Now the BP oil well is killed, we should be willing to look at an issue that already has and will have a long time detrimental impact on the Gulf of Mexico and so many other open waters, an issue better know as dead zones.
By now we are all aware of them and realize that they are caused by alga blooms growing as the result of fertilizer coming down the Mississippi River and EPA blaming mostly farmers. What EPA convenient does not tell the public is that all the fertilizer the farmers used to grow food and consumed by people, ends up as nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste in sewage and that this waste is not required to be treated under the Clean Water Act. This in turn due to the fact that when EPA implemented the CWA, with its goal to eliminate all water pollution by 1985 used an essential pollution test incorrectly and as consequence ignored this pollution. Roughly estimated 400 tons of nitrogenous waste (fertilizer) enters the Gulf daily from partly treated sewage.
This may be difficult for laymen to understand and comprehend what the consequences are of using this essential test incorrectly and thus realizing that EPA never implemented the CWA as intended and promised to the American public, but hopefully the following explanation may be less complicated and explains the detrimental impact on the Gulf and many other open waters.
Life on earth started out with single cell organisms like diatoms and phytoplankton, using mostly photosynthesis to create organic matter and oxygen. While life in the biosphere evolved and became much more complex with other forms of life, diatoms and phytoplankton still are the main food source for higher order organism, such as fish.
Through the past decades it has become clear that the amount of diatoms and phytoplankton is diminishing in the oceans and especially in Gulf of Mexico. This is the result of being overcrowded by alga, which in turn is the direct result of the increased amount of synthesized fertilizer used by farmers to feed the people. It is presently estimated that 33% of the nitrogen atoms in human bodies originate from fertilizer plants. This huge increase of synthesized fertilizer used is having a negative impact on the basic food chain in our open waters, similar to invasive species suppressing native species, by replacing the beneficial diatoms and phytoplankton to be replaced by alga, which are a food source for undesired fish species (Asian carp) or when they die, food for bacteria, who in turn use oxygen, deplete the dissolved oxygen, causing dead zones.
One may wonder what all this has to do with the fact that EPA does not require nitrogenous waste in sewage to be treated, although most people probably are not even aware of this when they flush their toilets or pay their sewer bills. First of all nitrogenous waste just like fecal waste exerts an oxygen demand and secondly, actually more important, is a fertilizer for alga and thus contributes to the out-crowding of diatoms and phytoplankton in lakes, seas and oceans.
Although EPA successfully in the past ignored this impact on our ecosystems, it successfully also has convinced politicians and the media, that treating this waste is not necessary and would be very expensive. Again failing to inform the public that, already in 1977, EPA was aware of certain sewage treatment processes that not only treat the sewage much better (including the nitrogenous waste) but actually could be built and operated at much lower cost. Not having to admit to this wasteful spending of public money, without any results, only because of a faulty test, may very well be the real reason why EPA refuses to correct this essential test. This while in 1987 of the record EPA admitted that the test and regulations should be corrected, but at the same time claimed that this was impossible as it would require a re-education and re-tooling of an entire industry that is happy with the status quo.
Such an attitude is understandable if one is directly involved, but rather disappointing when those not directly involved, like members of the media, are running away from their responsibility to inform the public, while our ecosystem deteriorate and the oceans are losing their function to provide the food for all inhabitants of this world. It may not yet impact our generation, but it will impact the world our children will inherit and they will then be right to blame our generation of biological illiteracy and plain stupidity. This situation is the same as any illness, where prevention always is better then its treatment.
If the CWA had been a boat, the bottom drain should have been fully closed before it was launched. That did not happen (due to incorrect testing) and we find ourselves in the middle of the river in a boat full of water, not knowing either to continue our trip or go back. Before we do anything drastic, my suggestion is to close the drain completely, bail out the water and continue this, ill started, but very important trip.