When agricultural producers use too much fertilizer, the surplus that isn’t absorbed into the land and plants runs off into the water shed. When it gets to the end of the downstream line, it dumps into the ocean or a lake. In North Dakota’s case, one of those end-of-the-line watershed deposits is the Gulf of Mexico. The environmental damage that’s done is hard to see, particularly from 2,000 miles away, but it’s felt acutely by fisherman in the Gulf who’re experiencing the largest ever ‘dead zone’ — an oxygen deprived area devoid of fish and other sea life.
