Dead Zone Overkill  | Tue Jul. 15, 2008 5:08 PM GMT   The Gulf
of Mexico dead zone is set to bust all its own records.
Forecasts suggest this super-duper-unproductive ocean zone will
reach 8,800 square miles this summer. That's the size of New
Jersey.  Last year it reached 7,903 square miles. The earlier
record was 8,481 square miles in 2002.  Notice a trend?  Notice
the Bizarre-New-Age-of-Abysmal-Record-Everythings we've entered?
For those of you who've been asleep during the Bush-van-Winkle
years, here's the primer. A dead zone forms when fertilizers
wash from farms via rivers to fertilize the sea.  There are
other reasons too. Including whatever nutrients you add to your
lawn. Don't even get me started on golf courses.  So this year's
climate-change-induced record floods on the Mississippi River do
a lot more damage than to Midwestern croplands.  That's because
the ocean doesn't like a lot of fertilizer. It makes too many
plants grow. Those plants die and feed too many decomposers who
use up all the oxyge