The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has announced work with 11 other states bordering the Mississippi River to address the factors that contribute to seasonal dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Each partner state has developed and announced specific strategies that will be implemented using targeted federal funding.
A couple of weeks ago, DNR, a steward of the Missouri Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, announced it had received its first year of funding totaling nearly $1M to implement five projects under the Gulf Hypoxia Program, including:
- A nutrient reduction progress tracking dashboard tool to track nutrient reduction progress of state-level water quality and conservation programs
- The expansion of Missouri’s ambient stream nutrient monitoring to increase monitoring capabilities at four U.S. Geological Survey water quality monitoring stations
- A Missouri municipal wastewater nutrient optimization pilot to assess the efficiency of various alternative wastewater treatment strategies for reducing nutrient loads without requiring municipal treatment facilities to make large capital expenditures
- A Gulf hypoxia outreach and education exhibit to raise awareness of nutrient pollution, and
- Refinement of nutrient reduction models with subsurface nutrient transport measurement.
For a summary of the state’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxia plan and DNR’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, see here.
