservation programs like restoring and protecting wetlands that soak up nitrogen or planting winter cover crops to keep nitrogen in the soil. As debate on the massive farm bill began, we helped orchestrate a letter from 25 senators to the Budget Committee urging more funds for conservation.

Our recent report, Losing ground: Failing to meet farmer demand for conservation assistance, found that most farmers who seek federal help to improve water quality, combat sprawl or protect wildlife are rejected for lack of funds. The report found that 2,700 farmers hoping to restore 560,000 acres of lost wetlands were turned down. Much of this acreage would have filtered nitrogen in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio--the major sources of the dead zone.

"Many farmers know their practices contribute to the dead zone and want to do something about it," said our attorney Scott Faber. "Yet the government continues to favor methods that make the problem worse. We believe Congress will want to correct this in the new farm bill."