The massive BP oil spill in the Gulf  is an ecological disaster and will only worsen the pollution that the U.S. already pumps into the Gulf  through the Mississippi River with agricultural and urban waste.

Michigan State University professor Nathaniel Ostrom said that while an out-of-control gusher deep in the Gulf of Mexico fouls beaches and chokes marshland habitat, another threat could be growing below the oil-slicked surface.

The nation’s worst oil spill could worsen and expand the oxygen-starved region of the Gulf labeled “the dead zone” for its inhospitability to marine life, Ostrom said. It could already be feeding microbes that thrive around natural undersea oil seeps, he says, tiny critters that break down the oil but also consume precious oxygen.

“At the moment, we are seeing some indication that the oil spill is enhancing hypoxia,” or oxygen depletion, Ostrom said. “It’s a good hint that we’re on the right track, and it’s just another insult to the ecosystem – people have been worried about the size of the hypoxic zone for many years.”

The dead zone is believed to stem from urban runoff and nitrogen-based fertilizers from farmland swept into the Gulf by the Mississippi River. Higher springtime flows carry a heavier surge each year, nourishing algae blooms that soon die and sink. Those decay and are eaten by bacteria that consume more oxygen, driving out marine life and killing that which can’t move, such as coral. The dead zone can grow to the size of a small state.

With the spill overlapping a section of the dead zone, the impact on that region is unknown. As it happened, Ostrom earlier had tapped zoology major Ben Kamphuis to be on the Gulf in late May for a research cruise focused on nitrogen cycling. When the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig blew out and sank April 20, Ostrom and collaborator Zhanfei Liu from the University of Texas at Austin quickly landed federal support to expand their inquiry.

Kamphuis, a junior from Holland, Michigan, learned far more than water sampling techniques during his week aboard the research vessel Pelican.

“Down there, (the oil spill) really affects a ton of people. I really didn’t realize it before going, but after going on the trip I realized how much we can help the people in that area.”

With dozens of water samples now returned to the lab, Ostrom, Kamphuis and food science sophomore Sam DeCamp, another undergraduate research associate, are setting up equipment to analyze them in the coming months. They want to know whether the oil in the water will promote oxygen starvation, and if so, how.

Oil-hungry microbes can be expected to consume more oxygen from the water as they feast on hydrocarbons, Ostrom says. But the oil slick and chemical dispersants also could reduce the flow of oxygen from the atmosphere to the ocean, and possibly reduce the sunlight available to nourish oxygen-producing marine plant life.

Financial support for the project came from the National Science Foundation and the MSU College of Natural Science.

A jack of many science trades, Ostrom is on faculty in the MSU Department of Zoology and the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program. He is a biogeochemist who focuses his studies on the interaction of organisms with their chemical and physical environments.

Michigan State researchers were in the right place at the right time to contribute to our understanding of the effects of such a massive oil spill, he says, pointing to the oil-eating microbes as likely the biggest, if unrecognized, players in the drama.

“We’re fortunate to have them,” he said. “They’re doing the cleanup – not BP.”

Iowa State University Extension grain markets specialist Chad Hart said that with the latest failed efforts to stop the flow of oil from an uncapped well into the Gulf of Mexico, projections are that the spill may not be contained until late summer, or later.

That could affect grain prices for the United States and overseas markets, Hart said.

Hart, assistant professor of economics, says that if the oil slick enters the shipping lanes there could be a slowdown in shipping traffic.

“If the oil slick got into what is called the Southwest Passage – which is a canal that goes from New Orleans out to the Gulf of Mexico – we would be looking at severe delays in getting our corn and soybeans shipped overseas,” said Hart.

Ships can sail through the oily water, but would need to be cleaned when they enter port.

“When a ship comes into port, it would have to be cleaned if it went through the oil slick,” said Hart. “And then when it goes to their destination, it would have to be cleaned again when it arrives.”

The result would be much slower movement of grain out of the Midwest to foreign markets.

More than 60 percent of United States grain goes through the port of New Orleans, according to Hart.

Right now, according to Hart, the oil spill is moving mainly to the east, so there has been little impact on the shipping lanes, which lay to the west of the slick.

“If we end up with a bottleneck down there, we could see prices in the U.S. fall from 10 to 50 cents (per bushel),” said Hart. “Katrina had a similar impact. If that happens, people will start to look at alternative shipping routes. For instance, right now, most of our soybeans that are going to China, go through New Orleans. People may start shipping overland to the Pacific Northwest by rail to ship over to China. That is more expensive, but it is an alternative if the gulf slows down.”

As long as the spill stays clear of the shipping lanes for the next few months, Hart doesn’t feel there will be a huge impact on prices.

