Ocean "Dead Zone" Worst Yet

well, add georgia marshes to the list. low oxygen levels there too. seems to at least be indirectly related to the pinned jellyfish trend. if not, it is a problem all its own, i guess...


State's marshes dying for lack of oxygen

By STACY SHELTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 08/13/06

Skidaway Island — For 20 years, a scientist near Savannah has taken weekly water samples from the same dock, giving him a composite snapshot of the estuary's health.

Pieced together, the view goes from good to fair, and getting worse. Peter Verity's data tells him the estuary — where rivers wrestle with the sea — is in trouble.


STEPHEN MORTON/Special
(ENLARGE)
Peter Verity has tested levels of dissolved oxygen and phytoplankton in Georgia's coastal marshes for 20 years. He says the state needs to take action now or face the kind of trouble seen elsewhere.

Dissolved oxygen, the breath of life for shrimp, blue crabs, oysters and fish, is declining at an alarming rate. Within 10 years, Verity, a professor at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, predicts there won't be enough left for the sea life we love to eat. Those creatures will be replaced by jellyfish, which don't need as much dissolved oxygen and feed on the type of organisms that grow in a polluted estuary, he says.

Verity's already witnessed change. Between 1987 and 2000, his sampling showed a 70 percent increase in jellyfish.

Verity and other scientists who have researched similar changes worldwide say they can sum up the cause in a single word: people.

As more homes, condominiums, marinas and businesses are built on the coast, pollution increases in tidal creeks and estuaries. Treated sewage discharges and stormwater runoff carry fertilizers from lawns, golf courses and farms and oil and other pollutants from pavement and rooftops.

"We need to stop what we're doing now and either mitigate or reduce [the impacts] because we're going downhill in a hurry," Verity said.

Verity presented his dissolved oxygen research in June at an international conference of his peers and published it this month in an academic journal, Estuaries and Coasts. His bottom line: Georgia's bays and inlets, lined with tidal marshes now teeming with infant and juvenile sea life, is headed toward hypoxia, a dead zone incapable of supporting shellfish and fish.

Hypoxia is already severe at times in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast and in the Chesapeake Bay near Washington. An associated problem, harmful algae blooms that release fish-killing toxins, has affected virtually every coastal state, threatening human health and dealing economic blows to seafood industries worldwide.

Data collected by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources along the coast tracks Verity's findings. But the state has only been extensively monitoring water quality for about six years.

Spud Woodward, the assistant director of the Georgia Coastal Resources Division, which regulates marine fisheries, said there isn't enough information to know how much shrimp, blue crabs, oysters and fish are suffering from man-made changes to the state's coastal landscape.

"The multimillion-dollar question is what are those effects going to mean for the life support for species that we place great value on? That's what we would like to know," Woodward said. "A lot of that change we want to blame on man, but a lot of that is due to natural fluctuations, I think. It's like the debate on global warming — how much of that is man and how much of it is the natural variation that you're going to see out there?"

State law to be clarified

Not far from where Verity is studying the Skidaway River, a state-appointed group of public officials, business owners, developers, consultants and environmentalists have been debating a seemingly simple question since May: What is waterfront property?

Their answer could have far-reaching impacts on the way the Georgia coast develops — and ultimately on the health of Georgia's estuaries and marshes.

Coastal marshes are green and brown canelike grasses that grow in the salty mixture of tidal waters between the sea-facing barrier islands and the mainland. In Georgia, they form a protective band four to six miles wide and encompass an area of about 378,000 acres. The state's marshlands are considered to be among the nation's most extensive and productive. They are the nursery for young fish and shellfish.

Under the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act, a state law passed in 1970, the state claimed ownership of the tidal marshes and required landowners to seek permission before building community docks, marinas, bridges and causeways across them. It is the state's only tool for regulating development on the coast. But recent court battles pitting developers against environmentalists has called the state's authority into question.

Developers, who have been on the losing end of three separate court decisions, say the state only has the right to regulate the construction of structures in or over the tidal marsh, such as a marina. Environmentalists say the law gives the state the right to regulate development along the entire waterfront, including hotels and swimming pools, single-family homes and condominiums. Their argument is that stormwater runoff from the paved surfaces and rooftops has an impact on the marsh and as such must be regulated by the state.

