Several studies have shown that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are acidifying the world's oceans. This is significant for coral reefs because acidification strips carbonate ions from seawater, making it more difficult for corals to build the calcium carbonate skeletons that serve as their structural basis. Research has shown that many species of coral, as well as other marine microorganisms, fare quite poorly under the increasingly acidic conditions.
Coral reefs reduce beach erosion, support tourism and serve as breeding grounds and habitat for fish. A 2006 report by the United Nations Environment Programme put the value of coral reefs at $100,000 to $600,000 per square kilometer per year.
The UNEP report states that 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs are severely damaged or dead and that 60 percent of remaining reefs will vanish by 2030.
Scientists say the biggest threat is global warming.
Living organisms, like corals, are sensitive to heat, even small amounts of warming can trigger bleaching (death).
When water temperatures rise, coral expel single-celled algae called zooxanthellae, which live inside coral tissue and give corals their color and, more importantly, supply the bulk of their food energy. If bleaching persists, corals die, leaving behind ghostly limestone skeletons.
Last year, another record heat-wave killed another ten percent of the vital Elkhorn coral - essential to reef building - now lies dead in the US Virgin Islands.
Several additional factors are also at cause, from chemical dumps to over fishing of the few remaining.
By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
Thursday 30 March 2006
A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.
Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.
"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."
Some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime a year, Miller said.
Coral reefs are the basis for a multibillion-dollar tourism and commercial fishing economy in the Caribbean. Key fish species use coral as habitat and feeding grounds. Reefs limit the damage from hurricanes and tsunamis. More recently they are being touted as possible sources for new medicines.
If coral reefs die "you lose the goose with golden eggs" that are key parts of small island economies, said Edwin Hernandez-Delgado, a University of Puerto Rico biology researcher.
On Sunday, Hernandez-Delgado found a colony of 800-year-old star coral - more than 13 feet high - that had just died in the waters off Puerto Rico.
"We did lose entire colonies," he said. "This is something we have never seen before."
On Wednesday, Tyler Smith, coordinator of the U.S. Virgin Islands Coral Reef Monitoring program, dived at a popular spot for tourists in St. Thomas and saw an old chunk of brain coral, about 3 feet in diameter, that was at least 90 percent dead from the disease called "white plague."
"We haven't seen an event of this magnitude in the Caribbean before," said Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.
The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates - mostly from warming waters - have been in the 90 percent range in past years, said Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau called what's happening worldwide "an underwater holocaust."
And with global warming, scientists are pessimistic about the future of coral reefs.
"The prognosis is not good," said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. In early April, he will investigate coral reef mortality in Jamaica. "If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won't survive in their current state."
For the Caribbean, it all started with hot sea temperatures, first in Panama in the spring and early summer, and it got worse from there.
New NOAA sea surface temperature figures show the sustained heating in the Caribbean last summer and fall was by far the worst in 21 years of satellite monitoring, Eakin said.
"The 2005 event is bigger than all the previous 20 years combined," he said.
What happened in the Caribbean would be the equivalent of every city in the United States recording a record high temperature at the same time, Eakin said. And it remained hot for weeks, even months, stressing the coral.
The heat causes the symbiotic algae that provides food for the coral to die and turn white. That puts the coral in critical condition. If coral remains bleached for more than a week, the chance of death soars, according to NOAA scientists.
In the past, only some coral species would bleach during hot water spells and the problem would occur only at certain depths. But in 2005, bleaching struck far more of the region at all depths and in most species.
A February NOAA report calculates 96 percent of lettuce coral, 93 percent of the star coral and nearly 61 percent of the iconic brain coral in St. Croix had bleached. Much of the coral had started to recover from the bleaching last fall, but then the weakened colonies were struck by disease, finishing them off.
Eakin, who oversees the temperature study of the warmer water, said it's hard to point to global warming for just one season's high temperatures, but other scientists are convinced.
"This is probably a harbinger of things to come," said John Rollino, the chief scientist for the Bahamian Reef Survey. "The coral bleaching is probably more a symptom of disease - the widespread global environmental degradation - that's going on."
Crabbe said evidence of global warming is overwhelming.
"The big problem for coral is the question of whether they can adapt sufficiently quickly to cope with climate change," Crabbe said. "I think the evidence we have at the moment is: No, they can't.
