Eutrophication News

Samples of a “green scum” reported by visitors to Lake Superior beaches from Cornucopia to Sandy Bay on July 14-15 were confirmed to contain a species of blue-green algae. By July 15, the algae bloom was breaking up

The National Association of Clean Water Agencies urged the Environmental Protection Agency on July 19 to allow water quality trading for waters other than those that have total maximum daily load plans for restoration.

The water at 11 of Taiwan’s most popular beaches, which were inspected last week, is of good quality, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday

Western Australian researchers are investigating whether strategic plantings of native flora could help reduce phosphorus flows into south-west waterways

Texas A&M; scientists with the Texas Sea Grant College Program recently discovered that the cause of hypoxic zones off the Texas Coast likely isn’t caused by water pouring from the mouth of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, as they’d previously believed

“Lakes Erie and St. Clair are the warmest and most eutrophic of the Great Lakes, and they are supplied by rivers such as the Maumee and the Thames, which are possibly the most likely rivers in this system to provide for spawning and recruitment of bigheaded carps.”

I don’t show off the bay in August. Three summers ago a mat of green algae about three inches thick clung to the beach. I remember it vividly because I regularly run those trails in the summer and finish with a swim and a relaxing beach walk back to the trailhead. The algae, drying and turning brown, was as thick and nasty as week-old pudding.

The Chesapeake Bay Commission recently released a report concerning the feasibility of nutrient trading for the Bay.

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) $100,000 to reduce hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. This area in the northern Gulf of Mexico is known as the ‘dead zone.’ The funds will be used to develop a statewide nutrient reduction strategy for Louisiana which adopts strategic elements identified in action plans of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance and the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force

MARTINSBURG - It was understood from the start that Martinsburg's sewer customers' rates would be going up because the city had been mandated to make significant improvements to its treatment plant as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program.

High-resolution aerial photographs taken by professor Kim Reece of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science show the broad extent of the algal blooms or “red tides” currently discoloring lower Chesapeake Bay.

The red tides are back. The massive annual blooms of harmful algae that cloud the Chesapeake Bay, local waterways and shorelines every summer have been spotted floating from the lower Bay as far north as the Rappahannock River, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.

The 1972 federal Clean Water Act, which this year marks the 40th year since its enactment after a veto by President Richard Nixon, steadily improved how cities and industries managed wastewater. The blooms largely disappeared for more than three decades. Now they are back, and in many places worse than ever. Blue green algae mar the waters of Lake Superior near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The western shoreline of Lake Michigan, from Kewaunee, Wisconsin, to Sturgeon Bay is an almost unbroken green runway of algae, in some places about a foot thick. Last summer, Lake Erie experienced the worst blue-green algae bloom in decades. And while, so far, Platte Bay is mostly clear of algae this summer, little ghostly green tendrils float in the water, like jellyfish. They brush against your arms as if to say, “Remember us. We’re still around.

Charter boat captains are helping the state monitor water quality and watch for harmful algae blooms in Lake Erie's western basin between Toledo and Sandusky

udubon is fighting three permits that allow growers south of Lake Okeechobee to pump phosphorus-laden water toward the Everglades

Ontario is investing in innovative solutions to help protect Great Lakes water quality. The Keswick Water Pollution Control Plant is testing an advanced oxidation process to reduce the amount of phosphorus and micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products entering Lake Simcoe. Phosphorus is the key pollutant threatening the environmental health of Lake Simcoe

(NOAA) supported scientists have found the size of this year’s Gulf of Mexico oxygen-free ‘dead zone’ to be the fourth-smallest since mapping of the annual hypoxic, or oxygen-free area began in 1985. Measuring approximately 2,889 sqmi, the 2012 area is slightly larger than Delawar

- An algal bloom off the west coast of Ireland is responsible for significant fish and shellfish kills from Galway to Donegal, according to the Marine Institute.