LSU and Ohio State University may have been at odds on the football field Jan. 7, but when it comes to fighting for the nation’s wetlands, they are on the same side.
The two universities have started a program that will restore and replenish the wetlands of the Gulf Coast and prevent further damage from being done.
“The championship was a limelight that LSU and OSU could use to bring national attention to this important project,” said Robert Twilley, professor of coastal sciences at the School of the Coast and Environment.
This is not the first time the universities have teamed up for environmental causes. In 2003, LSU and OSU joined forces to reduce the amount of harmful chemicals polluting the Mississippi River basin.
“We thought that Ohio State and LSU were excellent choices to combat this problem because the Midwest is causing most of the pollution, and Louisiana and the surrounding areas have had to deal with it,” said Bill Mitsch, professor of environment and natural resources at Ohio State University.
The other issue the colleges are trying to correct is hypoxia. Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen in bodies of water that leads to the death of aquatic animal and plant life. The leaders of this investigation are trying to reduce the nitrates in the water, which will stop the growth of the already 975 mile-wide dead zone.
“Many things are hurting the coast right now and, although Louisiana experiences the bulk of coastal erosion and land loss in the Gulf, Florida, Mississippi and Texas are all assisting in research,” said Heather Warner Finley, marine habitat program manager of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
The pollution, which comes from fertilizers used on Midwestern farms, causes serious damage to the coast by creating a dead zone with so little oxygen that plant and animal life cannot survive there.
“Even water quality becomes an issue with this type of pollution because it is waste,” said Finley.
The universities have spent several decades on this collaboration, said Mitsch, who is part of the Heffner Wetland Research Program at OSU. “LSU and OSU are two of the leading universities in protecting the wetlands,” Twilley said. “Although we have only been in a formal contract since 2003, we have been working together for at least the past 20 years.”
The wetlands are vital not only to fisheries and oil refineries, but also work as barriers from dangerous hurricanes.
“Louisiana is rebuilding the wetlands, and Ohio is trying to protect them by stopping pollution. They are two different steps but working towards the same end – conservation of the wetlands,” Finley said.
Nitrates usually leak from the farms in the spring and flare up in the summer when they reach the coast. Researchers are hoping to have a solution by then.
“Katrina stopped a lot of the project, but we are getting it going again,” Mitsch said. Although this project has received a lot of national attention, they have not received any federal funding. They are able to continue working only because of a series of grants from public and private sources.
“We have sent all this information to the premier science journals, and we have had little or no response from the federal government,” Twilley said. “It is really very sad.”
—-Contact Gina Zanutto at [email protected]