To help clarify the law, the state Board of Natural Resources earlier this year appointed the Uplands Stakeholder Group — the people who have been debating coast land regulations since May. They are to come up with suggestions for regulating stormwater runoff, limiting paved surfaces and creating buffers, the natural areas that separate the marsh from development. The group is set to vote on recommendations Aug. 21.

While the stakeholders are having a tough time agreeing on all the issues, they have reached consensus on one point. Left unchecked, man-made pollution will ruin Georgia's marshlands.

Committee member Duane Harris, former director of the state's Coastal Resources Division and now a consultant to developers, said at July's meeting, "What we do here is not going to matter unless the Board of Natural Resources and the General Assembly does something to protect the coast."

Samples hold surprises

When Verity arrived at the Skidaway Institute two decades ago after getting his doctorate in biological oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, he decided to keep doing what he'd learned there: sample water for dissolved oxygen levels. At the time, researchers thought a lack of oxygen was unlikely to ever plague Georgia's estuaries and marshes. They assumed constant movement of sea water along Georgia's 90-mile coastline would create enough churn to ensure high oxygen levels.

Still, Verity made water sampling a weekly routine. He figured at least it would be a good technique for his students to learn.

What he discovered over the next two decades surprised him. During hot summer months, dissolved oxygen in the estuary he sampled dropped to levels nearly lethal to sea life.

"People didn't think [dissolved oxygen] could go down," Verity said.

This year, after his research proved the worsening trend, he received a $450,000 National Science Foundation grant to collect another five years' worth of data.

Verity says he'll need a lot more money — he estimates $1.8 million over five years — to track what is causing the decline in dissolved oxygen.

"We need to start taking steps now while the problems are relatively small," he said.

If the blue crabs, shrimp, oysters and finned fish abandon the Georgia coast to bacteria and jellyfish, it could cost millions of dollars to bring them back, he said.

Taxpayers have contributed nearly $4 billion over 10 years to restoring the Chesapeake Bay's health. They'll keep paying. The federal government has demanded the bay be cleaned up by 2010, and recent studies have estimated the cost at between $13 billion and $28 billion.

If Georgia's coastal waters reach a similar crisis, Verity said, "It may be we're not paying for it, but the next generation will."

"We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day,"

excerpt from above story (mods: maybe this should be pinned with the jellyfish thread since this problem breeds a jellyfish explosion and that is happening worldwide. maybe all the waters are losing oxygen content?). this story and the jellyfish one may be related. at the least they are concurrent problems which are a boon to jellyfish, which is still major news for various reasons.




excerpt:

Dissolved oxygen, the breath of life for shrimp, blue crabs, oysters and fish, is declining at an alarming rate. Within 10 years, Verity, a professor at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, predicts there won't be enough left for the sea life we love to eat. Those creatures will be replaced by jellyfish, which don't need as much dissolved oxygen and feed on the type of organisms that grow in a polluted estuary, he says.

Verity's already witnessed change. Between 1987 and 2000, his sampling showed a 70 percent increase in jellyfish.

yet another dead zone


this could be a seasonal effect, but who knows right now. what we do know is more dead fish, more low oxygen, and more brown water:




Wednesday, August 9, 2006 12:22 PM CDT
Low oxygen likely cause of fish kills in Hardin, Howard counties


DES MOINES --- State investigators are looking into two fish kills reported in Northeast Iowa.

The first is in Hardin County. The second is in Howard County.

Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources received a report of dead fish and brown water in the Iowa River in downtown Iowa Falls. They checked the stream Tuesday.

"We found predominately larger dead fish," said Jeff Vansteenburg, supervisor based in Mason City.



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"The daytime dissolved oxygen level in the stream is high and the ammonia level is low," he added. "However, our investigators found an extensive algae bloom near the dam where the dead fish were found."

The city has had recent high rains and hot temperatures, ideal conditions to produce algae, according to the DNR. The brown color and scum are also consistent with a algae growth.

"People think they are seeing something really awful," Vansteenburg said. "But with high temperatures, algae that were located on the bottom often float to the surface, giving an unappealing appearance to the water."

As the algae decompose, dissolved oxygen levels sometimes drop, commonly at night.

Iowa Falls wastewater operator will take oxygen tests in the morning, and DNR biologists will measure at night to confirm depleted oxygen levels are responsible for the kill.

"Given the time of year and river conditions, it's certainly likely that algae decomposition is the cause," Vansteenburg said.

