Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Solve Riddle of Toxic Algae Blooms
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from the Victoria Times Colonist: "After a remarkable 37-year experiment, University of Alberta scientist David Schindler and his colleagues have finally nailed down the chemical triggers for a problem that plagues thousands of freshwater and coastal ecosystems around the world." Punchline: "Phosphorus."
This week's lesson: this discovery comes not long after phosphorus was eliminated from most household laundry detergents by federal law.
According to a chemistry major I know, adding one gram or so of phosphorus can cause more devastating algae ownage than adding two or three kilograms of carbon.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
But we can't go and kill all that innocent algae! Humanity is a blight and we must take it as our just desserts! /off whacky enviro rant.
From TFA:
There are now 146 coastal regions in the world in which fish and bottom-feeding life forms have been entirely eliminated because of a lack of oxygen. One dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is about the size of the city of New Jersey and growing.
I can understand dumbing-down the units of measure to Volkswagens or Libraries of Congress, but the last time I looked at Wikipedia, New Jersey was still the 3rd state admitted to the Union. I mean, come on... it's already the brunt of every New York comedian's jokes, and now you Brits are trying to demote it to a mere "city"?
(Of course, I'm from Texas, where an "area the size of the STATE of New Jersey" would barely be counted as a moderate-sized ranch.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
So that terrible M. Night Shyamalan garbage won't become a reality.
Not only does the government have to pull out all stops to control phosphorous, he says, it needs to protect wetlands that remove these nutrients from runoff before they reach lakes and streams. It also needs to set up rules that create natural buffer zones that protect lakes and rivers from agricultural, municipal and cottage developments.
Who knew that pumping phosphorous and toxic waste into the rivers and ocean would have negative consequences.
The Long Now Foundation
Isn't the fact that phosphorus stimulates algae growth, which suffocates other lifeforms, common knowledge? I seem to recall being taught this in school...
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I was wondering what was so important about this study because the effects of phosphorous on aquatic life have been known for decades (hence the phosphate ban on detergents) but then I RTFA (which also mentioned the ban) and what the experiment really showed was that efforts to control nitrogen runoff are useless because it turns out nitrogen is not the problem (the implication being we are wasting money^Weffort controlling it).
Bottom line: nitrogen is not the problem, phosphorous is _still_ the problem and needs more effective pollution control measures.
More music, fewer hits
Weird, but I sorta want to know what the hell that was...
Last post!
Harvest the stuff. Make fuel out of it. It's way better than using corn. You're throwing away free gas...ok diesel.
What?
Ok, I read the article and everything, but one thing still bugs me, why aren't we figureing out a way to get rid of the all the alge since in the 60 we already figured out how it is growing in the first place.
Why anyone thought nitrogen was the problem I don't know. Nitrosomonas are a natural part of the aquatic process transforming fish waist into nitrogen.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
New Jersey, Northumberland, New Brunswick, Canada This is an article from Canada after all.
I'm taking it as a very clever form of satire: confusing New Jersey as a state versus a city; confusing Canada with England.
I mean, it's pretty obvious that it's a Canadian article because it's in English and Canada is the only state in the Union that speaks English.
I thought it was widely known that the phosphorous in fertilizer was a root cause for eutrophication?
Is there something I'm missing here?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Asia Ferguson was killed by a roller coaster. [News Link]
I have NO IDEA where the bloody Batman thing comes from.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
Batman was the roller coaster.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/836450/1/DOOM_Repercussions_of_Evil
The legendary Doom fanfiction to end all fanfiction.
...is an essay by Isaac Asimov, first published in the April 1959 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, then latter in his collections Fact and Fancy (1962) and Asimov on Chemistry (1974).
In it the Gentle Doctor argued that phosphorous has the greatest relative concentration increase going from its abundance in the natural environment to that in life of all sorts. It thus was often the limit to growth of life as it was scavenged up and held in the biomass.
It's always important to confirm by testing in specific cases, as with this one, as there are other limits, such as dissolved iron. I can't remember where, but I recently read that low blood iron may be a defensive mechanism to make it hard for bacteria to grow during some infections--and that treating the low iron may be the wrong treatment here.
ROFL. Stop it, you're killing me.
Very odd link you posted there - chock full of gems like this one:
What Asia LeeShawn Ferguson IV's favorite book or TV show? ...
Duck or The Ultimate Haircut?
If Asia LeeShawn Ferguson IV could have any job, what do you think he/she could have done? ...
Professional Darwin Award winner Emeritus?
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
The worst part of the algae blooms are the damn mindworms.
Also, I'm not sure what phosphorus has to do with it; I thought algae blooms were caused by drilling too many thermal boreholes.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Maybe they meant Jersey City - it's sometimes called city of New Jersey by outsiders.
