Nice Quote

"Water - the ocean - is our most natural environment. We are born naked from the miniature ocean of the mother's womb." Jacques Mayol, 1927-2001

Nutrients in Mississippi is a Complex Subject--Not All Just Fertilizer

Our environmental problems are frequently complex and recalcitrant to simple solutions. It's not as simple as sinking the Japanese whales ships in "Saving the Whales--A Bwana Doc Adventure. How do you save the Gulf of Mexico and stop the growth of the dead zone?

Study Probes Sources Of Mississippi River Phosphorus; Don't Blame Cow And Over-Fertilization
by Underwatertimes.com News Service - May 9, 2011 17:13 EST

MADISON, Wisconsin -- In their eagerness to cut nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, people have often sought simple explanations for the problem: too many large animal operations, for instance, or farmers who apply too much fertilizer, which then flows into waterways.

But according to new modeling research that examined phosphorus loading from all 1768 counties in the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), the true causes aren't nearly so straightforward. Livestock manure is widespread in many MRB counties, for example, but it shows little relationship to water quality, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Cornell University in the May-June 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Moreover, areas that load the most phosphorus into the Mississippi are also places where farmers add less phosphorus to the soil than they remove each year in crop harvests, suggesting that overzealous fertilizer use is not the issue.

"If it were that, it would be easy to solve. But it's not that," says Mark David, a University of Illinois biogeochemist who led the research. "It's much more complex. So I think in that sense addressing the problem is harder."

Soil erosion and tile drainage contribute large amounts of phosphorus to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico each year, helping fuel a "dead zone" of oxygen-starved water in the Gulf that reached near-record size last summer. Local water quality may also decline due to phosphorus-driven algal blooms.

In an effort to pinpoint the most important sources of phosphorus across the entire MRB, David's team calculated the yearly phosphorus inputs and outputs for every county in the basin from 1997 to 2006. After aggregating these and other data within 113 watersheds throughout the MRB, they then estimated the river load of phosphorus from every county between January and June for the same time period.

Not surprisingly, counties with intensive row crop agriculture, such as those in the Upper Midwest Corn Belt states of Iowa, Illinois and Ohio, contributed the most phosphorus to rivers. However, these same counties often showed negative phosphorus balances, meaning that phosphorus outputs in crops exceeded inputs by farmers.

In other words, farmers in these regions are actually mining stored phosphorus from the soil, rather than putting more into the system, David says. "But that negative balance doesn't have much to do with the phosphorus that gets in the river." Instead, the overall intensity of agriculture seems to matter most. "When I'm sitting here in Illinois in a watershed that's 95% corn and soybeans, it's going to lose some phosphorus," he says, "whether the balance is negative or positive."

In addition, although animal manure is considered a major phosphorus source to streams and rivers, it was relatively unimportant to phosphorus loading across the entire MRB. David suspects the reason is that most large-scale animal farms have moved to western states in the basin, such as Colorado, where there's less precipitation to carry manure nutrients into the Mississippi.

Phosphorus from human waste did prove significant. Counties encompassing Chicago and other major metropolitan areas "showed up as hot spots," David says, because most municipalities don't remove phosphorus from the otherwise clean sewage effluent they discharge into streams. The team further found that about half of the variation in phosphorus loadings was not explained by their models, suggesting that other factors also contribute, such as stream bank erosion and phosphorus deposits in river sediments.

Overall, the findings suggest that reducing phosphorus pollution will require broad adoption of practices that limit nutrient runoff, such as cover crops, buffer strips, and incorporation of fertilizers. It will also require limits on phosphorus discharge from cities.

Achieving these objectives across the entire MRB won't be easy, but David hopes the study helps people move beyond common assumptions about causes to focus on the real issues.

"To me the value of the study is that it helps shift the debate," David says. "The problem is not as simple as two things. It's not as simple as too much fertilizer or manure."

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Biocomplexity in the Environment/Coupled Natural-Human Cycles Program.

Killing a whale shark

Killing a gentle giant for food. I think I don't I need to add any commentary.

		Mon, Aug 24, 2009 AsiaOne
Whale shark caught and hacked into pieces in Johor
A quiet lunch affair at a seafood restaurant turned awry and bloody when a whale shark, size of a pick-up truck, was hauled onto the jetty and hacked into pieces. A Singaporean eye-witness who was having his meal at the restaurant, south of Johor, Malaysia, at that time wrote this account: "I was there having lunch with some friends at a seafood restaurant when a local walked in and told the boss that a big shark was caught. "I did not give much thought to it until the workers who went there to see came back and told their fellow colleagues that the shark was as big as a pick-up. "This caught my attention. We paid for our meal and went over to the jetty to have a look. "When we reached the jetty, it was already quite crowded. I managed to squeeze in some photos as the poor shark was being sliced by a hack saw. Click on thumbnail to view (Photos: STOMP) According to the eye-witness, the catch could have been the joint efforts of three fishing boats which had brought the big fish in from the South China Sea, as he had overheard conversations from the crowd. "As you can see, the shark was being chopped up, did not stay long to watch as we had to catch our ferry. "Seeing the poor guy being chopped up, I was quite sad. "What you see in picture is very different from the actual situation. There was the noise from the hack saw, blood flowing out etc."

