http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/04/05/Russia-seeks-Baltic-pollution-partnerships/UPI-56841365134700/

Energy Resources

Russia seeks Baltic pollution partnerships

Russia's push to create public-private partnerships as a way to help clean up the polluted Baltic Sea is the focus of an environmental summit this week in St. Petersburg.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, April 5 (UPI) -- Russia's push to create public-private partnerships as a way to help clean up the polluted Baltic Sea is the focus of an environmental summit in St. Petersburg.

The meeting, to be attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and premiers from 10 other Baltic and northern European nations, is being called in part to strengthen international cooperation on tackling the chronic environmental woes of the Baltic, which is plagued by nitrates and phosphates from waste run-off.

The nutrients, contained in fertilizers and sewage, enter the sea from large "spot" sources such as wastewater treatment facilities and also from diffuse sources, such as scattered farm fields.

Environmentalists say the pollution is causing the "eutrophication" of the Baltic Sea, though which algae blooms deplete oxygen from the water, triggering fish die-offs and creating a 25,000-square-mile-wide "dead zone" the size of Latvia.

A 2007 action plan developed by the Helsinki Commission of nine Baltic Sea nations has achieved a 40 percent reduction in direct nitrogen and phosphorus discharges as well as a 40 percent decrease in airborne nitrogen emissions.

Some 200 Baltic Sea anti-pollution commitments have been at previous summits, including 11 by sovereign states.

But to achieve its stated objective of eliminating the Baltic's algae blooms, direct phosphorous and nitrogen inputs must be cut by a further 42 percent.

Nitrate-reduction targets adopted under the Helsinki Commission agreement cover the Baltic proper, the Gulf of Finland and Bornholm Basin. Targets have been set for oxygen "debt," which is a measure of a lack of oxygen caused by eutrophication. The ultimate aim is to reach a level of oxygen debt that was prevalent in the 1950s to 1970s.

Russia, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, has indicated it will use the prime ministerial conference to promote its top priority of establishing international public-private partnerships to tackle environmental challenges.

A release from the Russian delegation, headed by Igor Vdovin, board chairman of the National Agency for Direct Investment, said they will be focused on building such partnerships for environmental projects in two pilot regions -- Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg/Leningrad Oblast.

The Russians said they will be also be seeking to create a "common space" for public-private partnerships in the Baltic Sea region as well as a regional investment fund among the 11 Baltic Sea states attending the event as well as the European Commission.

Finland, which launched the environmental summit process in 2010 and takes over the Council of the Baltic Sea States presidency this year, says it's aiming to speed up the implementation of the Helsinki Commission's clean-up action plan.

Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Minister of the Environment Ville Niinisto were both set to travel to St. Petersburg, the government said Tuesday.

Katainen in November called for closer links between the Baltic Sea countries to combat maritime pollution at an address in Jyvaskyla, the Finnish daily Keskisuomalainen reported.

"The question is to save the Baltic Sea," he said, calling it the biggest challenge facing the surrounding nations. "For it to achieve good ecological status will require closer cooperation and, above all, the cutting down of (nutrient) load factors."

Niinisto, meanwhile will also be present at the Russian-hosted public private partnership forum, the governing National Coalition Party reported in its Verkkouutiset.fi online magazine.

What Good is a Diatom

http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/newsletter/2013/01/what_good_is_a_diatom.html
What Good is a Diatom

"Breweries, cough syrup, paint, plastic, insecticides, toothpaste, polishes, ... concrete, animal feed, fertilizers, ... dynamite. It is astounding where the remains of diatoms can be found. One might say that many of the wheels making modern life go 'round are studded with the vacant shells of these tiny phytoplankton, which are used as filters, fillers, insulation, and mild abrasives."

"Diatom shells (more correctly called frustules) are composed of silica, the essence of glass. Because of this their beauty whipped Victorian era microscopists into giddy covetousness. But most frustules escaped the diatom connoisseurs' slides by sinking to the ocean or lake floor after the diatom died."

...

"Diatoms supply the oxygen in every fourth breath you take. Diatoms are critical in the ecological food chain of streams, lakes and oceans. It's thought diatoms could help slow Earth's current warming trend; scientists have suggested that seeding the ocean with iron to stimulate diatom reproduction could help remove carbon dioxide from circulation."

Huge toxic algae bloom expected for Lake Erie

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/04/29/wdr-algae-bloom-predicted-lake-erie.html

Huge toxic algae bloom expected for Lake Erie

Scientists are warning that conditions are perfect for a bumper crop of algae to grow in Lake Erie this summer.


