Eutrophication News

We have received reports from the SUNY ESF sampling crew of a large blue/green algal bloom in Oak Park Marina, a small one that occurred on Friday in Katlynn Marina and many possible bloom sightings reported on Saturday.

Due to blooms of the type of algae (Alexandrium) that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, mussel oyster and clam harvesting was recently shut down along some sections of the Maine coast.

The eastern　United States just experienced the warmest spring on record, shattering previous highs.　　On land,　warm temperatures caused cherry and apple trees to bloom prematurely. In the Chesapeake Bay,　algae bloomed earlier than normal, fed by runoff pollution from last fall's major storms. (Photo of algal bloom by Chesapeake Bay Program)

Bill Satterfield, in his June 11 letter to the editor ("Urban waste, not chicken manure, is the bay's biggest threat") was right when he said "everyone has a role in protecting the Chesapeake Bay." What he forgot is that "everyone" includes both the agricultural and urban sectors. Instead of shifting blame from one polluter to the next, we should focus on addressing all the major contributors of pollution. Instead of focusing on which kid on the block is polluting more, we should focus on the glaring similarity between agricultural and urban sources: both contribute dangerous levels of nutrient, bacterial, and toxic pollution into our local waterways and the bay.

After weeks of negotiations, the U.S. Senate is expected to pass a farm bill this week that would stave off threats to funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup. Meanwhile, a week after primaries in Virginia, advertising for a key senate race is ramping up in the Commonwealth. Alex Bolton, senior staff writer for The Hill newspaper, speaks with WAMU All Things Considered host Pat Brogan about these issues.

But this year, the largest oyster hatchery on the East Coast is on track to produce a record number of baby oysters - or spat. A tour of the University of Maryland's Horn Point Lab Oyster Hatchery in Cambridge shows the robust production.

West Virginia chicken farmer is suing the EPA to stop it from imposing wastewater rules on her farm as part of a multi-state effort to clean up Chesapeake Bay. Lois Alt, owner of Eight is Enough farms in the Old Fields section of Hardy County in the state's Eastern Panhandle, argues the EPA has overstepped its authority by ordering her to stop polluting streams and obtain discharge permits under the federal Clean Water Act.

Toll Brothers Inc. will pay a civil penalty of $741,000 to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations at its construction sites, including sites located in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The EPA Chesapeake Bay Program is reporting that dissolved oxygen levels in the Chesapeake Bay dropped last year to their lowest levels in four years, with 66 percent of the estuary failing to meet water quality standards for oxygen in the hot summer months.

The carbon dioxide we release is absorbed by the Earth's oceans. But it doesn't just benignly vanish. It's eventually released into the water, making the water more acidic. That's feeding algae blooms and killing some animals. In the Puget Sound, the situation is even worse.

Swimmers have been warned not to go in the water in part of Devon following the development of an algal bloom.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Algae blooms that changed water off several Bainbridge shorelines bright red this week pose no risk to humans or shellfish, according to Kitsap County Public Health District officials.

A torrent of sunshine and temperatures in the ’70s have spurred marine algae blooms across the Puget Sound, including Sinclair Inlet.The Washington Depart of Ecology has noticed a number of blooms, the visible appearance of millions of tiny plant-like organisms in the water, in Sinclair Inlet. The blooms often appear as brown or green sludge at or near the surface of the water.

As we kick off the summer season, hundreds of thousands of people will be visiting the Jersey Shore to enjoy our beautiful beaches. Gov. Christie’s policies, however, are undermining the protections of our coastline.

NASA scientists discover 100 km stretch of phytoplankton under the ice near Alaska Pools of melting ice linked to global warming causing algae to bloom twice as fast Previously scientists thought ice blocked the sunlight needed for plants to grow; now they think melting ice pools concentrate the sunlight like a magnifying glass

There is a generation of young adults for whom the notion of a Chesapeake Bay populated by an abundance of blue crabs is nothing more than a story told by their elders. It was about two decades ago that the first alarms began to sound about the decline of the blue crab. Early in 1993, stories began to appear in the media about decreasing numbers of crabs in the bay. Destruction of forests and wetlands, development, pollution, an overabundance of rockfish and overfishing were all suggested as possible causes.

Conservationists say that pollution from farms, wastewater treatment facilities, storm water runoff, and power plants in the 64,000 square mile watershed — which includes parts of six states and the nation’s capital — is slowly killing the bay.