WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — One third of the 400 "dead zones" in the world’s oceans that have been depleted of oxygen are in or around the US, Kerry said during a classroom discussion in Silver Spring, Maryland.
"We have 166 dead zones in the United States. The largest dead zone of all is about 5,000 square miles down… in the Gulf of Mexico, out where the Mississippi River comes out," Kerry said on Wednesday in remarks published by the US Department of State.
"There are now over 400 dead zones on a global basis and they’ve gone up every single decade for the last decades. What does that tell you? It tells you that we’re not solving the problem; it’s getting worse, not better," Kerry explained.
Kerry noted that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone had been caused by major growth in algae caused by nitrate overgrowth that crowded out the oxygen driving away or killing all fish in the area.
