By Janet McConnaughey
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drought made the Mississippi River sluggish and led to a smaller than average dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life, the scientist who's been measuring it for decades said Wednesday.
Each year, investigators cruise the region to measure the zone. This year, they found it covers 3,275 square miles (8,500 square kilometers), said lead researcher Nancy Rabalais, of the Louisiana Marine Universities Consortium, and Steve Thur of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That’s just under 70% of the average-sized area predicted in early June.