If you thought the Gulf oil disaster was bad, it just got worse. Now it's a methane disaster too.
Scientists are finding evidence of new BP-caused dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Methane is gushing out of the broken well and polluting the ocean at up to 100,000 times normal levels. Bacteria gobble up the methane and suck oxygen out of the water, similar to a more typical dead zone caused by excess nutrients.
This mess comes underneath (literally, deeper than) the "above average" dead zone already predicted by scientists because of the routine nutrient pollution fouling the area.
We've been treating the Gulf of Mexico like the Great American Toilet, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. We get the ocean we deserve.