States in the Hypoxia Task Force urge Biden administration leaders to continue partnership and support with the coalition. The task force recently penned a letter to leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, who serves as the co-chair of the task force, states, “Working together, we can improve our local waters and the Gulf of Mexico.” The task force is a partnership of 12 states and five federal agencies that work collaboratively to reduce nutrient-loading throughout the Mississippi River Basin and the size of the hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The group’s action plan has a near-term target of reducing nutrient-loading to the Gulf from the basin by 20 percent by 2025, and a long-term goal of limiting the Gulf hypoxic zone to an average annual size of less than 5,000-square kilometers by 2035, subject to the availability of resources.
