An editorial in Vol.2(1), 1999, 1-3, of the international journal "Environmental Science and Policy"
HYPOXIA IN THE GULF OF MEXICO
Environmental science assessments form a bridge between environmental science and environmental policy. Such assessments play an important role in the identification, analysis and formulation of policy options, and provide key inputs to decision making.
In this editorial I address two essential ingredients in conducting successful environmental science assessments: involvement of a spectrum of stakeholders in the decision-making process; and the setting of an appropriate scope, or framework, for an assessment. I define "success" in terms of the extent to which the scientific community and stakeholders find an assessment to be credible and comprehensive.
In particular, I evaluate the extent to which these two assessment ingredients are incorporated in the ongoing federal assessment of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico (CENR, 1998). My evaluation incorporates lessons learned over the past quarter of a century from the conduct and analysis of numerous environmental science assessments (e.g., Oversight Review Board, 1991; Russell, 1992; Global Environmental Assessment Project, 1997; Winstanley et al., 1998).
One hypothesis underlies the federal hypoxia assessment. Nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers from the rich agricultural lands in the Mid-and Upper-Mississippi River Basin, are carried down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico where nutrient enrichment causes hypoxia in the shallow waters of the Louisiana inner-continental shelf (CENR, 1998). This hypothesis has been formulated mainly by scientists who have been funded for years by the federal government to investigate this one hypothesis:
"The hypothesis posed for COP's Gulf of Mexico hypoxia research is that nutrient additions from the Mississippi River watershed contribute significantly to over-enrichment of Gulf waters and subsequent decline in water quality." (NOAA/COP web home page, May 30, 1998.)
The federal assessment is narrowly focused on dissolved nutrients and is being prepared by many of the same scientists who have been funded to conduct nutrient research. Even prior to the conduct of the science assessment, the solution to the problem has been defined as a reduction in the load of dissolved nutrients carried by the Mississippi River.
The federal hypoxia assessment is being conducted under the auspices of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. A related effort appears to be the development of the Administration's Clean Water Action Plan. The latter calls for the development of numeric nutrient criteria by the year 2000 and the subsequent development of nutrient standards.
Judged by what is to be learned from previous environmental science assessments, there appear to be a number of shortcomings to the federal hypoxia assessment.
First, the assessment plan has been approved only by representatives from federal agencies, and only federal agencies will approve the final scientific reports (CENR, 1998). Key stakeholders, such as states, Indian tribes and farmers are not included in the decision-making process of the assessment, although the peer-reviewed reports will be made available for public comment and a public workshop (or series of workshops) will be held. An argument used by CENR that there may be more in-depth assessments in later years does little to legitimize a process that has already determined the problem and its solution. Concern over the fact that key stakeholders have not been involved in the decision-making process was expressed by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force at its September 1998 meeting in Minnesota.
In November 1998 The President established another task force - an Interagency Task Force - consisting only of representatives from federal agencies. An early task for the Task Force is to submit to the President and Congress by May 30, 1999, an integrated assessment report on hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Based on this report, the President, in conjunction with chief executive officers of the States, is to produce for Congress by March 2000 a plan for reducing, mitigating, and controlling hypoxia. This plan is to be based on the integrated assessment report approved and submitted by the federal agencies. In the process of producing the plan, the President is required to "consult" with state governments and other groups.
Another shortcoming of the federal hypoxia assessment is the narrow focus on dissolved nutrients.
The structure and scope of the federal hypoxia assessment is even inconsistent with the methodology identified by CENR in its own report on "Setting a New Course for Coastal Ocean Science" (CENR, 1995). The report, developed by consensus among federal science agencies, the university community, and natural resource managers, recommends a comprehensive, integrated, systems approach to address the complexities associated with the degradation of coastal ocean quality. This approach includes recognizing the heterogeneous and highly dynamic nature of coastal ecosystems and the need to address freshwater, suspended solids, terrestrial organic matter, the loss of wetlands, pollution, and land-use changes, as well as dissolved nutrients. Hydrologic, hydraulic, oceanographic, geologic, and sediment changes, and CO2 fertilization of coastal waters could be added to the list.