In Howard County near Elma, the DNR is investigating what the agency described as a "partial" fish kill in the Little Wapsipinicon River. The site is west of Elma.

After reports Tuesday morning, the agency found a scattering of larger dead fish and thousands of live small fish along two miles of the stream. Most of the dead fish were minnows and suckers.

"We have not found a source of pollution," said Tom McCarthy, an environmental specialist based in Manchester.

Large dead fish and live small fish could also indicate low oxygen levels.

McCarthy said the fish have been dead several days.

"If the fish kill had been reported earlier, we might have been able to find a source," he said.

Daytime oxygen levels are high and ammonia levels are low. The stream is relatively clear and fast moving.

Fisheries staff will do a fish count and continue to investigate.

To report fish kills and spills, call DNR field offices during business hours. After hours, call the 24-hour hot line at (515) 281-8694. In Northeast Iowa, call offices in Manchester at (563) 927-2640 or Mason City at (641) 424-4073.

[link to 72.14.207.104]

yet another 'natural' fish kill, but yet another locale with a dedicated reporting line for fish kills:



Low oxygen kills fish in Pamlico
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K.J Williams, Correspondent
Thousands of fish died this week due to depleted levels of oxygen in Beaufort County's Pamlico River, a state official said Friday.
The natural occurrence likely resulted from high outside temperatures heating the water, causing algae blooms. The resulting decomposition of the algae temporarily lowered the river's oxygen supply, said Gary Davis of the Pamlico River Rapid Response Team in Washington, N.C., about 110 miles east of the Triangle. The oxygen level in the river has since returned to normal.

"This is pretty natural," said Davis, an environmental technician. "The hotter the water, the less oxygen it can hold."

It was the first large fish kill in the Pamlico River this summer, with about 13,000 fish found floating in Blounts Bay on the river's south side or along its shore Wednesday morning.

Most of the fish were less than a year old and measured no longer than 4 inches, he said. A smaller kill of about 1,000 was confirmed by officials last month.

Davis said water samples were taken Wednesday and sent to Raleigh for analysis to verify the fish died of natural causes, not from disease or environmental factors.

A citizen reported the fish kill to the team, which operates under the state Division of Water Quality, part of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Davis noted that it's important for people to notify the team of a fish kill so its cause can be investigated. Fish kills in the Pamlico River, or the Tar River, as it is known upstream, can be reported to the toll-free hotline at (877) 337-2383. The Neuse River Rapid Response Team can be contacted at (888) 764-7661.

All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.

Verity's already witnessed change. Between 1987 and 2000, his sampling showed a 70 percent increase in jellyfish.
------------------------------
Yikes! Swimming, anyone?!

There are dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, too.

Also related is coral reef systems are being compromised as well.

on and on it goes...




Bay bottom is oxygen starved; fish won't survive

From north of Jamestown to Providence, bottom-dwelling fish and crabs can't survive under current conditions.


01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, August 5, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer


Fishermen seeking bottom dwellers such as crab and summer flounder can rule out dropping a line in much of Narragansett Bay.

Teams of researchers measuring levels of dissolved oxygen in the Bay discovered Thursday that fish and crabs cannot currently live on the Bay bottom in all 53 places they tested from Providence down to just north of Jamestown because there was not enough oxygen.

In every place that they tested, scientists found that the water below 4 meters -- about 12 feet -- had less then 3 milliliters of dissolved oxygen per liter of water, a condition known as hypoxia.

All water below 12 feet was hypoxic, meaning that it did not have enough dissolved oxygen to support fish and crabs. Clams, particularly the hardy quahog, can withstand these types of conditions for a month or more, but bottom fish must move out of that entire region or die.

The state's director of Environmental Management, W. Michael Sullivan, said that global warming was one of many factors contributing to the Bay's depleted oxygen levels. Sullivan said the annual average temperature of the Bay had increased by 3 degrees in 50 years, which, combined with nitrogen from sewage and a cut in tidal flow due to sedimentation, had stimulated the growth of algae and plankton. When that plant growth dies and decays, it consumes oxygen.

Thursday's sampling found oxygen levels above four meters were generally healthful, so fishermen will still see striped bass and blue fish chasing bait near the surface.

Chris Deacutis, chief scientist for the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, said, "There are probably pockets where it's not all that bad" along the bottom, but teams from the Estuary Program and from Brown University did not find any of those pockets in Thursday's sampling.

