Nutrient Pollution

The Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. For 2026, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts that nutrient pollution from the river will create a low-oxygen deadzone covering more than 7,000 square miles in the Gulf.

This summer’s ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf will be larger than average, but task force claims progress is being made

Héctor Alejandro Arzate (Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects the oxygen-depleted zone to be about the size of the state of New Jersey.

Annie Moore, co-owner of River Queen Greens, stands in front of a cover crop field with her dog, Penny, on May 27th, 2026. The farm uses NRCS programs to plant cover crops during the off-season to replenish the soil.

Coastal Desk

The agency that helps farmers protect the environment lost a third of its staff last year. And more cuts could be coming.

Eva Tesfaye

The Natural Resources Conservation Service is a federal agency that helps farmers protect soil and water and fight climate change. Advocates say those goals are in jeopardy.

Two women sit at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, where water from Lake Itasca begins its journey 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, flows in the early morning hours Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025 in Park Rapids, Minn.

Coastal Desk

Something is wrong with Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River

Greg Stanley (Minnesota Star Tribune)

Warming water may have an outsized impact on the legendary lake, which has been protected for decades.

Runoff creates a visible line in the Appomattox River, a major tributary of the James River, which flows into southern Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Credit: Kenny Fletcher, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Coastal Desk

Could the Mississippi River benefit from Chesapeake Bay’s strategy to improve water quality?

Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch

Sluggish progress on reducing nutrient runoff into the Bay marks an inconvenient truth, but offers lessons for others seeking to clean their watersheds.

Jeff Broberg examines water from a spring on April 11, 2024, near Altura, Minnesota. The retired geologist says, “I wouldn’t drink this water,” because of the nitrates and pesticides in it.

Coastal Desk

Not just a Gulf problem: Mississippi River farm runoff pollutes upstream waters

Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Worsening local effects on health and recreation in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin are spurring action on problems that also cause the Gulf of Mexico’s chronic “dead zone.”

Farms along the Missouri River contribute fertilizer runoff to the Mississippi River.

Coastal Desk

Missouri Farmers Try To Reduce Runoff, But Cleaning Gulf Dead Zone May Take Decades

Eli Chen

When corn and soybean farmer Kenny Reichard stopped plowing some of his fields in northern Missouri in 1982, other farmers told him that it was a...