I'm not a chemist. I'm not a farmer. But I'd imagine that most of the Phosphorus getting into the water comes from fertilizer runoff. Is/does fertilizer always contain phosphorus? Are there any alternatives?
It took 37 years to figure out that fertilizer helps plants grow?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Yep. I was in 3rd grade in 1971 in a town where the treehugger hippies had just gained control of the local govt and I distinctly remember all the banter in the environmental news and advocacy organizations of the early 1970's complaining about phosphorus causing seaweed and algae blooms and killing fish in the bays where the rivers ran into the oceans. This is very old knowledge.
SO give them a lil more time
If you become one with the planet you need not fear the Mind Worms..Increasingly our bond with them will make us a force to be contended with.
-Lady Deirdre Skye
Aquarists have known this for a long time. Phosphorous and Silicate removing products have been around for aquarium owners for many years to stave off algae blooms..
. . . so I took her to New Jersey. ;-)
Algae growth can literally FILL a lake in just a few years, in fact this is part of the natural cycle for small lakes, which as they silt up and the water warms up, will fill first to algae beds, then to marsh, and finally to meadow; once started, the entire process can take as little as ten years
Rich snots find pleasant lake and build waterfront mansions around it. Being rich, they insist upon maintaining a couple of acres of putting green quality lawn around them. [This I know, since I live on such a lake, but my 'yard' is basically wild. Whatever grows there unfertilized naturally. The rich snots hate me for not having a nice green lawn.] Eventually, their fertilizer will plug up the lake, turning it into a marsh. Their property values will plummet and they'll all move out.
Have gnu, will travel.
This one with a list of chemicals that cause algae blooms.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
That's not "ironic".
Irony is when we think or hear something is true, but then events demonstrate that thing is false. That is in no way the case with this research.
The scientist who just published these conclusive results is indeed the same scientist whose preliminary results in 1974 were the scientific basis for global laws and the industrial movement that removed and reduced phosphorus in wastewater. They demonstrated then that phosphorus was causing the toxic algae blooms, so we cut way back on phosphorus pollution. Now he's conclusively proved that it is indeed the phosphorus alone.
There's nothing ironic about that sequence of this scientist's career. There's nothing ironic about two completely consistent events.
--
make install -not war
Here in NZ, agriculture caused the same thing. (these blooms were in very low population, farming areas)
At first I thought that it was obvious in that everybody here knows that fertilisers dumped in the water were the obvious cause of algae blooms and other related water poisonings, but I guess those that do not come from a non-farming community would not.
There are many more poisons being dumped in the water than just this. Mercury for example. Fortunately in our country we are pretty strict about this. (although not enough in my opinion!!)
Unfortunately we have to share our ocean with the rest of the world...damn you all...
This article is utter rubbish. Everyone knows that toxic algae blooms are caused by republicans.
...myco-filtration... :-) stamets
Harvesting is one of the principle limitations to the commercial adoption of algal biodiesel.
-
But algae can be harvested and turned into something useful — such as natural food for cows, or fuel. All it does, is turning Sun's energy into plant (itself) and — with the help of only a little bit of phosphorus — rather efficiently...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Obligitory.
Thank You! I knew it was made up for SOME show. I'm sure you can understand my confusion though. After all, Norther Exposure... Babylon 5... It's like I Dream of Jennie and Bewitched!
Industrial cleaning products are still allowed to use phosphorus in some jurisdictions.
which suffocates other lifeforms
The article says this as well, and I don't doubt it, I just don't understand. Bluegreen Algae are what gave us an oxygen atmosphere to begin with. How is it that they suffocate life, when they're giving off oxygen?
But wait, don't algae blooms fix carbon and sequester it on the seafloor/lakebed? Sure the fish die and we can't swim, but we all have to make sacrifices right?
Check out some of the results of a Google for "reef+phosphates" and see the problems even a tiny increase in the ppm of phophate can cause in a salt-water reef aquarium. Even just one additional ppm above "normal" can be pretty extreme.
Multiply those effects by the size of our collective phosphate-largesse and the size of the oceans and I guess you get full-on dead zones instead of just a tank of nasty algae and bacteria.
Hope this helps.
-Matt
It's a screwed up version of a screwed up DOOM fanfic.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
After 37 years of research, it's now official: pooping in the water is bad.
[End Of Line]
University of Alberta studying algae? That would be like someone at the University of Arizona studying icebergs.
NOTE: Link in parent post contains browser 'sploitin naughtiness.