“In some ways we were lucky on the timing,” said Hart. “We ship most of our grain earlier in the year, so right now there are smaller amounts of grain moving.”

Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation commented on the undercover video released by Mercy for Animals this week of animal cruelty on an Ohio dairy farm.

During a four-week investigation between April and May, MFA’s investigator documented farm workers at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio:

• Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears
• Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach
• Kicking “downed” cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck – abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm’s owner
• Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars – some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head
• Twisting cows’ tails until the bones snapped
• Punching cows’ udders
• Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death

“We condemn the actions of cruelty against farm animals that were on display in the undercover video released this week,” Stallman said. “ At least one farm worker in question now faces 12 counts of animal cruelty.  We encourage law enforcement authorities with jurisdiction in this case to pursue the maximum penalties possible for those responsible for these heinous acts of animal cruelty. Further, we encourage a deeper investigation into all aspects of how the animals on the farm in question have been treated. There is no excuse for the treatment those animals received.”

 Stallman said there is never justification for the type of mistreatment and cruelty that was displayed in the video.

“As farmers and ranchers, we must and we do care for our animals and the well-being of our animals. Caring for farm animals is an ethic that guides our every move. Even one case of abuse of farm animals is unacceptable,” he said.

 Stallman said farmers and ranchers know they are accountable for the humane treatment of the livestock in our care.

“We know it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to prevent abuse to farm animals,” he said. “As members of the agricultural community, we also know it is our responsibility to stop any such actions if and when they are brought to our attention, including alerting appropriate law enforcement officials. America’s farmers and ranchers will not stand for cruelty against farm animals, and we must continue to be vigilant to stop those few who give livestock production a bad name.”

Stallman said people who abuse farm animals do not deserve a spot in the agricultural community or in livestock production as a business.

Maybe that’s why organizations such as Humane Society of the United States and Mercy for Animals exist. The bigger question is agriculture able to police itself? These organizations, such as HSUS, we may not agree with all their tactics, but they represent a consciousness for society about how we treat animals. Their message is strong. Just one incident of mistreatment of farm animals, such as the dairy cattle on the Ohio farm, can harm agriculture in the eyes of the customers they are trying to reach with their products.

Stallman and HSUS are on the same page when it comes to incidents such as Mercy for Animals exposed.

“The people who committed the sadistic and barbaric cruelty documented by Mercy for Animals at an Ohio dairy should have the book thrown at them,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. “These deeply disturbing attacks against helpless animals should be troubling to anyone with any level of decency.”

This type of incident only fuels HSUS drive to strengthen anti-cruelty laws in Ohio and across the nation and give  judges and prosecutors “the tools to handle people who engage in malicious cruelty, including to farm animals,” Pacelle said.

HSUC is supporting the Ohioans for Humane Farms ballot initiative to promote the humane treatment of farm animals. The measure would ban inhumane killing of animals on the farm, outlaw the transport of downer cattle, and halt the extreme confinement of veal calves, breeding pigs, and laying hens in cages barely larger than their bodies.

According to Doug Boucher of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a new report released Wednesday shows that preserving tropical forests would provide significant financial benefits for the U.S. agricultural and timber industries.

Avoided Deforestation Partners commissioned the report, “Farms Here, Forests There: Deforestation and U.S. Competitiveness in Agriculture and Timber,” which was produced by David Gardiner and Associates.

Boucher, director of climate research and analysis at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said the report shows that American farmers, ranchers and timber companies would benefit greatly from stopping the destruction of tropical forests.

“These forests are often logged illegally to produce low-cost timber that competes with U.S. timber,” he said. ”Tropical forests also are cleared to provide cheap land for ranching and farming. All told, tropical forest destruction costs soy and other oilseed farmers, ranchers and timber companies in the United States hundreds of billions of dollars in lost sales.”

Boucher said significant environmental benefit with this approach.

“Clearing tropical forests accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s global warming emissions, so keeping them standing would take us a significant way toward addressing climate change,” he said.

Boucher said agriculture and timber production are now globalized industries, and American producers are competing with producers worldwide.

“Soybean farmers and cattle ranchers in Amazonia export their products to the same world markets as farmers and ranchers in the Midwest,” he said. ”This report demonstrates just how much that competition is skewed by the cheap land and cheap timber ‘produced’ by tropical deforestation.”

Boucher said when the Senate takes up the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill, it must restore funding for tropical forest protection.

“The House included such funding in the climate bill it passed last June because it realized that preserving tropical forests is one of the cheapest ways to reduce emissions,” he said. “The Senate has even more reason to include the funding now that it knows it would simultaneously help U.S. farmers and timber companies.”