News items from Eutrophication News

More than £7m of government money has been made available to farmers to help tackle the problem of water pollution.

A federal study assessing how much farmers are doing to clean up the Chesapeake Bay credits them with making progress in reducing their pollution but says the vast majority need to do more to help the troubled estuary.

India - More than half the sewage generated in Bangalore is directly discharged into stormwater drains and lakes, contaminating water bodies and ground water, a CAG report revealed.

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan, Philippines—The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has asked the public to avoid gathering and eating shellfish gathered in the waters of Anda and Bolinao towns in western Pangasinan after they tested positive for the red tide toxin.

During the summer of 2005, Ben Williams, owner of Fishermen’s Dock Seafood in Jacksonville, was grappling with an unusual problem: Though Northeast Florida is home to thousands of species of fish and is well known for its booming shrimp industry, his customers weren’t interested.

On March 9, 2011, the International Joint Commission (IJC) issued its 15th Biennial Report (Report), which is issued every other year pursuant to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (Agreement) between the United States and Canada. The Agreement requires the IJC to report on progress towards meeting the Agreement's objectives of improving and protecting the quality of boundary waters, including the Great Lakes.

Phosphorus running off into lakes contributes to blue-green algal growth. That's not news. But what happened on a large lake in Ohio last year is big news. The 'perfect storm' of dry weather and phosphorus runoff produced an algal bloom on this large commercial lake that literally shut down businesses and closed beaches. Now, homeowners and shopkeepers around the lake are in the process of considering a class action lawsuit against farmers in the watershed since the root cause was phosphorus that ran off from land in the watershed and eventually into the lake.

Last July NASA released a world map that identifies hundreds of areas in the world's oceans with dangerously low oxygen levels. These hypoxic areas - virtually uninhabitable for most marine life - are a result of eutrophication, or too many nutrients from fertilizer runoff and sewage discharges finding their way into coastal waters.

Reducing pollution of the Baltic Sea from agricultural run-off is now a top priority, says Ministry of the Environment advisor Silver Vahtra.

LAKE GEORGE -- Without a little help from the public, Lake George officials are going to have a tough time enforcing a new ban on phosphorus-based fertilizers.

The bugs living in the muck at the deepest darkest depths of Lake Tahoe have disappeared in substantial numbers, and it’s a sign of changes throughout the pristine lake’s ecosystem over the past 40 to 50 years.

A mysterious resurgence of phosphorus in the Great Lakes is endangering the aquatic food chain and human health, says a binational agency that advises Canada and the U.S.

After analyzing eight lagoons and measuring the abundance of four nitrogen cycling genes, researchers concluded that the denitrifying and nitrifying organisms were not active despite there being a thriving amount. Acidification and eutrophication of the surrounding ecosystem could be the result of prolonged exposure to volatilized ammonia.

Reduced levels of oxygen in the water and the use of illegal fishing methods have hurt the fishing business in Turkey’s Marmara Sea, according to Osman Kocaman, the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Bandırma.

Environmentalists and farmers traded barbs over the Chesapeake Bay cleanup Thursday, with one side decrying the influence of big agriculture companies and the other side pointing at urban pollution

Virginia (Chesapeake Bay) - The ingredients of your home lawn fertilizer will be changing soon to help reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, under bills passed by the General Assembly

You may have calculated your carbon footprint, but what about your nitrogen footprint? The International Nitrogen Initiative hopes to solve the nitrogen dilemma with education.
University of Virginia scientists and several other collaborators from as far away as the Netherlands launched the N-Print website last week as part of the International Nitrogen Initiative.

Ireland - Today’s report indicates that the most widespread cause of water pollution in Ireland is still nutrient enrichment, resulting mainly from agricultural run-off and discharges from town sewage plants.

Australia - THE City of Swan will create an artificial wetland at Ballajura’s Emu Lake in an attempt to solve the lake’s ongoing algal bloom problem.