"If you were down around Jamestown, I still might try [bottom fishing], and the Quonset area, where there's some pretty good current, I might still try the bottom," Deacutis said. "Your fishing luck may be a lot lower in the upper third to upper half of the Bay to . . . down around Quonset. I wouldn't say Jamestown because Jamestown does have some pretty good water in the ship's passage.

"The upper Bay and the Providence River definitely have pretty bad water on the bottom, and Greenwich Bay does, too."

Deacutis said Greenwich Bay had "practically no oxygen" beyond 10 feet. Readings there were as bad or worse than the "dead zone" of the Gulf of Mexico, where oxygen levels are typically less than 2.

Although it may sound dramatic to say that much of Narragansett Bay's bottom cannot support fish, the current outbreak of hypoxia is not unusual. For at least the past few summers, a wide swath of the Bay bottom has become barren of fish.

"It's not unexpected," Deacutis said of Thursday's readings.

Tests taken July 6 also showed widespread hypoxia on the Bay bottom, although not as extensive as the current outbreak. And in August 2003, when schools of fish washed up dead in Greenwich Bay, scientists think the hypoxic area extended all the way to the Jamestown Bridge.

Scientists say these factors contribute to hypoxic conditions:

"Nutrient loading" from sewage flowing into the Bay through treatment plants, septic systems, and from lawn fertilizers. Nitrogen from these sources stimulates plankton and algae growth; when these organisms die, they decompose and suck up oxygen.

Scott Nixon, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, cautions against blaming all of the Bay's low oxygen cycles on pollution. He has noted that Rhode Islanders have been dumping sewage into the Bay for more than a century without causing fish kills of the kind seen in 2003.

High water temperatures. Warm water stimulates plankton and algae growth. It also holds less dissolved oxygen than cold water. Sullivan, the DEM director, said global warming has driven average annual Bay temperatures 3 degrees above their 1950s levels. During the seven-day heat wave that broke yesterday, Bay temperatures jumped 5 degrees, to the high 70s. At midweek, John Torgan of Save The Bay recorded a temperature of 81 degrees in the shallows off Gaspee Point, where dead baby clams washed ashore ankle deep in places.

Calm winds. Wind infuses surface waters with oxygen and churns the water, mixing oxygen into the depths. The 2003 fish kill was preceded by several days of relatively calm weather.

Hard rains. Rain causes hypoxia by washing nutrients into the Bay, and by "stratifying" the water into surface waters of freshwater buoyed by bottom waters of denser saltwater. When water stratifies this way, it is more difficult for winds to infuse oxygen through mixing.

"Neap" tides. There are two types of tides, spring and neap. Spring tides have nothing to do with the season of the year; they take their name from the German verb "springen," meaning to move quickly. Spring tides occur during full and new moons, when the tidal pull is strongest, creating a greater variation between high and low tides. Spring tides result in greater mixing of the Bay waters, which brings oxygen to the lower layers.

Neap tides are the time of smallest variation between high and low tides, occurring every two weeks at the half moon. The 2003 fish kills took place during a neap tide.

When researchers tested the Bay on Thursday, it was during a time of neap tide. Warren Prell, Doherty professor of oceanography at Brown, said the timing was deliberate so researchers could see how extensive the hypoxia was. Teams will also test the Bay next Thursday during a spring tide.

Sullivan agreed with Nixon's argument that nutrients aren't solely responsible for recent outbreaks of hypoxia in Narragansett Bay. "That's one piece of it," Sullivan said. "But it's a complex biological and geological system. If the Bay stays cool, plants don't grow as much. But you have got to drive your car less to have an impact on global warming."

The DEM can't control global climate change, but it can reduce nutrients flowing into the Bay. The state recently took steps to do that through an agreement with the Narragansett Bay Commission, which runs the state's two largest sewage-treatment plants -- Fields Point and Bucklin Point. Together those plants treat an average of 62 million gallons of sewage a day.

The commission recently agreed to install $100 million worth of equipment to cut its summertime nitrogen discharges to less than 8 parts per million by 2008, a 50-percent reduction mandated by state law.

Sullivan termed this a "historic" agreement that should help the Bay's waters.

However, Sullivan said, Massachusetts has more sewage-treatment plants dumping into Bay waters than Rhode Island has, and unless that state also mandates nitrogen reductions, Rhode Island's efforts may be in vain.