They say heavy April showers are washing fertilizer off farm fields into the water in larger amounts, and those chemicals feed algae blooms that starve the lake of oxygen. Feeding on phosphorus, algae produces bad smells and toxins that are absorbed by underwater life, choking it off.

"There's a 99 per cent chance, there's a strong chance, that [we will] have very bad algae this year," said Raj Bejankiwar, a scientist with the International Joint Commission.

The warning comes two years after Lake Erie experienced the worst algae blooms on record.

By the numbers

Approximately 40 million people live around the Great Lakes.
About 73 million tourists visited the Great Lakes in Ontario in 2010.
About $12.3 billion was injected into the economy by those tourists.
Source: IJC

Blooms are traditionally confined to the summer months, mainly August. Last year, however, warmer temperatures in March allowed algae to grow earlier in the year, but the bloom wasn't as big as the one witnessed in 2011.

This year, April rain could cause as big a bloom as the one from two years ago. Heavy spring rain was to partially blame for that one, too.

Phosphorus gets from the fields to the lakes in one of three ways:

Blown there by the wind.
Soaking through the soil, entering the ground water and flowing into rivers and lakes.
Rain washes it off the top of the soil and directly into rivers and lakes.

Bejankiwar is the lead on the Lake Erie Ecosystem Priority, a branch of the IJC that is studying algae levels in Lake Erie. He said it's normal to have some algae in the lake, but not massive blooms.
Bejankiwar said extra nutrients that feed algae also come from sewage treatment plants, recreational properties and golf courses. He said most of the phosphorus comes from farm run-off.

It's not much phosphorus per farm or per hectare, but it adds up, says one professor.
"If we're talking about the amount a farmer would lose, we're talking less than a few grams per hectare," said Ivan O'Halloran, a professor at Ridgetown College.
O'Halloran said that one kg of phosphorus run-off can have a "significant impact" on algae levels.

'No fertilizer police'
He said one way farmers try to decrease the amount of phosphorus that ends up in the lakes is to make sure they only put what they need into the soil. Soil tests can be done to see how much fertilizer is necessary.

However, there are no "fertilizer police," and best management practices are not laws: they are suggestions, O'Halloran said. That all makes it hard to regulate the distribution of fertilizer.

Henry Denotter, a Kingsville farmer, plants ground cover in the fall to keep the fertilizer from washing into the ditch. After the wheat is harvested, Denotter plants beets and clover in his wheat field to keep the soil in place. Even then, some phosphorus always escapes, he said.
"We do whatever we can to try and retain it, but we have to stay in business, too," Denotter said.
Denotter said it's impossible to keep all the fertilizer in the soil and dire predictions from scientists won't change that.
He thinks scientists should recognize there is only so much farmers can do.
Denotter already uses GPS to determine where he needs to fertilize; uses soil tests to determine how much fertilizer he needs; and uses what he calls a "no-till" system, where he doesn't turn up the earth.
Denotter said it's in farmers' best interest to do what they can to keep the phosphorus in the soil because it costs about $700 per tonne.

Last fall, the Essex Region Conservation Authority and Windsor-Essex County Environment Committee launched an educational campaign about blue-green algae. It's called Overload: Lake Erie Blue Green Algae.

We are seeing a global increase in the frequency and severity of Algal blooms

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/04/pictures/130423-extreme-algae-bloom-fertilizer-lake-erie-science/

Pea Soup

Photograph from China Daily/Reuters

A boy swims in algae-covered waters off the coast of Qingdao, China (map) in 2011—just one of the places around the world where algae blooms are a growing problem. (Related pictures: "Photos: Thick Green Algae Chokes Beach—Swimmers Dive In.")

With an estimated seven billion people and counting, the world's population will only get hungrier. The advent of fertilizers and high-yield crops have helped growers keep pace with the demand for food.

But there's an unintended crop flourishing around the world that is not always so beneficial. Microscopic, plantlike organisms called algae thrive on the excess nutrients—like nitrogen and phosphorus—found in fertilizers that make their way from backyards and fields, producing blooms that can sometimes be seen from space.

Combined with warming temperatures and water circulation patterns, coastal areas such as Qingdao, the Gulf of Mexico, and the U.S. West Coast—as well as freshwater systems like the Great Lakes—are no strangers to enormous algae blooms that can turn the water green or red. (Related: "Harmful Algae Blooms Plague Lake Erie Again.")

