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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Gulf Dead Zone Traced Back to Iowa Farm Fields

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008   

Ames, IA - Hypoxia may be hard to pronounce, but it is even harder to live with. Hypoxia refers to a situation when the oxygen level in water is so low that neither plants nor fish can survive. Each year, the hypoxia dead zone around the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico grows larger. Scientists attribute hypoxia to the excessive runoff of nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizers.

A conference today in Ames will focus on cost-effective solutions to this serious problem. Conference organizer Catherine Kling is a professor of Environmental and Resource Economics at Iowa State University. She says the source of the runoff is close to home.

"When you look at maps that identify the sources of the nutrients that are the key problem, Iowa and Illinois are definitely part of the target. We must focus here to make any real progress."

Kling says the conference will feature experts from universities, federal and state agencies, and environmental experts with practical answers.

"The solutions are to manage nutrients better and properly time fertilizer applications, as well as to look at placing wetlands in locations where they can really do the most good."

Kling says the key to reducing the toxic runoff is making the solutions economically practical for farmers, so yield and profits are not compromised.


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