Scientists Sweat As Katrina's Pollution Plume Enters The Gulf - AFP

[hatrack]

EDIT

In a teleconference with journalists, environmental scientists underlined that the EPA needs to stay vigilant. "It's absolutely essential that aggressive monitoring takes place," Jeffery Foran, president of the Midwest Center for Environmental Science and Public Policy, said. He said the agency should urgently look at specific locations where dioxin, a byproduct of the chemical industry that is stored in the tissues rather than degrades with time, was stored.

By Foran's estimate, millions of pounds (kilogrammes) of toxic waste was stored in the New Orleans area, including two pounds (900 grammes) of dioxin. "Dioxin is a very toxic chemical, and if it's released into the environment, accumulates very quickly," said Foran.

If only one percent of the stored amount is released and only one percent of that makes it into the Gulf of Mexico, that would be sufficient to contaminate 20 million fish - itself enough to trigger warnings not to eat the fish, Foran said.

Another area of concern is the runoff from untreated sewage, which would encourage oxygen-starving blooms of algae in the sea and Lake Pontchartrain, which abuts New Orleans, said Hans Paerl, professor of marine and environmental science at the University of North Carolina.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/news/oceans-05p.html

[tridim]

1. Begs the question. Why are they allowed to store dioxin and other

toxic chemicals in a flood zone? Just unbelievable.

[hatrack]

2. Why, because it made such good economic sense!

No other reason necessary! :eyes:

[Dogmudgeon]

3. The good news

The fish in the Gulf are not likely to be subject to overfishing for several years.

That is, if they manage to survive the poisons and hypoxia.

--p!

[Nihil]

4. The bad news

The fish caught in the Gulf are not likely to be sold with an accurate
source/location label for several years ...

"No siree, this here oyster came from a long way away, yes it did ..."

[Dogmudgeon]

5. And a New Scientific Discovery

"Wow ... I never knew that fish and mussels could actually hitchhike from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. I guess they really are worth the extra money!"

--p!

[Nihil]

6. Some new records to be made too ...

... just imagine how heavy the fish will be?

(Same volume, just higher content of heavy metal ... and I don't mean
Motorhead either!)

I still get a slight shiver thinking about that exodus of sealife
just before the hurricane ... was it just the water temperature or
was there anything else that gave them the hint to move away from
the coming toxic plume?

[Dogmudgeon]

7. I don't think they actually move

It's more likely that they simply die.

I'm also not very clear on where the pollution plume comes in. I think it developed after Katrina passed, as the huge amount of polluted run-off from the wreckage of New Orleans and Biloxi drained back into the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course, the abnormally high water temperatures and increased nitrate concentrations in the Gulf have led to years of algal overgrowth, which also killed a lot of sea life -- algae are quite prodigious users of oxygen, and do not stop until it's all gone and they are themselves dying, by the trillions.

Such things happen in nature every so often. We humans have made "every so often" into the new normal state of affairs. The land-based die-off can be seen, but it's not very dramatic-looking. But the sea-based die-off is invisible. Very few people are aware that nearly all the kinds of fish we can eat are going to be gone within a decade -- Cod, Flounder, Carp, Tuna/Bonito, Roughy -- as well as most of the crustaceans (shrimp, crabs). What remains are likely to be too toxic to eat, and protected under threat of extinction.

Katrina gives us an opportunity to watch it happen a lot quicker in a restricted area our oceanographers can get to easily. But it's a world-wide disaster, and in its overall scope, Katrina is a pebble toss in a big lake.

--p!