Some of these blooms can create dead zones, or areas that are deprived of oxygen, in the water. And some algal species can also produce toxins that wreak havoc on human livers and neurological functions and cause seizures in marine mammals. (Related: "Sea Lion Seizures May Result From Toxic Algae.")

"There's no question in my mind that we are seeing a global increase in the frequency and severity of these [blooms]," said David Caron, a researcher at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles who studies harmful algal blooms.

—Jane J. Lee

Published April 23, 2013

Algae and fish farm link prospects on global science agenda

http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/8580137/Algae-and-fish-farm-link-prospects-on-global-science-agenda
Algae and fish farm link prospects on global science agenda

PENNY WARDLE

Some of the best scientific minds in the world will this week focus on exploring any potential link between harmful algal blooms and fish farms.

The issue has been put on the agenda of an international algal bloom conference in Paris by senior scientist Lincoln MacKenzie, from Nelson research organisation Cawthron, who described it as a high priority.

His call comes as a toxic algal bloom has frozen the shellfish industry in Queen Charlotte Sound and in Tory Channel, where New Zealand King Salmon operates its Clay Point and Te Pangu Bay fish farms.

The scientists attending the Paris conference are part of the Geohab programme supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

On March 23, the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board warned against eating kina, mussels, pipi, tuatua, oysters and cockles harvested from Queen Charlotte Sound and Tory Channel.

Mussel companies voluntarily stopped harvesting in these areas from March 11.

The blooms have no effect on fish, including farmed salmon.

The Alexandrium catenella algae causing the problem was first found at the head of Opua Bay two or three years ago. However, Mr MacKenzie confirmed cysts had been present in sediment on the sea floor for at least 10 years and possibly a lot longer.

Opponents of New Zealand King Salmon's plans to build new fish farms in the Marlborough Sounds argued at an EPA hearing in Blenheim last year that waste from fish farms could increase the frequency and extent of algal blooms.

However, Mr MacKenzie said nothing he had seen suggested a connection between salmon farms and the the algal bloom in Tory Channel. The major source of nutrition for algae was natural oceanic nitrogen.

He went on to say nitrogen levels in the sea were similar from year to year but this toxic bloom was new.People tended to link harmful blooms and fish farming but in most cases he knew of, good evidence did not exist, Mr MacKenzie said.

Cawthron was asking for scientists around the world to work together on the issue because a better understanding of fish farm impacts on water quality and biology would help minimise effects on the environment.

Lake Okeechobee Performance Measure Diatom / Cyanobacteria Ratio

Lake Okeechobee Performance Measure Diatom/Cyanobacteria Ratio

http://www.evergladesplan.org/pm/recover/recover_docs/et/lo_pm_cyano-diatom.pdf


1.0 Desired Restoration Condition

The target is to substantially reduce the dominance of cyanobacteria relative to diatoms. This can be expressed as a numeric target of having a long-term pelagic ratio of biovolume (diatoms: cyanobacteria) greater than 1.5:1.


2.0 Justification
Studies of phytoplankton taxonomic structure of Lake Okeechobee in the 1970s indicated that the community was dominated by diatoms; today the community is dominated by pollution-tolerant bloom-forming cyanobacteria (Havens et al. 1996). The five-year mean diatom to cyanobacteria ratio for 2000-2005 was 0.63 (SFER, 2006).

-----------------------------------------
This is one of the few projects that identify diatoms as the solution to improving water quality of a lake.

Dead Zone map of the world - 1969, 1989 and 2009

http://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/archives/2010/diaz_dead_zone_report.php

Global Hypoxia 1969: Global pattern of coastal hypoxia in 1989. Each red dot represents a documented case related to human activities. Use scroll arrows to compare with similar data from 2009 and 1969.

Diaz contributes to White House "dead zone" report

by David Malmquist |  September 3, 2010

Research by Professor Bob Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science lies at the heart of a new White House report on the growing problem of low-oxygen marine "dead zones." The report, released today to Congress and the public by the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy, notes that low oxygen dead zones now affect nearly half of the 647 U.S. waterways assessed for the report, up from 38 percent reported in the 1980s.

 Diaz was lead author for the report's chapters on the science, economics, and societal impacts of marine dead zones.  He was one of  only 3 academic researchers involved in the report's development.

The report is the final of 5 reports mandated by Congress in the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Amendments Act of 2004 and isavailable online through the White House Office of Ocean Science & Technology.