1
00:00:01,071 --> 00:00:03,833
Good evening, welcome to New Orleans.

2
00:00:04,310 --> 00:00:05,770
I don't know if you knew this,

3
00:00:05,794 --> 00:00:12,216
but you are sitting within 15 minutes
of one of the largest rivers in the world:

4
00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:13,707
the Mississippi river.

5
00:00:14,367 --> 00:00:16,983
Old Man River, Big Muddy.

6
00:00:17,597 --> 00:00:22,116
And it goes as far north
as the state of Minnesota,

7
00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:26,442
as far east as the state of New York,

8
00:00:26,466 --> 00:00:29,751
as far west as Montana.

9
00:00:30,188 --> 00:00:33,474
And 100 miles from here, river miles,

10
00:00:33,498 --> 00:00:37,745
it empties its fresh water and sediments
into the Gulf of Mexico.

11
00:00:39,109 --> 00:00:42,196
That's the end of Geography 101.

12
00:00:42,220 --> 00:00:43,371
(Laughter)

13
00:00:43,395 --> 00:00:46,831
Now we're going to go
to what is in that water.

14
00:00:47,379 --> 00:00:53,315
Besides the sediment, there are dissolved
molecules, nitrogen and phosphorus.

15
00:00:54,173 --> 00:00:58,656
And those, through a biological process,

16
00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:03,627
lead to the formation
of areas called dead zones.

17
00:01:04,419 --> 00:01:09,895
Now, dead zone is a quite ominous word

18
00:01:09,919 --> 00:01:11,934
if you're a fish or a crab.

19
00:01:11,958 --> 00:01:13,490
(Laughter)

20
00:01:13,514 --> 00:01:15,914
Even a little worm in the sediments.

21
00:01:16,538 --> 00:01:19,569
Which means that there's not enough oxygen

22
00:01:19,593 --> 00:01:22,045
for those animals to survive.

23
00:01:23,673 --> 00:01:25,410
So, how does this happen?

24
00:01:25,434 --> 00:01:27,656
The nitrogen and the phosphorus

25
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:32,652
stimulate the growth of microscopic plants
called phytoplankton.

26
00:01:33,807 --> 00:01:39,321
And small animals called zooplankton
eat the phytoplankton,

27
00:01:39,345 --> 00:01:43,360
small fish eat the zooplankton,
large fish eat the small fish,

28
00:01:43,384 --> 00:01:45,784
and it goes on up into the food web.

29
00:01:46,125 --> 00:01:50,656
The problem is that there's just too much
nitrogen and phosphorus right now,

30
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,990
too much phytoplankton
falling to the bottom

31
00:01:54,014 --> 00:01:59,426
and decomposed by bacteria
that use up the oxygen.

32
00:01:59,450 --> 00:02:01,029
That's the biology.

33
00:02:01,911 --> 00:02:05,236
Now, you can't see it
from the surface of the water,

34
00:02:05,260 --> 00:02:07,744
you can't see it in satellite images,

35
00:02:07,768 --> 00:02:09,949
so how do we know it's there?

36
00:02:09,973 --> 00:02:12,807
Well, a trawler can tell you,

37
00:02:12,831 --> 00:02:17,077
when she puts her net over the side
and drags for 20 minutes

38
00:02:17,101 --> 00:02:18,950
and comes up empty,

39
00:02:18,974 --> 00:02:21,045
that she knows she's in the dead zone.

40
00:02:21,347 --> 00:02:23,601
And she has to go somewhere else.

41
00:02:23,625 --> 00:02:29,485
But where else do you go
if this area is 8,000 square miles big?

42
00:02:29,509 --> 00:02:32,309
About the size of the state of New Jersey.

43
00:02:32,881 --> 00:02:37,149
Well, you either make
a decision to go further,

44
00:02:37,173 --> 00:02:39,466
without much economic return,

45
00:02:39,490 --> 00:02:41,053
or go back to the dock.

46
00:02:42,167 --> 00:02:46,159
As a scientist, I have access
to high-tech equipment

47
00:02:46,183 --> 00:02:49,040
that we can put over the side
of the research vessel

48
00:02:49,064 --> 00:02:51,603
and it measures oxygen
and many more things.

49
00:02:51,942 --> 00:02:54,156
We start at the Mississippi River,

50
00:02:54,180 --> 00:02:58,711
we criss-cross the Gulf of Mexico
all the way to Texas,

51
00:02:58,735 --> 00:03:03,365
and even I sneak into Texas
every now and then and test their waters.

