Blooming In The Night, A Thousand Points Of Light

November 7, 2014- In an earlier blog post, "Harmful Algal Blooms Force Toledo To Ban Its Drinking Water," we wrote about the struggle to maintain drinking water deliveries in Toledo, OH, when officials said the tap water wasn't safe to drink even if it had been boiled. Sewer overflows, farm fertilizers and a cocktail of nutrients from livestock manure created the perfect conditions for algae to bloom in great mats of green slime.

Unfortunately, news of increasing numbers of algae blooms continues to make headlines in the U.S.

In an October 26, 2014 online Health & Science post, "In Florida, A Water-Pollution Warning That Glows At Night," the WashintonPost.com writes that bioluminescent algae on Florida’s east coast tainting drinking water and poisoning shellfish beds.

Here are the highlights of the WashingtonPost.com post:

• Across America, from Southern California’s famous beaches to the Chesapeake Bay, waterways are seeing more toxic blooms, believed linked to higher levels of nitrogen pollution from livestock waste and fertilizers from suburban lawns and farms. Other algal blooms are mostly natural events; although now they are occurring in new places as oceans and inland lakes grow warmer.

• Certain types of algae produce toxins that enter the food chain through fish and shellfish. In recent years, scientists say explosive "blooms" of toxic or nuisance algae have battered fisheries and killed dolphins and sea turtles, and that the Florida's east coast ecosystem is out of kilter. 


• Meanwhile Floridians are keeping watch on the remnants of a massive "red tide" in the Gulf of Mexico. At at one point, the swath of toxic algae stretched 100 miles. This year’s red tide has mostly remained offshore, with only occasional patches washing up along beaches where they can kill fish, poison oyster beds and cause respiratory problems for mammals, including dolphins and people.

• Twenty million residents live in Florida's coastal counties and many of the local economies are at risk from the blooms. Intense research is underway to pinpoint their cause, and improve early detection and prediction systems.

• On Florida's central Atlantic Coast, the typically smaller blooms are more disruptive to wildlife and local economies. On example was the disastrous "brown tide" algal bloom of 2011 at the Indian River Lagoon, a diverse and productive 150-mile long estuary that runs from Cape Canaveral to just north of Palm Beach. "The waterway — which includes numerous smaller tributaries such as the Banana River — became choked with mats of algae so dense that it blocked the sun’s rays from reaching the sea bottom, wiping out sea grasses that serve as a critical food source and nursery for many of the region’s marine species," writes the WashingtonPost.com. "Manatees, the gentle sea mammals beloved by Floridians, died by the scores from disease and the toxic effects of seaweed and other plants that became the manatees’ alternative diet."

• Decades of overdevelopment and lax controls have now led to debates by Florida officials over solutions including improved wastewater treatment and vacuuming up several feet of organic sludge that lies at the bottom of some coastal waterways.

• New research shows that years of seemingly subtle changes — from upticks in water temperature and salinity to a gradual buildup of nutrient-dense sludge on the sea floor — helped set the stage for the drastic changes seen in more recent years.

• "Today, a single event event, such as a hurricane or a sudden temperature change, can trigger a 'trophic cascade' in which harmful species can come out on top," said Brian Lapointe, a professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and quoted in the report. "When you disrupt the ecosystem with nutrients, it creates a bottom-up effect that goes right up the food chain."

• Nitrogen and phosphorus that seep into the water from countless subdivisions, livestock operations and fertilized fields that line the waterways and tributaries farther upstream are two pollutants that can cause algae blooms.

• The report notes that last year, harmful algal blooms were reported in 21 states, up from 20 states the previous year, according to a report by the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center, an environmental nonprofit group, and Resource Media, a nonprofit public relations organization. New York reported 50 cases of toxic algae outbreaks, followed by Kansas with 18 and Washington with 12.

• "Scientists continue to see dramatic shifts in plankton populations, including this year’s explosive growth of bioluminescent plankton in the lagoon’s upper reaches near Cape Canaveral," writes the WashingtonPost.com. "The tiny creatures that cause the water to light up are hardly new to the region, and while some emit a mild toxin, they are generally regarded as harmless."

• This year’s bloom was unprecedented in the memories of local scientists and outdoorsmen, said Lapointe, who added that toxins from huge numbers of plankton are starting to concentrate in some fish species. Though striking to look at, the colorful plankton are a symbol of changes with "ramifications up and down the food chain," he said.

• "When you disturb the system with nutrients, you get can get shifts in the frequency and extent of these microbial populations," Lapointe said, "and that can lead to serious negative effects, both for ecosystems and for human health."

Read the full WashingtonPost.com post here.

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