"It'll not be the same ecosystem," he said. "The fish will go away. The smaller predators will go away. The invertebrates will go away."
MIAMI (Reuters) - Deadly diseases are attacking coral reefs across the Caribbean Sea after a massive surge of coral bleaching last summer, a two-pronged assault that scientists say is one of the worst threats to the region's fragile undersea gardens.
The attack, which is killing centuries-old corals, is the result of unusually hot water across the Caribbean region that some scientists argue is a consequence of global warming.
Coupled with a recent bleaching event that whitened and weakened coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Caribbean epidemic has biologists fearing for the future of the habitats that serve as spawning grounds, nurseries, tourist attractions and, some believe, alarm systems for the health of the oceans.
A catastrophic loss of corals, which grow in vivid colonies often likened to flower gardens, could be a body-blow to the Caribbean islands' multibillion-dollar tourism industry, which sells scuba, snorkeling and fishing along with sun and sand.
The unprecedented assault started last summer with some of the highest water temperatures on record in the Caribbean, which caused coral to bleach from Panama to the Virgin Islands. Hot water stresses corals, causing the tiny animals to expel their symbiotic algae, which give corals their bright colors.
Scientists believe bleaching weakens corals, leaving them susceptible to disease. In some Caribbean locations, 90 percent of corals were bleached, according to reef monitors.
Coral can recover from bleaching when the water cools and the algae return to their hosts. But last year's bleaching event was followed by a devastating attack of black band disease, white plague and other ailments.
"It's one of the worst we've ever seen in the Caribbean," said Dr. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch. Continued...
At the recent Coral Reef Symposium in Bali, Indonesia, scientists concluded that most of the world’s ocean reefs have been killed or severely damaged with the remainder in certain jeopardy. Disastrous reverses in reef health threaten marine biodiversity, tourism, fisheries and shore protection worldwide.
Reefs die for many reasons: rising water temperatures, sewage flows, eutrophication, disease, and negligence. A reef ecosystem that took hundreds of years to grow can be destroyed in a single afternoon by dredging, dynamite or cyanide fishing.
When coral reefs die, fish populations disappear; beaches and shorelines are damaged. Unprotected by breakwaters, fragile land areas become vulnerable to erosion, saltwater intrusion and destruction from waves.
The Global Coral Reef Alliance (GCRA)
The Global Coral Reef Alliance is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to growing, protecting and managing the most threatened of all marine ecosystems—coral reefs. Through extensive research, GCRA has pioneered methodologies to help reefs survive and recover from diseases and anthropogenic damage caused by excessive nutrients, climate change and physical destruction.
Study Reports Coral May Help Block Virus Replication
McGill University scientists say they've discovered a small molecule in coral that can be used to block the replication of certain viruses. The Canadian research shows the naturally occurring product, hippuristanol, specifically impairs the machinery used to make proteins...
The Canadian research shows the naturally occurring product, hippuristanol, specifically impairs the machinery used to make proteins.
Lead author of the study, Jerry Pelletier, and colleagues isolated hippuristanol from the coral Isis hippuris. The researchers found that molecule prevents a protein, eIF4A, from binding to mRNA, which carries the code to make proteins from DNA to specific sites of protein synthesis in the cell.
By binding to the mRNA, eIF4A initiates the translation of the protein code and Hippuristanol prevents replication by inhibiting that process.
Sources: Science Daily; April issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology
NOAA / NSF RESEARCH
REVEALS IMPACTS OF OCEAN
ACIDIFICATION ON CHEMISTRY,
BIOLOGY OF PACIFIC OCEAN
If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, the ocean will acidify to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years.
At present, ocean chemistry is changing at least 100 times more rapidly than it has changed in the 100,000 years preceding our industrial era.
Ocean acidification could be expected to have major negative impacts on corals and other marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.
April 2006 — Data collected from ocean sampling in the Pacific Ocean from the southern to northern hemispheres confirms that the oceans are becoming more acidic.
A recently completed field study from Tahiti to Alaska collecting data about the effects of ocean acidification on the water chemistry and marine organisms found evidence that verifies earlier computer model projections. These findings are consistent with data from previous field studies conducted in other oceans.
