We take it for granted how magnificently balanced out eco-system is. Fertilizer run-off from our farm lands, front lawns and golf
courses has a visible impact on marine life it makes one wonder what effect pesticides and other chemicals have. I wonder how many
Americans know there is a 5,000 square mile Dead Zone in the Gulf versus Tiger Wood's wedding?

The American media needs to get it's priorities straight. Remember before 9/11 the media was more concerned with a senator by the
name of Condit having and affair with a missing intern by the name of Chandraq Levy.

Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO -- Fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico are threatened by loss of coastal wetlands and agricultural runoff, from which a
"dead zone" of oxygen-depleted water has grown, experts say.

To stop expansion of the 5,000-square-mile area where low oxygen levels make it difficult for marine life to survive, studies show
that wetlands must be reclaimed and fertilizer use in the Mississippi River basin cut by 25 percent, said Andrew Solow, a researcher
at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Solow was one of five experts who addressed environmental attorneys attending the first of two days of discussions Thursday at the
Hyatt Hill Country Resort.

Shrimp and fish can escape from the zone, which for the first time this past summer stretched toward the Texas coast, Solow said.
But he said crabs and other slow-moving species can be killed in the area where trillions of tiny sea plants called phytoplankton
sink, die and decay.

Meanwhile, marshes and wetlands that catch sediment and nutrients, reducing nutrient-laden runoff, continue to shrink.

The Mississippi's delta-building process has stalled from decades of engineering to straighten the river to make more land usable
and reduce flooding, said Len Bahr, director of the Louisiana Governor's Applied Coastal Science Program.

"We're losing 200 million tons of sediment a year into the gulf," he told the San Antonio Express-News in today's editions, adding:
"we see an imminent collapse (of gulf fisheries) if the coastal marshes keep pulling away."

Studies have not shown clear economic benefits that could prompt politicians to act on perhaps-costly solutions to the problem of
the dead zone, a condition known scientifically as hypoxia, Solow said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday announced a $1.2 million grant to Texas State University-San Marcos
to develop new molecular indicators for monitoring hypoxia and toxic chemicals in coastal waters.

Conrad Lautenbacher, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, said the funds will be used to
"help create the tools needed to detect early indicators of nutrient overload in our estuaries."