LSU, Ohio State Team Up To Save Wetlands

From: T-P

The solution to restoring Louisiana's coastline and revitalizing the Gulf of Mexico starts on farms in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

That's the operating principle behind a 4 1/2-year-old partnership between Louisiana State and Ohio State universities -- the rivals in Monday night's battle for the college football crown -- that is designed to staunch as much as possible the flow of damaging nitrogen compounds called nitrates before they get into rivers that flow into the Mississippi River and, eventually, to the Gulf, where they kill off oxygen and create a dead zone of about 975 square miles.

Year by year, the nitrates' passage to the open sea has become steadily easier because Louisiana has lost so many of the coastal wetlands that could have removed the nitrogen from the water. One football field of this land is lost every 35 minutes, and 200 square miles of marshland have become open water because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to America's Wetland Foundation, an advocacy organization formed to educate the public about the situation.

I hope others follow their example. Wetland conservation is so important to our environment.