I was thinking the exact same thing. As a saltwater reef aquarist I've been testing phosphates every few days for years to keep algae (esp. that annoying bubble algae) in check. I don't ever recall reading anything that considered nitrogen (other than nitrogenous waste ... which is another issue) to be part of the algeal bloom cycle. As mentioned earlier up in the thread, amateurs aquarists have a ton of products for phosphate removal/sequestering ... are these not practical on a large scale?
REDUCTION OF OXYGEN CONTENT TO BELOW TWO PARTS PER MILLION WITHIN FIFTY KILOMETER RADIUS OF SOURCE AFTER DIATOM BLOOM MANIFESTS AEMRUDYCO PEZQEASKL MINOR POLLUTANTS PRESENT IN DEITRICH POLYXTROPE 174A ONE SEVEN FOUR A COMBINES IN LATTITINE CHAIN WITH HERBICIDES SPRINGFIELD AD45 AD FOUR FIVE OR DU PONT ANALAGAN 58 FIVE EIGHT EMITTING FROM REPEATED AGRICULTURAL USE AMAZON BASIN OTHER SITES OTHER LONG CHAIN MOLECULAR SYNERGISTS POSSIBLE IN TROPICAL ENVIRONS OXYGEN COLUMN SUBJECT TO CONVECTIVE SPREADING RATE ALZNRUD ASMA WSUEXIO 829 CMXDROQ VIRUS IMPRINTING STAGE 3 THREE WEEK DELAY IF DENSITY OF SPRINGFIELD AD45 AD FOUR FIVE EXCEEDS 158 ONE FIVE EIGHT PARTS PER MILLION THEN ENTERS MOLECULAR SIMULATION REGIME BEGINS IMITATING HOST CAN THEN CONVERT PLANKTON NEURO JACKET INTO ITS OWN CHEMICAL FORM USING AMBIENT OXYGEN CONTENT UNTIL OXYGEN LEVEL FALLS TO VALUES FATAL TO MOST OF THE HIGHER FOOD CHAIN WTESJDKU AGAIN AMMA YS ACTION OF ULTRAVIOLET SUNLIGHT ON CHAINS APPEARS TO RETARD DIFFUSION IN SURFACE LAYERS OF THE OCEAN BUT GROWTH CONTINUES LOWER DOWN DESPITE CONVECTIVE CELLS FORMING WHICH TEND TO MIX LAYERS IN XMC AHSU URGENT MADUDLO 374 ONLY SEGMENT AMZLSOUDP ALYN YOU MUST STOP ABOVE NAMED SUBSTANCES FROM ENTERING OCEAN LIFE CHAIN AMZSUY RDUCDK BY PROHIBITIONS OF FOLLOWING SUBSTANCES CALLANAN B471 FOUR SEVEN ONE MESTOFITE SALEN MARINE COMPOUND ALPHA THROUGH DELTA YDEMCLW URGENT YXU CONDUCT TITRATION ANALYSIS ON METASTABLE INGREDIENTS PWMXSJR ALSUDNCH
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Phosphorus which can be found in fertilisers causing algae to grow?! What next? The sun is hot?
> and now you Brits are trying to demote it to a mere "city"?
Maybe it is a joke on those Americans who think that Scotland is part of England !!
What?!?!? are you high or something?!?! No phosphorus in fertilizer?!?!? You are sadly mistaken. Phosphorus puts the "P" in NPK and is one of the basic components. Farm fertilizer isn't the real problem anyway. the bigger issue has been P in laundry detergent. Specifically dry detergents that come in a box where it is used as a base and in many urban cases discharged into waterways after sewage processing. Processing that cannot remove the phosphorus.
Many states (especially in the great lakes basin) have had bans on phosphorus in detergents for 30-50 years although enforcement has been lax at times. This story is actually non-news. The link between algea blooms and phosphorus was established decades ago.
Interestingly enough, this phosphorus and algea link could prove beneficial since blue-green algea can be processed into synthetic fuels. I remember reading articles that there were experiments underway to use phosphorus in algea farming for synth-fuels.
I had no idea my beloved New Jersey was a city.
First iron and as soon as scientists "proposed" this iron hypothesis, the (green) venture capitalists decided it was a swift idea to illegally fertilize the ocean with iron.
Now Phosphorus? What will it be next? Oh, wait - now it's lime dumping for c-questration. Direct input of a chemical has huge implications for the natural stoichiometry of the ocean. This says nothing of the delicate ecosystem balance and populations kept in check by one another. Causing a bloom or die-off in other species may create top tier results at the top of our food chain rendering our beloved food supply toxic. There are some that believe one nutrient or chemical controls the entire biogeochemical cycling of phytoplankton nutrients in the world oceans, they are sorely mistaken.
Please reference Redfield or those of you that have already, then keep in mind that one limiting agent, begets another.