"It began forming in May, when heavy spring rains loaded the rivers and creeks with fertilizer washed from farms and suburban lawns. It grew rapidly over the summer, as a broth of chemicals, animal waste and microbes simmered in the warm, slow-moving waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

By early August, the 'dead zone' was back: more than a cubic mile of oxygen-depleted water in which nothing — fish, crab nor shrimp — can survive.

The phenomenon has been recurring in the Chesapeake whenever hot summer weather and pollution combine to trigger algae blooms that suck life-giving oxygen from the water. But this year’s dead zone was bigger than most, making 2014 the eighth-worst year since record-keeping began in the 1980s, according to monitoring data compiled by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources."

Joby Warrick reports for the Washington Post August 31, 2014. [2]