"We observed measurable decreases in pH, a measure of the acidity of the water, as well as measurable increases in dissolved inorganic carbon over a large section of the northeastern Pacific," said Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash., and chief scientist aboard the field study.
The preliminary results from NOAA scientists and their academic colleagues indicate measurable pH decreases of approximately 0.025 units and increases in dissolved inorganic carbon of about 15 µmol/kg in surface waters over a large section of the northeastern Pacific. A lowering of pH indicates rising acidity.
"The pH decrease is direct evidence of ocean acidification in the Pacific Ocean," said Feely. "These dramatic changes can be attributed, in most part, to anthropogenic CO2 uptake by the ocean over the past 15 years. This verifies earlier model projections that the oceans are becoming more acidic because of the uptake of carbon dioxide released as a result of fossil fuel burning."
Feely and his colleagues wrote two papers in 2004 published in the journal Science based on 20 years of ocean observations that indicated the oceans were absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide and also the effects that changes in water chemistry would have on marine life such as corals and plankton.
The cruise was part of a decadal series of repeat hydrographic sections jointly funded by the NOAA Office of Global Programs (now the Climate Program Office) and the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences as part of the Climate Variability and Predictability Study CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program. The cruise aboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson ended in Kodiak, Alaska, last week.
"The global oceans are the largest natural long-term reservoir for anthropogenic carbon dioxide, absorbing approximately one-third of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activity each year. Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of all CO2 emitted to the atmosphere," said Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for the first leg of the cruise and an oceanographer at NOAA's PMEL.
Victoria Fabry of California State University-San Marcos and Robert Byrne of the University of South Florida measured the rates of dissolution of the calcium exoskeletons of pteropods, free-swimming planktonic mollusks, subjected to the CO2-enriched waters.
Fabry noted that based on the best available science, it appears that as levels of dissolved CO2 in sea water rise, the skeletal growth rates of calcium-secreting organisms will be reduced as a result of the effects of dissolved CO2 on ocean acidity and consequently, on calcification.
"The effects of decreased calcification in microscopic algae and animals could impact marine food webs and, combined with other climatic changes in salinity, temperature and upwelled nutrients, could substantially alter the biodiversity and productivity of the ocean," Fabry said. "As humans continue along the path of unintended CO2 sequestration in the surface oceans, the impacts on marine ecosystems will be direct and profound."
( NOAA image for larger view of a swimming pteropod, Limacina helicina. These free-swimming planktonic molluscs form a calcium carbonate shell made of aragonite. They are an important food source for juvenile North Pacific salmon and also are eaten by mackerel, herring and cod. “NOAA.” )
noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2606.htm Ocean acidification means that there would be concern over carbon dioxide emissions independently and apart from any possible effects of carbon dioxide on the climate system.
Ocean acidification and climate change are both effects of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, but they are completely different; ocean acidification depends on the chemistry of carbon dioxide; whereas climate change depends on temperature and freshwater changes resulting from the atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, the ocean will acidify to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years.
At present, ocean chemistry is changing at least 100 times more rapidly than it has changed in the 100,000 years preceding our industrial era.
Ocean acidification could be expected to have major negative impacts on corals and other marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.
When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater it forms carbonic acid, which is corrosive to calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. The impact is likely to be disruptions through large components of the marine food web.
The potential for ecological adaptation is unclear at this time; however, both in today's ocean and over geologic time the rate of accumulation of shells and skeletons made from carbonate minerals shows a consistent relationship with ocean chemical conditions indicating that the success of these organisms is largely controlled by carbonate chemistry.
CO2 Threat to Coral and Plankton
--------------------------------------------
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels already affects corals indirectly, by contributing to global warming. Now there's new evidence that carbon dioxide gas also affects corals directly -- it dissolves into seawater and stunts their growth.
Increaces in acidity have already occurred in the Ocean's chemistry, now affecting the basic foundation and building blocks of Ocean life.
Coral reefs are threatened globally. Elevated sea temperatures alone causes coral death and bleaching. Increasing dissolved carbon dioxide in ocean waters interfere with the very reef building process itself. The future does not look good for these critical habitats, and like falling dominoes, the chain reaction affects all life dependent on the sea, starting with plankton and coral reefs.