Healthcare and the Marine Crisis

Andrew Sullivan's blog on Healthcare, Sarah Palin and Obama's Death Panels gave me pause to reflect on healthcare and the marine crisis. If you missed, it's here.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/palinapproved-death-panels.html

Whether or not Obama really plans death panels or not, or whether it's all just economics that determines whether you get healthcare or not, it's an absolute fact that the destruction of the marine ecosystem is driven by government policies, overpopulation and economics. We humans have outgrown our planet, we have the technology to harvest the oceans down to the last coral polyp and amphipod for food and we are gonna do it. In the U.S. neither political party wants to address the issue of overpopulation. The Democrats don't because they see the high birth rate demographic groups like Hispanics to be likely future voters and the Republicans don't because they don't think government should have anything to do with it.

Where it leaves us is every day more hungry mouths to feed--and we want to feed them healthy with, what else? sea food. But the real future if something isn't done is more like the movie Soylent Green (oops we're back to the death panels again aren't we).

Bwana Doc for President!

Bwana Doc Runs for President

With all the hoopla over John, Hillary and Barack, Bwana Doc thought he'd throw his hat in the ring.

Energy:

Begin building a nationwide network of high speed electric trains connecting all cities in the United States over 50,000 people. Build the cars for these trains out of the aluminum from scrapped airliners.

Begin building 50 nuclear power plants. Yes, there is a problem with their waste-recycle what we can and find out what to do with the rest. There is a solution—we can find it. There is poor evidence that modern plants are dangerous and certainly they emit less radiation than coal fired plants. If European countries can use nuclear power, why can’t we? Continue subsidies for wind, solar, tidal power and biofuels, including biogenic natural gas. Subsidize the conversion of vehicles to natural gas and hydrogen power as well as electric. Tax imported oil to supply the money for these subsidies.

Drill for oil wherever a state will allow it to be done. Let the people decide where they want their oil wells. If the citizens of a state decide they don’t want them—that’s fine too. Many states have done quite well with lots of oil wells—think about it.

Tax new construction in the U.S. that does not meet high standards for energy efficiency.

Tax cars that don't meet a high mpg standard.

Civil Law:

One man, one vote will be abolished. Veterans will get two votes. Combat Veterans will get three. Veterans awarded the Purple Heart will get five. Teachers will get five votes.

Medical doctors and nurses will get five votes. Policemen, Firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians will get five votes. Single Parents will get two votes. Insurance, Bank and Mortgage company employees will get 0.5 votes.

A nationwide program to give every homeless person a place to live by 2015. Every animal has a place to live—how come we can’t do as well as animals?

Establish a nationwide program to give illegal aliens citizenship after paying a fine. A criterium for citizenship will be a working knowledge of English. Continue building the wall on the border. Build one on the Canadian border as well. Good fences make good neighbors. Establish a bracero program so that people can come from Mexico, work here legally and go back. Create laws protecting the rights of migrant workers in the U.S. and give enforcement priority and tough penalties. End sanctuary city programs for illegals.

Citizenship in the United States will no longer be by whether you are born here, but it will be a voluntary act when you reach the age of 18. You will have to pass a test that you know basic civics. You have to be able to speak English to be a citizen. You can speak whatever else you want, but you have to be able to speak English.

No corporation or individual will be allowed to contribute more than $100 to any political campaign.

Healthcare:

Establish a program for a basic level of healthcare to be available for all citizens. Non citizens are not eligible.

War on Terror:

We will catch Osama Bin Laden. Once we catch him, we will try him and convict him. He will be given life without the possibility of parole. He will then be exhibited in New York and Washington D.C. so that the citizens can taunt him if they want. Afterwards he will be placed in maximum security and allowed only the basic educational materials of American civilization. These will the following books: a Bible, a Book of Mormon, Dr. Seuss books, The Book of Virtues and the Winnie the Pooh books. As far as video entertainment, “Sesame Street”, reruns of “Mr. Rogers”, and the movie “Delta Force” will be allowed once a week. EWTN will be available 24/7.

We will keep fighting the war until they quit. We will close Guantanamo and end torture of prisoners immediately.

Environmental:

All fines for violation of environmental laws will be increased 1000X. For example, an oil spill now may draw a fine of $50,000. The fine will be increased to $50,000,000.

The money will be spent on wildlife habitat preservation and alternative energy.

There will a ban on shark fishing and a ban on the importation of shark meat to the United States.

The Endangered Species act will be continued and strengthened.

The Adventure Begins!

With the publication of "Saving the Whales" and the launch of the website and this blog, we take off a life of environmental adventure. At least 14 more Bwana Doc (trademark) Adventures are planned. This blog will be a more personal record of my journey on this new path as we explore the inadequacy of government regulation in protecting the environment and the often ineffective protests of environmental organizations. Maybe Bwana Doc's way is the way to solve environmental problems. We'll probably chronicle a few dive adventures in here along the way and maybe some real life environmental cleanups.