CENR appears to have learned little from previous science assessments and evaluations of these assessments, and is ignoring its own scholarly methodology for addressing the degradation of coastal ocean quality.
A century ago, T.C. Chamberlin, an eminent Professor of Geology at the University of Chicago, called over-reliance on a dominant hypothesis a limited view and a partial investigation that results from a single explanatory conception (Chamberlin, 1890). The implication of such limited scientific enquiry remains the same today as Chamberlin stated eloquently a century ago:
"If our vision is narrowed by a preconceived theory as to what will happen, we are almost certain to misinterpret the facts and to misjudge the issue."
Gerard Hertel, Assistant Director for Forest Health in the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, recently expressed a similar view on science assessments (Showstack, 1998):
"If you go in with a strong feeling about the answer you want to get, you could come out with an answer, maybe by selecting areas that give you information that supports your hypothesis."
Thomas Hanks with the U.S. Geological Survey expressed concerns about over-reliance on the body of scientific opinion in another way (Hanks, 1997).
"There is, of course, something unsettling about the statistical flattening of a scientific opinion by the weight of consensus. All too often, it seems, establishment science has been an obstacle to new and different science."
In order to improve the scientific basis for wise decision making, Chamberlin recommended the rigorous testing of multiple working hypotheses. Such was the continued respect and demand for Chamberlin's 1890 article that Science Magazine reprinted it in its entirety in 1965 (Chamberlin, 1965).
Unfortunately, scientists studying Gulf hypoxia appear to address multiple working hypotheses only in a cursory manner (Turner et al., 1997). In relying on a dominant hypothesis, which itself seems not to have been tested rigorously, the federal hypoxia assessment will lay itself open to the type of criticism leveled by Chamberlin and Hertel. Overemphasis on a dominant hypothesis is likely to guarantee that the assessment will not be comprehensive, that scientific credibility will not be attained, and that key stakeholders will not "buy in" to the preconceived solution.
In fact, the scientific evidence indicates clearly that oxygen stress, hypoxia and ecosystem changes in the "fertile fisheries crescent" (G. Gunter cited by Boesch, 1995) may have been progressing for at least 200 years (Sen Gupta et al.. 1996). There appears to be little consistent evidence from the sediment analyses that oxygen stress and hypoxia have increased markedly since the advent of large-scale applications of fertilizer in the mid-20th Century. Indeed, some of the hypoxia indicators show hypoxia to be no more severe in recent years than at the start of the century (Nelsen et al., 1994). It is evident that whatever is causing hypoxia in the fertile fisheries crescent is complex, has a long history of evolution, and cannot be related over this long time span to the application of inorganic fertilizer. Lohrenz et al.(1994) find that many environmental variables are correlated, thus complicating the identification of causative factors.
Whether or not they were caused by hypoxia, it is worthy to note that major fish kills in the Gulf even bigger than those of today have been reported for centuries prior to the widespread use of inorganic fertilizers (Davis, 1947; Gunter et al., 1948; Connell and Cross, 1950; Brongersma-Sanders, 1957).
1993 was the year of the "big flood" and peak summer discharge occurred in mid-August in the Mississippi Delta. A satellite image on August 10 showed the plume of the Mississippi River to be flowing eastwards towards the Florida Keys, not westwards into the Louisiana hypoxic zone (Walker et al. 1994). Consequently, it is difficult to relate the summer Mississippi floods to the increase in the intensity and areal extent of the hypoxic zone in 1993, as hypothesized by Rabalais et al. (1998).
The federal hypoxia assessment could attain credibility by involving a spectrum of stakeholders in the decision-making process. This process includes i) the setting of a scope, or framework, for the assessment that is commensurate with the known scientific complexities of hypoxia and the highly dynamic changes that are known to have occurred in the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin, the coastal zone, and the Gulf over the past 200 years, or more; ii) rigorously testing multiple working hypotheses; and iii) approving the assessment reports.
