Dear Readers,

In an effort to capture the extent of the environmental problems which our world is plagued with today, and to reflect the ongoing efforts to save the enviornment, we, the Youthhabitat team, will undertake to post regular snapshots of breaking news articles related to the environment.

The first article of our series focuses on the "dead zone" in the US, where run-off from agricultural fields near the Mississipi drainage basin has contaminated the Gulf of Mexico with toxic levels of Nitrogen and Potassium, forming a "dead zone" in which few organisms can survive. The low oxygen levels in the "dead zone" force marine life that usually feed close to the sea bottom up to shallow areas, where they cannot find as much food to survive. The organisms soon die and fall to the bottom of the sea, where they are decomposed by bacteria. This decomposition process sucks oxygen from the water, forming a vicious cycle.

Bet you didn't know that such a dead zone exists! Here's just one more proof that pollution of our waterways is still very much a problem despite the dire warnings by environmentalists.

The link to the full story can be found here.

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