According to Richard Feely, of Noaa, and his colleagues, that might make life pretty hard for some shell-forming marine animals.
Corals, pteropod molluscs and some plankton (single celled organisms) pull carbonate ions from the seawater to produce their calcium carbonate shells.
Flagler County began its artificial reef program in the early 1990s with the encouragement of Commissioner George Hanns, and the county has two permitted sites for reefs.
The new reef -- named George Hanns Reef -- will create a triangle with Big George's Reef that was built in 1995 and the sunken sailboat. The five other reefs at the second site are almost 22 miles southeast of Matanzas Inlet.
Volusia County has an artificial reef program with more than 40 reefs at 13 permitted sites. Last year, the Volusia County Council approved plans to acquire and sink a freighter called Antilles Star. County officials said within the next month the ship will be towed to a reef site and sunk about 18 miles northeast of Ponce de Leon Inlet.
Netherton said an eighth reef is planned for Flagler County near the Matanzas Inlet.
Artificial reefs are one solution to the disappearance of natural coral reefs. Scientists continue to discover ways the natural reefs are destroyed. Here are a few coral killers.
· Abandoned fish nets get tangled up with corals, causing damage as well as preventing other species from using the reef. Boat anchors dropped onto reefs also cause damage.
· Runoff from land, including sewage, can smother corals. In waters off Thailand, nutrients in some runoff has led to the growth of starfish, which devour corals.
· Sometimes corals lose all their color due to bleaching, which can be caused by disease, excess shade, change in water temperature or other stresses. Scientists still don't entirely understand bleaching, but they do believe the coral polyps expel the nutrient-recycling algae that live in their tissues and produce the bright and vibrant colors corals are noted for. If the stress continues to effect the coral, it will eventually die.
SOURCE: National Wildlife Federation, www.marinebiology.org, www.uvi.edu/coral.reefer/bleach.htm
"Horrible." That’s how University of Houston biologist Gerard Wellington describes the state of Easter Island’s corals.
Wellington’s team found that while some types of coral survived, nearly 90 percent of the more vulnerable branching coral had been bleached. Sea temperatures as little as 1.8 degrees F (-16.8 degrees C) above normal led the coral to expel its brightly colored symbiotic algae, killing the coral. The water had been warmed by unusual Pacific Ocean currents, possibly related to global warming.
Half of the world's coral reefs could disappear by 2045
June 2007
Scientists warn that up to half of the world's coral reefs could disappear by 2045.
The reefs serve as breeding grounds for many commercial fisheries, so without them, a major food source for humans will be lost.
Reefs serve as natural barriers to tidal surges created by powerful storms. Degrading them will put coastal communities at risk.
"We're talking about a major economic engine that people don't understand," said Richard Dodge, executive director of the National Coral Reef Institute. "They support people's incomes and livelihoods."
Reef-related activities generate more than $4 billion for the economy of southeast Florida alone.
A new marine protected area has been created in southern Belize that will help to protect the world's only predictable gathering site of the whale shark, the planet's largest fish, Conservation International announced today.
The 3,360 acre (1,360 hectare) marine protected area includes the water surrounding Little Water Caye, a tiny island 18 miles off Belize's southeastern coast.
The newly acquired Little Water Caye will house a marine research station and ranger headquarters, and will serve as the management base for surrounding marine protected areas.
The majority share of Little Water Caye was purchased for Friends of Nature, a Belizean nongovernmental organization made up of five local communities.
The purchase of the island for Friends of Nature was made possible through grants provided by Conservation International's Global Conservation Fund, which provided $222,000, and the Oak Foundation, which provided an additional $75,000.
"In terms of biodiversity, this area is one of the greatest crown jewels in the Mesoamerica barrier reef, the second largest coral reef on the planet," said Dr. Sylvia Earle, executive director of Conservation International's Global Marine Program. "As we hear stories about the precipitous declines of fish populations all around the world, it becomes even more critical to protect these unique places."
Whale sharks that gather each spring in the region near Little Water Caye can live to 100 years, grow to 50 feet and weigh as much as 27,000 pounds. Although found in tropical seas throughout the world, its spawning congregations are notoriously unpredictable, except for their regular appearance in this area.