Literature Cited
Boesch, D. F. 1995. Gulf of Mexico hypoxia: where are we on the learning curve? Procs. 1st Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Management Conf., Dec. 5-6, 1995, Kenner, LA, 199-212.
Brongersma-Sanders, M., 1957. Mass mortality in the sea. Treatise on Marine Ecology and Paleoecology (ED. J.W. Hedgepeth), 941-1010. Geol. Soc. Amer. Memoir 67. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
CENR, 1995. Setting a new course for U.S. coastal ocean science. National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C. (http://www.nnic.noaa.gov/CENR/cenr.html).
CENR, 1998. Gulf of Mexico hypoxia assessment plan. Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Hypoxia Working Group, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C., 13pp.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1890. The method of multiple working hypotheses. Science 15(366), 92-97.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1965. The method of multiple working hypotheses. Science 148(3671) 754-759.
Connell, C.H. and Cross, J.B., 1950. Mass mortality of fish associated with the protozoan Gonyaulax in the Gulf of Mexico. Science 112(2909), 359-363.
Davis, C.C., 1947. Gynodium brevis n. sp., a cause of discolored water and animal mortality in the Gulf of Mexico. Bot. Gaz. 109, 358-360.
Global Environmental Assessment Project 1997. A critical evaluation of global environmental assessments: the climate experience. (Calverton, MD: CARE), Center for the Application of Research on the Environment, Harvard University, 173pp.
Gunter, G., Williams, R.H., Davis, C.C., and Walton Smith, F.G., 1948. Catastrophic mass mortality of marine animals and coincident phytoplankton bloom on the west coast of Florida, November 1946 to August 1947. Ecol. Monogr. 18, 309-324.
Hanks, T.C. 1997. Imperfect science: uncertainty, diversity, and experts. EOS 78(35), 369, 373, 377.
Lohrenz, S.E., Fahnenstiel, G.L., and Redalje, D.G. 1994. Spatial and temporal variations of photosynthetic parameters in relation to environmental conditions in coastal waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Estuaries 17(4), 779-795.
Nelsen, T.A., Romer, N., Blackwelder, P., Hood, T., Metz, S., and McKee, B., 1994. Time-based correlation of biogenic, lithogenic and authigenic sediment components with anthropogenic inputs in the Gulf of Mexico. Estuaries 17(4), 873-885.
Oversight Review Board, 1991. The experience and legacy of NAPAP. Report of the Oversight Review Board of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program. 40 pp, Washington, D.C.
Rabalais, N.N., Turner, R.E., Wiseman, W.J., and Dortch, Q., 1998. Consequences of the 1993 Mississippi River flood in the Gulf of Mexico. Regul. Rivers: Res. Mgmt. 14, 161-177.
Russel, M., 1992. Lessons from NAPAP. Ecological Applications 2 (2), 103-110.
Sen Gupta, B.K.S., Turner, R.E. and Rabalais, N.N., 1996. Seasonal oxygen depletion in continental-shelf waters of Louisiana: Historical record of benthic foramanifera. Geology 24 (3), 227-230.
Showstack, R., 1998. Study finds Appalachian forest mortality rates maybe higher than government surveys indicate. EOS, 79 (9), 113.
Turner, R.E., Rabalais, N.N., Dortch, Q., Justic, D., and Sen Gupta, B.K., 1997. Evidence for nutrient limitation and sources carrying hypoxia on the Louisiana Shelf. Procs. 1st Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Management Conf., Dec. 5-6, 1995, Kenner, LA, 106-113. EPA-55-R-97-001.
Walker, N.D., Fargion, G.S., Rouse, L.J., and Biggs, D.C., 1994. The great flood of summer 1993: Mississippi River discharge studied. EOS 75 (36), 409, 414-415.
Winstanley, D., Lackey, R.T., Warnick, W.L., and Malanchuck, J., 1998. Acid rain: science and policy making. ES&P 1 (1), 51-57.
Derek Winstanley
Chief, Illinois State Water Survey
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
e-mail: dwinstan@uiuc.edu
tel: (217) 244-5459
fax: (217) 333-4983