A “dead zone” the size of Connecticut is choking plant and animal life in the Gulf of Mexico and Arkansas is contributing to the problem– though it’s not clear how much.
Fertilizer that helps crops grow contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, and as these nutrients run off fields and urban areas into the Mississippi River they contribute to mass algae growth that steals oxygen from other aquatic life.
As part of its efforts to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the Mississippi River, the Arkansas Department of Agriculture works with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Hypoxia Task Force to collect data and work with farmers and others to implement voluntary strategies to reduce nutrient runoff to the Mississippi River.
“A lot has been done, except it hasn’t been done at the scale needed to achieve those goals,” said Doug Daigle, a member of the Louisiana Hypoxia Working Group for 20 years. “Because the goal is to reduce the trend of growth overtime, we know we can’t make it go away completely.”
Hypoxia refers to low levels of oxygen in water, and the Hypoxia Task Force works across all Mississippi River watershed states to reduce the hypoxia problem in the Gulf of Mexico.
But while Arkansas’s agriculture department reported overall reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus runoff statewide in 2022, many of the watersheds in eastern Arkansas along the Mississippi River do not have adequate data to show nutrient runoff decreased.
Asked for comment on the lack of data, an agriculture department spokesperson referred the Arkansas Times to the department’s 2022 Arkansas Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
“Previous efforts over the last 30 years to reduce nutrient concentrations seem to be successful, but many watersheds do not have enough data due mainly to a shortage of water quality monitoring sites,” the document says. The document further explains that the greatest challenge to reducing nutrient runoff is the lack of solid data on water quality.
“It’s always good to have more data, you want to know what you can, what results you’re getting,” Daigle said. “So, if we don’t have … watershed numbers for some of these basins, while it would be nice to have those, but in itself it’s not a major problem because states are not required to reduce any particular amount.” Daigle also emphasized that Arkansas has taken numerous other steps to comply with the Hypoxia Taskforce Action Plan, and that the lack of data is not violating the voluntary agreement between task force members.
While the Mississippi River Hypoxia Task Force has worked on the problem since 1997, Arkansas’s incomplete data on nutrient runoff means the state’s contribution to the problem is unknown. According to the agriculture department’s 2021 Fertilizer Report (the most recent fertilizer report published), farmers in eastern Delta counties such as Crittenden and Cross purchase the most fertilizer in the state.
“Runoff from nutrients is the main problem causing Gulf hypoxia,” said Professor Clifford Ochs, a retired professor in the biology department at the University of Mississippi. His research focused on the Mississippi River between Memphis and Vicksburg, Mississippi.
“We’ve known about the problem for decades now, and there is this hypoxia task force that has attempted to address the problem with input from states all along the Mississippi River,” Ochs said. “Part of the problem is getting landowners to, and maybe especially farmers, to change the way they use fertilizers and change the way they use the land.”
The United States Geological Survey said that average total phosphorus and nitrogen runoff levels are not close to the initial goal of a 20% reduction by 2025. Due to Mississippi River watershed states not meeting their target reductions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the dead zone would reach 5,827 square miles this year– an area roughly the size of Connecticut. That’s up from an approximate size of 3,058 square miles in 2023.
The consequences of the dead zone are dire. The Mississippi River Basin Agriculture and Water Desk outlined some of the implications in its Farm to Trouble series in June. Shrimp fishers in New Orleans continue to see their livelihoods suffer as shrimp grow smaller and die off in the Gulf. Toxic algae blooms can also contain toxins that can sicken people and animals, with federal health officials reporting 117 human illnesses and more than 2,700 animal illnesses linked to algae blooms in 2021.
“There are economic concerns, in the Gulf of Mexico hypoxia is a problem for fisheries, oyster fisheries and other fisheries. So there’s that problem,” Ochs said. “And there is the more general problem of environmental pollution, as something that is causing the death of many marine organisms and especially bottom-dwelling organisms.”
Limiting nitrogen and phosphorus is largely voluntary. The Clean Water Act does not apply to nutrient runoff because the runoff is a “nonpoint source of pollution,” meaning it originates from diffuse points.
Addressing this exception is largely why the Hypoxia Task Force was started, Daigle said. He emphasized that while reductions in fertilizer use will help, better drainage systems could also prevent some of the nutrient runoff into the Mississippi River.
Cities also send nutrient runoff into the Mississippi River thanks to lawn fertilizers, septic systems, pet waste and automobile emissions. But the Little Rock metro saw a consistent decrease in nitrogen and phosphorus levels over the past 20 years, according to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.
The department’s 2022 Nutrient Reduction Strategy reported that 51% of nitrogen runoff and 76% of phosphorus runoff in the state come from agriculture. And phosphorus runoff into the Mississippi River is decreasing slower than nitrogen runoff, according to the Hypoxia Taskforce 2023 report, further emphasizing the impact of Arkansas farms on the problem.
It’s largely up to farmers to reduce the nutrient runoff contributing to the Gulf’s dead zone. Will they?
“There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of enforcement of how farmers can use fertilizers and their land to grow their crops,” Ochs said. “And in some cases, paradoxically, farmers are encouraged to use more fertilizer to grow corn for the ethanol market.”
This report built off the work of the Mississippi River Basin Agriculture and Water Desk series titled Farm to Trouble, published in June of this year. Photos included in the report are also from the Farm to Trouble project.