David Masterman's List: Water

• Farm runoff is the leading cause of the high nitrogen and phosphorous levels in the Gulf and the increase in corn growing to meet new ethanol standards in gasoline will keep nitrogen levels high
• hypoxia
• 6,765 square miles held too little oxygen in July

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• But moving vast quantities of water is not simple or cheap, and thus not realistic, experts say. Mostly, it's too costly and political.

• "What all those zany ideas suggest are the traditional beliefs that we can control nature and there must be some oasis out there where we can go to, to import water."

  But those are mirages, he said — tempting, but not realistic.
• Gleick notes that conservation and efficiency are cheaper.
• In the 20th century in the United States, the answer to water shortages was to drill another well, tap another aquifer, build more dams, divert more rivers and build pipelines, Gleick said. But now "we're running into limits."

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