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The area of low oxygen that forms each summer off Louisiana's coast should be about average size this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This "dead zone," where oxygen levels are too low to support marine life in the lower water column, is forecast to be 5,898 square miles this year, about the same it has been for the past several years. The forecast is based on river flows and levels of nutrients caused primarily by agricultural runoff as well as other pollution that ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year's forecast was 5,483 square miles of low oxygen and the measured amount was 6,474 square miles. [Source: The Advocate (Baton Rouge)]
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