"Why should Rhode Island continue to live with the flushing of Massachusetts toilets?" Sullivan said.

[email protected] / (401) 277-7434

bingo: an indication that this story and the jellyfish thread are directly related thru global warming:


excerpt from above:


The state's director of Environmental Management, W. Michael Sullivan, said that global warming was one of many factors contributing to the Bay's depleted oxygen levels. Sullivan said the annual average temperature of the Bay had increased by 3 degrees in 50 years, which, combined with nitrogen from sewage and a cut in tidal flow due to sedimentation, had stimulated the growth of algae and plankton. When that plant growth dies and decays, it consumes oxygen.

snip:

The Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone is a seasonal phenomena occurring in the northern Gulf of Mexico, from the mouth of the Mississippi River to beyond the Texas border. It is more commonly referred to as the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, because oxygen levels within the zone are too low to support marine life. The Dead Zone was first recorded in the early 1970's. It originally occurred every two to three years, but now occurs annually. In the summer of 1999 the Dead Zone reached its peak, encompassing 7,728 square miles.

[link to www.tulane.edu]

kentucky.



Fish kill blamed on low oxygen
Lexington Herald-Leader

July 05, 2006

I'd had several people call me recently asking when we were going to restock it because the fish weren't biting Oxygen depletion because of hot, dry weather, goose droppings, storm-water runoff and other factors apparently contributed to a fish kill in Lake Mingo this week.

An estimated 1,500 bluegill, catfish and other species have died in the 1-acre lake since Monday, said Scott Campbell, director of Nicholasville-Jessamine County Parks and Recreation. The lake is in a 14-acre park in the city.

An officer with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources told Campbell that the fish apparently died because of a number of factors. Those included blooming aquatic plants; storm-water runoff; the shallow depth of the lake; the recent hot, dry weather; and droppings from the large number of Canada geese.

'When the conditions are right, it just happens,' Campbell said.

Campbell said a new aerator/agitator that introduces oxygen into the water will be purchased as soon as possible. The equipment costs $1,200.

In the meantime, Parks and Recreation employees worked yesterday to remove the dead fish. The lake, about 6 feet at its deepest, probably won't be restocked until next year.

'I'd had several people call me recently asking when we were going to restock it because the fish weren't biting,' Campbell said. 'But obviously there were a lot of fish in there.'

Copyright © 2006 Lexington Herald-Leader, All Rights Reserved.

coral reefs are dying the world over, overgrowth of toxic algae and there are even Great Whites making their way into Maine. Pilots beaching themselves in mass suicide rituals, lobsters on the wrong geomagnetic highways going the wrong direction...


No worries, that is what we are told-

soon enough there will be no worries-
NOTHING LEFT TO SAVE


I am in awe of the bumbling beaureacracy and deep level of comfortable ignorance.

The USA spent more money than all the other countries combined to study global warming for a 10 yr period.

Taxpayers paid for it and we are entitled to have it

not according to a dictator unnamed and his oil barons. In their pre presidency energy(enron)meetings the report gathered so diligently and compiled was diced and sliced with our oil profiteers removing facts that made them look bad. The they added their spin in the official report.

Amazing

snip:

Tropical coral reefs border the shores of 109 countries, the majority of which are among the world's least developed. Significant reef degradation has occurred in 93 countries.

Nearly 60 per cent of the world's remaining reefs are at significant risk of being lost in the next three decades.

Average sea level has risen between 10 and 25 centimetres in the past 100 years. If all of the world's ice melted, the oceans would rise by 66 metres.

Sixty per cent of the Pacific shoreline and 35 per cent of the Atlantic shoreline are receding at a rate of one metre a year.

[link to www.alaskaoceans.net]

Methinks this has a direct relation to the intense weather manipulation that's been going on for the last several years.

"It's not nice to fool ...MOTHER NATURE"


Use your anger to fuel conversations about this.

This is the most important issue for humankind on Earth.

We're killing the planet, and few seem to care.

Can you feel their oppression?

Scared to march?

Fear jail time (or worse)for speaking out?

Why are we letting them kill us?

I'm beginning to think those predicted food lines might indeed be coming soon.

This reminds me of the posts we read here last August. Florida deep-sea divers were shocked at the sight of what appeared to be a dead area.

I wonder if there will be a large "parade" of fish swimming south from the northeast to Florida this year. People were amazed. We wondered what the fish were running from.
.