August 4, 2021 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is warning that the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone” is larger than average, with about 4 million acres of water potentially uninhabitable to fish and other marine life.
The agency said in a Tuesday report that for the past five years, the average hypoxic zone, or area with little to no oxygen where marine life easily dies, has been 5,380 square miles.
In 2021, this area is about 6,334 square miles, about 2.8 times larger than the 2035 target set by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force, better known as the Hypoxia Task Force.