Corn and Dead Zones in the Gulf

While you get a lot or reporting on the BP spill, how about lack of coverage on the impact of the corn based ethanol dead zone in the gulf?

And has anyone bothered to ask how all the GMO corn and soy beans will effect the biochemistry of the Gulf waters as well as marine life or land life?

This isn't too different than the cover-up you never hear about in Idaho's Silver Valley at the nation's largest Superfund site.

Excerpt from Dead Zone in Gulf Linked to Ethanol Production
by Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Corn is biggest culprit

The gulf dead zone is the second-largest in the world, after one in the Baltic Sea. Scientists say the biggest culprit is industrial-scale corn production. Corn growers are heavy users of both nitrogen and pesticides. Vast monocultures of corn and soybeans, both subsidized by the federal government, have displaced diversified farms and grasslands throughout the Mississippi Basin.

"The subsidies are driving farmers toward more corn," said Gene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University. "More nitrate comes off corn fields than it does off of any other crop by far. And nitrogen is driving the formation of the dead zone."

The dead zone, he said, is "a symptom of the homogenization of the landscape. We just have a few crops on what used to have all kinds of different vegetation."

In 2007, Congress passed a renewable fuels standard that requires ethanol production to triple in the next 12 years. The Department of Agriculture has just rolled out a plan to meet that goal, including building ethanol refineries in every state. The Environmental Protection Agency will decide soon whether to increase the amount of ethanol in gasoline blends from 10 percent to 15 percent.

A 2008 National Research Council report warned of a "considerable" increase in damage to the gulf if ethanol production is increased.

Pet cause of Congress

Read complete article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/06/MNF91E84SL.DTL