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."

Irony!

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.

Re:Irony!

According to a chemistry major I know, adding one gram or so of phosphorus can cause more devastating algae ownage

Algae ownage? I'd love to read that guy's thesis!

Re:Irony!

I'm guessing that's British for "Pwnage", correct?

Re:Irony!

Actually, I believe the British spelling is 'aenage'.

Re:Irony!

Its all part of the hip new lingo coming out of the "City of New Jersey"..

One dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is about the size of the city of New Jersey and growing.

Re:Irony!

This week's lesson: this discovery comes not long after phosphorus was eliminated from most household laundry detergents by federal law.

Federal law in America and in most of Europe, apparently. I wonder how much of the developing world still uses phosphorus-based detergents?

Re:Irony!

Unfortunately, it is one of the major ingredients in fertilizer. In rural farming comunities, the problems with algea can get very severe from farmers over-fertilizing their fields. The algea bloom might be many, many miles down a river, from the combination of many different farms.

What?!?

It took 37 years to figure out that fertilizer helps plants grow?

The plants, they won't grow...

I'm no scientist...but have you tried, water?

Re:What?!?

What, like out of the toilet?

Re:Irony!

It's not irony, it's phosphorousy!

City of... what?

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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.)

Re:City of... what?

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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.)

In defense of New Jersey vs Texas, while you have the size advantage on us, we have waaaaaay more toxic Super-Fund sites here, thus ensuring our mutated progeny a leg-up (or tentacle/webbed appendage)on you soon-to-be extinct bipeds from the Lone Star State.

Re:City of... what?

'Course, I'm from Alaska, where an area the size of Texas would be a moderate-sized park.

Oh, SNAP!

Although we like Canada over here next door. They're like the sassy ol' widow that bakes fresh pie and leaves it on the windowsill for us.

Re:City of... what?

I'm from california. Where are Texas, Alaska, and Canada? Are they in the valley?

Satire

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.

Re:Satire

That proves nothing! It could have been spoofed by those New Mexicans! They are always invading America. They are worse than the old Mexicans.

Re:City of... what?

Both. Michael would stay in the bigger new state, and Billy would be in the other.

Who knew

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.

Alternate punchline: nitrogen

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.

"Life's Bottleneck"

...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.

Re:Why is this a plague??

Words fail. From the Red Tide wiki page:

"Marine and fresh waters teem with life, much of it microscopic, and most of it harmless; in fact, it is this microscopic life on which all aquatic life ultimately depends for food. While most of these species of phytoplankton and cyanobacteria are harmless, there are a few dozen that create potent toxins given the right conditions. Harmful algal blooms may cause harm through the production of toxins or by their accumulated biomass, which can affect co-occurring organisms and alter food-web dynamics. Impacts include human illness and mortality following consumption of or indirect exposure to HAB toxins, substantial economic losses to coastal communities and commercial fisheries, and HAB-associated fish, bird and mammal mortalities. To the human eye, blooms can appear greenish, brown, and even reddish- orange depending upon the algal species, the aquatic ecosystem, and the concentration of the organisms."

Re:Common knowledge?

phosphorus leads to flora growth? They ought to look into using that stuff in fertilizers.

Re:Huh?

Ahem. I happen to know Dave Schindler--he and my father were colleagues--and his contribution to our knowledge of aquatic ecosystems has been quite important. Among other seminal research out of ELA were definitive papers on phosphorus and nitrogen loading (per TFA) and a little thing called acid rain. Not long ago Schindler was given a $1M award for lifetime contributions to science, and I'm not aware of anyone who would say it wasn't richly deserved.

Re:well duh

...fish waist...

Fish don't have waists. That's why they seldom wear pants.

Re:So is there fertilizer without Phosphorus?

"Is/does fertilizer always contain phosphorus?"

It does if you order it that way. The three numbers on fertilizer bags are:

  Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potash(Potassium).

If the middle number is zero it doesn't have any Phosphorous. You can get a number of trace elements like Sulfur, Calcium, Magenesium, Iron and other assorted trace elements.

Properly educated farmers, gardner and landscapers certainly can reduce the problem by:

A. Getting their soil tested before they apply fertilizer and apply only what is indicated by the test. Using a lab is best if you are fertilizer some acreage, or you can make an educated guess using a home test kit.

B. Be careful when irrigating after applying fertilizer to avoid washing it off, sprinklers being much preferred over flood irrigation

Another factor that is probably reducing the Phosphorous pollution problem is its so expensive lately, along with Nitrogen and Potash, that farmers either can't afford it or are very careful when they do splurge on it.