"The local communities that founded Friends of Nature were the first to discover the rare whale sharks that congregate in the area and became determined to do something to protect them," said Costas Christ, senior director of Conservation International's Ecotourism Program.
"By promoting marine education in local schools and supporting eco-friendly tourism, they have set an example for how conservation, local communities and responsible travel can work in harmony to save the marine environment," Christ said.
Recently, marine resource managers in the Florida Keys have begun projects that seek to gain a better social scientific understanding of why and how people use coral reefs, their perceptions of the ecological and social conditions of reefs, and how satisfied they are with their fishing and diving experiences.
The projects are designed to help make better management decisions for people living in and visiting the Keys by integrating social science with the biological and ecological science currently being conducted in the Keys marine ecosystem - a balance to help better include stakeholders in the management process.
The Human Dimensions of Marine and Coastal Ecosystems Program (HDMCE) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is tasked with one such project, and is looking for help from locals and tourists.
“Even though our team comes to the Keys one week per month to intercept those using the reefs and ask them if we can send them a survey, we would like to include as many people in our sample as possible,” said Christopher Hawkins, part of the Amherst program.
He and his research team are asking anyone who recreationally fishes, snorkels or scuba dives on or around the oceanside coral reefs of the Keys and to contact Dr. David Loomis at loomis(at)forwild.umass.edu; 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003; (413) 545-6641.
Anonymous, self-addressed, pre-stamped surveys will be sent to those who inquire.
Joint Ocean Commission Initiative
Gives United States D+ in "Research, Science and Education”
Post date : 2007-02-06
Formed in early 2005, the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative (JOCI) is a collaborative, bipartisan effort of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and Pew Oceans Commission to catalyze ocean policy reform. The Joint Initiative is guided by a ten-member Task Force, five from each Commission, and led by Admiral James D. Watkins (U.S. Navy, Ret.) and the Honorable Leon E. Panetta. Starting in 2005, the JOCI issues a yearly report card assessing the progress of the nation in implementing the recommendations on ocean policy and research made in recent reports to Congress.
One of the areas that the report card assigns a grade to is “Research, Science, and Education”. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and Pew Oceans Commission call for an integrated and coordinated framework of governmental and non-governmental partners contributing to the transition toward ecosystem-based management. In 2005, JOCI assigned the grade of D to “Research, Science, and Education”. The main reason cited for this grade was the lack of sustained and dedicated funds to support research including the intensive long-term monitoring and data collection efforts that are required to move towards ecosystem-based management. In 2006, JOCI assigned the grade of D+ to “Research, Science, and Education” category. The minimal progress in improving the grade was again attributed to the lack of appropriate funding to address research priorities.
Regardless of which party or Administration has been in charge in Washington long-term sustained funding has and continues to be difficult to secure for ocean research. It is clear from the JOCI report cards as well as their comprehensive report to Congress that non-governmental partners will be a crucial part of a successful transition to ecosystem-based management. Reef Check is directly partnering with resource managers like, the California Department of Fish and Game, to provide data to improve resource management and help them transition to a more holistic ecosystem-based management (EBM) practices. The more quality scientifically robust data, like the data collected by Reef Check’s California Program, they have the more rapidly the transition to EBM will progress.
You can get more information about the JOCI at http://www.jointoceancommission.org/
Carbon dioxide levels threaten oceans regardless of global warming
(3/8/2007) Rising levels of carbon dioxide will have wide-ranging impacts on the world's oceans regardless of climate change, reports a study published in the March 9, 2007, issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Increasingly acidic oceans damaging to marine life
(7/5/2006) Carbon dioxide emissions are altering ocean chemistry and putting sea life at risk according to a new report released today. The report, "Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and Other Marine Calcifiers," summarizes known effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on marine organisms that produce calcium carbonate skeletal structures, such as corals. Oceans worldwide absorbed approximately 118 billion metric tons of carbon between 1800 and 1994 according to the report, resulting in increased ocean acidity, which reduces the availability of carbonate ions needed for the production of calcium carbonate structures.
