Algae bloom aka "Green Monster" en route? Yuck...

[Pavers]

The story that's at the end of this post was in today's Daily Record.  I was not in town during the apparent 2005 algae bloom.  How nasty did this look?  Did the river through downtown look like a big green mess?

This doesn't look good.

-Pavers

http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=48183

08/10/2007

by Mike Sharkey

Staff Writer

The current heat wave isn’t just sending folks inside and electric bills up. It’s aiding and abetting the “Green Monster” â€" the massive algae bloom that nearly choked the entire lower basin of the St. Johns River two years ago.

Dr. Gerard Pinto of JU recently flew over the river where St. Johns, Duval and Clay counties meet and Thursday told the Jacksonville Waterways Commission he spotted and photographed evidence that the bloom has returned.

“It’s at the mouth of Doctors Lake in the tri-county area, converging into Julington Creek,” said Pinto. “With this heat, it will definitely develop.”

According to Dr. Quinton White of JU, the likelihood the algae bloom will grow and spread north into the Downtown area and beyond is high. The bloom is a toxic algae that can cause respiratory problems for humans and severely damage submerged marine life to include vegetation and animals.

“It’s an indicator of stress on the river,” said White, adding that right now the problem is “nowhere near as bad as in 2005. It’s close to shore around the State Road 13 bridge. It’s always tricky to predict, but we’ll probably see it up this way in a couple of weeks.”

White says the recent weather conditions combined with effluence of waste water from water treatment plants is making for ideal algae bloom conditions. The searing heat and high humidity have created higher than normal local inland water temperatures, which is the perfect recipe for the nitrogen-rich bloom.

“The water temperature has been skyrocketing and until we get some relief, it will get worse,” he said.

Logic says rain would slow down the bloom. That’s true, said White, if the rain is local. The problem, he said, is most of the recent rains have been south of Jacksonville and because the St. Johns flows north, the bloom will develop and naturally push towards the mouth of the river. Cooler weather, said White, is the only thing that will really help.

“It (the bloom) will use up the nutrients over the next four to six weeks,” said White. “How far north it spreads depends on the weather and the rainfall.”

White said there’s no way to treat the toxic bloom.

“There are billions of gallons of water in the river. That wouldn’t be practical,” he said. “The long term solution is to treat the water before it gets into the river. This is definitely a man-caused event.”

[riverkeepered]

Let's hope that it doesn't get as bad as 2005.  In 2005, the river was covered in green slime and the smell and the toxins in the algae made the river rather unpleasant to be around.   You should check out http://www.cypix.net/gallery.html?gallery=ALGAE%20BLOOM to see some of the best aerial photos that were taken of the bloom.  Also, get your hands on one of Riverkeeper's "Green Monster: It Came From the River" DVDs to learn about the causes of the bloom and the economic impacts that it had on the local economy and many businesses.

As bad as the bloom was, it definitely served as a wake-up call for us all that our river is sick.   Even though some actions have been taken to address the nitrogen pollution problem (the cause of the blooms), the river is still overwhelmed with excessive amounts of nutrients, and this article just makes it clear that the problem is certainly not behind us. 

[Jason]

Those are some amazing photos.  Let's hope that nothing like that will happen again.