52
00:03:04,585 --> 00:03:08,315
And you can tell by the bottom oxygen,

53
00:03:08,339 --> 00:03:11,498
you can draw a map
of everything that's less than two.

54
00:03:11,522 --> 00:03:16,878
Which is the magic number
for when the fish start to leave the area.

55
00:03:17,895 --> 00:03:19,895
I also dive in this dead zone.

56
00:03:21,030 --> 00:03:25,014
We have oxygen meters
that we have to deploy offshore,

57
00:03:25,038 --> 00:03:29,326
that tell us continuous measurements
of low oxygen or high oxygen.

58
00:03:30,363 --> 00:03:33,934
And when you get into the water,
there's a lot of fish.

59
00:03:33,958 --> 00:03:35,855
Tons of fish, all kinds of fish,

60
00:03:35,879 --> 00:03:40,085
including my buddy here, the barracuda
that I saw one day.

61
00:03:40,109 --> 00:03:44,322
Everybody else swam this way,
and I went this way with my camera.

62
00:03:44,346 --> 00:03:45,522
(Laughter)

63
00:03:45,546 --> 00:03:49,772
And then, down at 30 feet
you start to see fewer fish.

64
00:03:50,188 --> 00:03:52,363
And then you get to the bottom.

65
00:03:52,387 --> 00:03:54,187
And you don't see any fish.

66
00:03:54,593 --> 00:03:58,913
There's no life on the platform,
there's no life swimming around.

67
00:03:59,323 --> 00:04:01,790
And you know you're in the dead zone.

68
00:04:03,014 --> 00:04:07,276
So, what's the connection
between the middle of the United States

69
00:04:07,300 --> 00:04:08,833
and the Gulf of Mexico?

70
00:04:09,450 --> 00:04:12,791
Well, most of the watershed is farmland.

71
00:04:13,736 --> 00:04:17,487
And in particular, corn-soybean rotation.

72
00:04:18,973 --> 00:04:24,609
The nitrogen that is put in fertilizers
and the phosphorus goes on the land

73
00:04:24,633 --> 00:04:27,632
and drains off into the Mississippi River

74
00:04:27,656 --> 00:04:29,923
and ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.

75
00:04:30,435 --> 00:04:35,245
There's three times more
nitrogen in the water

76
00:04:35,269 --> 00:04:37,038
in the Mississippi now,

77
00:04:37,062 --> 00:04:39,284
than there was in the 1950s.

78
00:04:39,308 --> 00:04:40,458
Three times.

79
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:42,768
And phosphorous has doubled.

80
00:04:42,792 --> 00:04:47,970
And what that means is more phytoplankton
and more sinking sails and lower oxygen.

81
00:04:48,521 --> 00:04:53,354
This is not a natural feature of the Gulf,
it's been caused by human activities.

82
00:04:54,073 --> 00:04:56,676
The landscape is not what it used to be.

83
00:04:56,700 --> 00:05:01,601
It used to be prairies and forests
and prairie potholes

84
00:05:01,625 --> 00:05:05,735
and duck areas and all kinds of stuff.

85
00:05:05,759 --> 00:05:08,093
But not anymore -- it's [unclear] crops.

86
00:05:08,776 --> 00:05:13,736
And there are ways that we can address
this type of agriculture

87
00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:19,037
by using less fertilizer,
maybe precision fertilizing.

88
00:05:19,061 --> 00:05:22,506
And trying some sustainable agriculture,

89
00:05:22,530 --> 00:05:27,045
such as perennial wheatgrass,
which has much longer roots

90
00:05:27,069 --> 00:05:29,693
than the six inches of a corn plant,

91
00:05:29,717 --> 00:05:34,352
that can keep the nitrogen on the soil
and keep the soil from running off.

92
00:05:35,354 --> 00:05:39,346
And how do we convince
our neighbors to the north,

93
00:05:39,370 --> 00:05:42,744
maybe 1,000 miles away or more,

94
00:05:42,768 --> 00:05:48,547
that their activities are causing problems
with water quality in the Gulf of Mexico?

95
00:05:49,764 --> 00:05:52,891
First of all, we can take them
to their own backyard.