Coral reefs decimated by 2050, Great Barrier Reef's coral 95% dead
(11/17/2005) Australia's Great Barrier Reef could lose 95 percent of its living coral by 2050 should ocean temperatures increase by the 1.5 degrees Celsius projected by climate scientists. The startling and controversial prediction, made last year in a report commissioned by the World Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Queensland government, is just one of the dire scenarios forecast for reefs in the near future. The degradation and possible disappearance of these ecosystems would have profound socioeconomic ramifications as well as ecological impacts says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, head of the University of Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies.
Silent Sentinels: The Future of Coral -Website and transcript from a documentary by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, discussing the connection between coral death and water temperature.
Causes of Coral Bleaching -A scientist reviews the scientific literature dealing with coral bleaching events and disputes that elevated seawater temperatures are the primary cause of coral bleaching.
Assessing the Future of Earth's Coral Reefs -A scientist notes that the scientific community isnot united on the subject of atmospheric CO2 enrichment and coral reef health.
For a fee, governments give the "green light" to industry to break the law, and dump more toxins.
Coral bleaching is not well understood by scientists. Many different hypotheses exist as to the cause behind coral bleaching: REF: http://www.coral.noaa.gov/cleo/coral_bleaching.shtml
LL: Consider this: If scientists don't fully understand why the coral reefs are bleaching...
... would it not be surprising that global industries dumping millions of tons of deadly chemicals into Oceans around the world might just interfere with such a delicate and miraculous balance.
A small Green Sea Turtle was found along a
rock wall near the Dive In dive center in Key
Largo, completely covered with thick, black
oil. The baby turtle was rescued, using
mayonnaise (which dissolves the oil without
harming the turtle)
www.TurtleHospital.org
CO2 is now absorbed into the Oceans, causing acidification and potentially toppling food chain domino #1, the plankton.
Ocean "acidification" occurs when chemical compounds such as carbon dioxide, sulfur, or nitrogen mix with seawater, a process which lowers the pH and reduces the storage of carbon.
Ocean acidification hampers the ability of marine organisms—such as sea urchins, corals, and certain types of plankton—to harness calcium carbonate for making hard outer shells or "exoskeletons." These organisms provide essential food and habitat to other species, so their demise could affect entire ocean ecosystems.
Earth's rivers polluted with cancinogenic chemicals
Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:11pm EDT
www.reuters.com
PARIS (Reuters) - Rivers in eastern and northern France found to be contaminated with chemicals that have been outlawed since 1987 and are proving very hard to eliminate, the government reported on Wednesday.
The River "Rhone" which runs through the southeastern corner of France (scientists said) contained dangerous levels of polychlorinated biphenyls ( PCB / PCBs ).
The latest report said additional rivers were in an even worse condition because of industrial dumping dating back decades, including the River Seine which runs through Paris.
"It's a huge clean-up job," Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the secretary of state for ecology, told a news conference. Other big rivers in Europe are affected by the same problem, she said.
PCB's were used primarily as a cooling and insulating fluid for electricity transformers and capacitors. It has been banned in France since 1987 after research showed it could cause fertility, growth and cancer in humans.
Kosciusko-Morizet said PCB had been very heavily used in industry since the 1930s and France was suffering the consequences of long-standing pollution.
"Cleaning it up is far from easy. It's very complicated because there are huge amounts of sediment." She said it would be technically and economically impossible to clean up the whole Rhone River... (... what about the Ocean?)
Here is the PCB problem
.... connecting the dots .....
with plastic pollution....
=============-------..-------===============
( text_insert )
"Alguita, the oceanic research vessel from Algalita, just came back from one of its research expeditions in the Pacific Gyre, an area of the Pacific Ocean otherwise known as the Garbage Patch. They collected samples on the surface of the ocean and found evidence of record high concentrations of small plastic particles.
Birds and fish eat the plastic because it mimics the food they eat, zooplankton. Research data from the Algalita Foundation shows plastic particles outnumber zooplankton 6 to 1. Especially concerning is the fact that the plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT at up to one million times background levels. As a result, this floating plastic is a "poison pill".
... so... the "easy" solution would simply be to get industry to stop
dumping millions of tons of toxins into the rivers/oceans....
( ... going back 50 years or so... )
... then just get the entire world to stop using plastic 'once',
and tossing it into the garbage/oceans....
... that will probably be about as easy as
oh... maybe stopping the use of fossil fuels...
then we can get back to work on that little global warming "issue".... :-)
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