Oregon's dead zone.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It now stretches from Florence to Lincoln City in a band as wide as 30 miles, this dead zone that has wiped out nearly all fish and invertebrates and has alarmed researchers worldwide.

While still a matter of intensive study, it's abundantly clear that Oregon's dead zone and others like it elsewhere reflect the increasingly dire state of the world's oceans. Unless decisive action is taken to address problems including climate change, overfishing, pollution and coastal development, the size and number of dead zones will continue to grow.

So far, the federal government has responded with the speed and aggressiveness of a slumbering manatee. Two years ago, a presidentially appointed commission called on the Bush administration and Congress to make sweeping changes in the nation's ocean policy and governance. Yet the panel's recommendations have largely been ignored, and funding is being cut, not expanded, for vitally ocean research.

A team of Oregon State University scientists made an unnerving discovery this week as they studied Oregon's dead zone, which first appeared five years ago and has grown to the size of Rhode Island. Oxygen readings have dropped to the lowest levels recorded in 40 years - as low as the most depleted sections of a notorious and much larger dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Oregon's dead zone is nearing a state of anoxia, which means there is no oxygen in the water.

Scientists say the dead zone was created by blooms of phytoplankton, tiny plants that die and sink to the ocean floor. The phytoplankton are then eaten by bacteria, which consume oxygen in the water.

Why the explosion in phytoplankton off the Oregon Coast? Marine ecologists believe it's been triggered by wild swings in the timing and duration of winds that cause roll-overs of the water column, a process known as upwelling. Those swings are consistent with climatic changes brought about by global warming.

Other dead zones appear to have different causes. The zone in the Gulf of Mexico has been traced to nutrient-rich agricultural runoff flowing out of the Mississippi River.

Dead zones are forming off the coasts of states ranging from California to Massachusetts to Florida. They're also appearing in foreign waters, with the world's largest now off the coast of Shanghai and Beijing. Most zones grew between 4 percent and 8 percent in size last year; a similar growth rate is predicted this year.

It's unclear how large Oregon's dead zone will become, how long it will last, or what can be done to reverse its growth. But its existence adds to the overwhelming evidence of the need for federal controls on the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Federal officials should also give careful consideration to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski's proposal to make the state's entire coastline a federal marine sanctuary, which would allow state and federal agencies to better protect coastal waters from pollution and misuse.

Meanwhile, the White House and Congress should enact the recommendations of the 2004 U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. They include adoption of an ecosystem-based management approach to ocean policy, an increase in federal funding for ocean research and a strengthening of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, which oversees federal ocean policy.

In recent testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee's National Ocean Policy Study, Leon Panetta, President Clinton's former chief of staff who chaired the independent Pew Oceans Commission that echoed many of the federal panel's findings, rightly described the nation's system of ocean and coastal governance as "dysfunctional, out of date and inadequate."

"We need a national ocean policy," Panetta declared. "We have done it for clean water, we have done it for clean air, but we do not have a national ocean policy that commits this country to protecting the oceans."