96
00:05:52,915 --> 00:05:55,708
If you want to go swimming in Wisconsin,

97
00:05:55,732 --> 00:05:59,192
in the summer, in your favorite
watering hole,

98
00:05:59,216 --> 00:06:02,435
you might find something like this

99
00:06:02,459 --> 00:06:06,896
which looks like spilled green paint
and smells like it,

100
00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,523
growing on the surface of the water.

101
00:06:09,547 --> 00:06:13,370
This is a toxic blue-green algal bloom

102
00:06:13,394 --> 00:06:16,425
and it is not good for you.

103
00:06:17,521 --> 00:06:21,624
Similarly, in Lake Erie,
couple of summers ago

104
00:06:21,648 --> 00:06:25,554
there was hundreds of miles
of this blue-green algae

105
00:06:25,578 --> 00:06:29,974
and the city of Toledo, Ohio,
couldn't use it for their drinking water

106
00:06:29,998 --> 00:06:31,799
for several days on end.

107
00:06:31,823 --> 00:06:33,557
And if you watch the news,

108
00:06:33,581 --> 00:06:39,466
you know that lots of communities
are having trouble with drinking water.

109
00:06:41,450 --> 00:06:42,878
I'm a scientists.

110
00:06:43,188 --> 00:06:45,077
I don't know if you could tell that.

111
00:06:45,394 --> 00:06:46,544
(Laughter)

112
00:06:49,702 --> 00:06:53,665
And I do solid science,
I publish my results,

113
00:06:53,689 --> 00:06:58,144
my colleagues read them,
I get citations of my work.

114
00:06:58,831 --> 00:07:03,680
But I truly believe that, as a scientists,

115
00:07:03,704 --> 00:07:08,655
using mostly federal funds
to do the research,

116
00:07:08,679 --> 00:07:11,814
I owe it to the public,

117
00:07:11,838 --> 00:07:15,337
to agency heads and congressional people

118
00:07:15,361 --> 00:07:17,946
to share my knowledge with them

119
00:07:17,970 --> 00:07:21,839
so they can use it,
hopefully to make better decisions

120
00:07:21,863 --> 00:07:24,048
about our environmental policy.

121
00:07:24,982 --> 00:07:26,450
(Applause)

122
00:07:26,474 --> 00:07:27,664
Thank you.

123
00:07:27,688 --> 00:07:30,954
(Applause)

124
00:07:31,454 --> 00:07:35,407
One of the ways that I was able to do this
is I brought in the media.

125
00:07:35,937 --> 00:07:40,323
And Joby Warwick from The Washington Post

126
00:07:40,347 --> 00:07:43,347
put this picture in an article

127
00:07:43,371 --> 00:07:47,491
on the front page, Sunday morning,
two inches above the fold.

128
00:07:48,149 --> 00:07:49,839
That's a big deal.

129
00:07:50,434 --> 00:07:53,688
And Senator John Breaux, from Louisiana,

130
00:07:53,712 --> 00:07:57,918
said, "Oh, my gosh, that's what they think
the Gulf of Mexico looks like?"

131
00:07:57,942 --> 00:08:00,609
And I said, "Well, you know,
there's the proof."

132
00:08:00,633 --> 00:08:03,355
And we've go to do something about it.

133
00:08:03,379 --> 00:08:08,085
At the same time, Senator
Olympia Snowe from Maine

134
00:08:08,109 --> 00:08:12,022
was having trouble with harmful
algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine.

135
00:08:12,046 --> 00:08:15,621
They joined forces -- it was bipartisan --

136
00:08:15,966 --> 00:08:17,354
(Laughter)

137
00:08:17,378 --> 00:08:19,720
(Applause)

138
00:08:19,744 --> 00:08:22,640
And invited me to give
congressional testimony,

139
00:08:22,664 --> 00:08:25,736
and I said, "Oh, all I've done
is chase crabs around south Texas,

140
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:27,165
I don't know how to do that."

141
00:08:27,189 --> 00:08:28,345
(Laughter)

142
00:08:28,369 --> 00:08:29,566
But I did it.

143
00:08:29,590 --> 00:08:32,727
And eventually, the bill passed.

144
00:08:32,751 --> 00:08:35,775
And it was called -- yeah, yay --

145
00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:38,601
It was called The Harmful Algal Bloom

146
00:08:38,625 --> 00:08:43,187
in Hypoxia Research
and Control Act of 1998.

