Large slick' could be huge plankton bloom By Houma Today22 March 2011 HOUMA — Scientists at a Cocodrie marine-research center say a miles-long discolored patch on the Gulf originally feared to be oil may actually be a huge algae bloom — the kind that fuels the annual dead zone off Louisiana's coast. The patch, estimated [...]
Eutrophication: Mapping the first steps that lead to dead zones By RTSea Blog19 March 2011 Dead Zones - an alarming term used to describe aquatic areas where oxygen levels are so greatly reduced as to push out or kill most fish, plants, and shellfish. It's a dramatic descriptor for the extreme end result of two much [...]
EPA takes heat over bay pollution 'diet' By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun16 March 2011Farmers complained Wednesday to a sympathetic audience in Congress that the Environmental Protection Agency's "pollution diet" for restoring the Chesapeake Bay is based on flawed science and threatens to drive growers out of business with burdensome and unnecessary regulations. Appearing [...]
Republicans question EPAs stewardship of bay cleanup By Steve Kilar, CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE, The Daily Record16 March 2011WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency’s method to estimate the amount of poultry manure that leaches into the Chesapeake Bay was just one policy challenged during Wednesday’s meeting of the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy and Forestry. “In [...]
Environmental Groups Take Aim at Water District By KARI LYDERSEN, Chicago News Cooperative5 March 2011The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is an area the size of New Jersey where little marine life survives because algae suck virtually all oxygen from the water. Two years ago, the federal government found that Chicago is the [...]
BGSU researchers study beneficial winter algae By KRISTINA SMITH HORN, WATCHDOG/ENTERPRISE REPORTER, The News Messenger.com03 February 2011 Bowling Green State University researchers study diatom algae -- a winter species that they believe has a positive effect on the food web -- aboard the U.S. Coast Guard ship Neah Bay. (PHOTO SUBMITTED BY JASON KEMPTON) PORT CLINTON [...]
Insight: 'moving window' approach optimizes ecological forecasting By Environmental Research Web25 January 2011 Coastal hypoxia is a growing problem worldwide. In estuaries and river-fed coastal areas, excess nutrients from the land, often originating from human activities, can lead to abnormally high biomass production and thus reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations that can diversely affect fish and [...]
New Website - Eutrophication & Hypoxia: Nutrient Pollution in Coastal Waters By World Resources Institute WRI in collaboration with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) is pleased to announce the launch of the new website: Eutrophication & Hypoxia: Nutrient Pollution in Coastal Waters. The purpose of the website is to exchange information and improve data, provide media resources, and create [...]
Lake Erie hypoxic zone doesnt affect all fish the same, study finds By Brian Wallheimer, ScienceBlog.com10 January 2011 This image show interpolated bottom water oxygen concentrations in Lake Erie during September 2005. (Image by Stuart Ludsin) http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/2011/hook-hypoxia.jpg WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Large hypoxic zones low in oxygen long have been thought to have negative influences on [...]
Lack of Oxygen Challenged Early Life on Earth By Joshua S Hill, Planet Save.com06 January 2011 Little Horse Canyon near Orr Ridge, Utah: many of the study samples were collected nearby. Earth’s oceans are teeming with life thanks to the oxygenated waters which allow that life to grow and thrive: just as animals on land [...]