147
00:08:43,775 --> 00:08:44,927
(Laughter)

148
00:08:44,951 --> 00:08:48,243
(Applause)

149
00:08:48,267 --> 00:08:49,434
Thank you.

150
00:08:49,458 --> 00:08:51,942
Which is why we call it
the Snowe-Breaux Bill.

151
00:08:51,966 --> 00:08:53,116
(Laughter)

152
00:08:54,403 --> 00:09:01,149
The other thing is that we had
a conference in 2001

153
00:09:01,818 --> 00:09:04,649
that was put on by
the National Academy of Sciences

154
00:09:04,673 --> 00:09:08,991
that looked at fertilizers, nitrogen
and poor water quality.

155
00:09:09,899 --> 00:09:13,517
Our plenary speaker
was the former governor

156
00:09:13,541 --> 00:09:15,341
of the state of New Jersey.

157
00:09:16,665 --> 00:09:18,774
And she ...

158
00:09:18,798 --> 00:09:23,656
There was no thinking she wasn't serious
when she peered at the audience

159
00:09:23,680 --> 00:09:26,814
and I thought, "Surely
she's looking at me."

160
00:09:26,838 --> 00:09:30,870
"You know, I'm really tired
of this thing being called New Jersey.

161
00:09:30,894 --> 00:09:34,728
Pick another state, any state,
I just don't want to hear it anymore."

162
00:09:34,752 --> 00:09:38,434
But she was able to move the action plan

163
00:09:38,458 --> 00:09:44,149
across President George H.W. Bush's desk

164
00:09:44,173 --> 00:09:47,950
so that we had environmental goals

165
00:09:47,974 --> 00:09:50,283
and that we were working to solve them.

166
00:09:52,022 --> 00:09:55,053
The Midwest does not feed the world.

167
00:09:55,903 --> 00:10:01,617
It feeds a lot of chickens, hogs, cattle

168
00:10:01,641 --> 00:10:03,895
and it generates ethanol

169
00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:06,291
to put into our gasoline,

170
00:10:06,315 --> 00:10:09,116
which is regulated by federal policy.

171
00:10:10,171 --> 00:10:11,971
We can do better than this.

172
00:10:13,448 --> 00:10:16,855
We need to make decisions

173
00:10:16,879 --> 00:10:20,982
that make us less consumptive.

174
00:10:22,878 --> 00:10:27,303
And reduce our reliance on nitrogen.

175
00:10:27,966 --> 00:10:30,077
It's like a carbon footprint.

176
00:10:30,101 --> 00:10:33,149
But you can reduce
your nitrogen footprint.

177
00:10:33,173 --> 00:10:38,348
I do it by not eating much meat --

178
00:10:38,372 --> 00:10:40,395
I still like a little
every now and then --

179
00:10:40,419 --> 00:10:43,164
not using corn oil,

180
00:10:43,188 --> 00:10:47,664
driving a car that I can put
non-ethanol gas in,

181
00:10:47,688 --> 00:10:49,488
and get better gas mileage.

182
00:10:50,560 --> 00:10:53,057
Just things like that,
that can make a difference.

183
00:10:53,081 --> 00:10:56,728
So I'm challenging, not just you,

184
00:10:56,752 --> 00:10:59,752
but I challenge a lot of people,
especially in the Midwest --

185
00:11:00,212 --> 00:11:05,077
think about how you're treating your land
and how you can make a difference.

186
00:11:06,069 --> 00:11:09,124
So my steps are very small steps.

187
00:11:10,363 --> 00:11:14,029
To change the type
of agriculture in the US

188
00:11:14,053 --> 00:11:16,482
is going to be many big steps.

189
00:11:16,966 --> 00:11:20,703
And it's going to take political
and social will for that to happen.

190
00:11:21,394 --> 00:11:22,544
But we can do it.

191
00:11:23,291 --> 00:11:27,355
I strongly believe
we can translate the science

192
00:11:27,379 --> 00:11:31,942
bridge it to policy and make
a difference in our environment.

193
00:11:32,577 --> 00:11:34,711
We all want a clean environment.

194
00:11:35,038 --> 00:11:37,633
And we can work together to do this

195
00:11:37,657 --> 00:11:41,438
so that we no longer have
these dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.

196
00:11:41,974 --> 00:11:43,125
Thank you.

197
00:11:43,149 --> 00:11:49,230
(Applause)