By Holli Riebeek27 September 2013 (NASA) – The waters of Lake Erie seem to glow green in this image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on 26 September 2013. The color comes from a toxic algae bloom, which has been growing in the lake since mid July. The algae […]
By Ian Lloyd Neubauer 23 September 2013 (TIME) – A dead cat in the in-tray. That’s what Greenpeace called the newly elected Australian government’s inheritance of a proposal to build the largest coal port in the world at Abbot Point in the northeastern state of Queensland. A decision is required, and the stakes couldn’t be […]
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ8 September 2013 CLEWISTON, Florida (The New York Times) – On wind-whipped days when rain pounds this part of South Florida, people are quickly reminded that Lake Okeechobee, with its vulnerable dike and polluted waters, has become a giant environmental problem far beyond its banks. Beginning in May, huge downpours ushered in the […]
By Craig Welch15 September 2013 NORMANBY ISLAND, Papua New Guinea (Seattle Times) — Katharina Fabricius plunged from a dive boat into the Pacific Ocean of tomorrow. She kicked through blue water until she spotted a ceramic tile attached to the bottom of a reef. A year earlier, the ecologist from the Australian Institute of Marine […]
By Matt Pearce13 September 2013 (Los Angeles Times) – Fish began dying en masse in the waters around Honolulu after hundreds of thousands of gallons of molasses spilled into Honolulu Harbor early this week, and there’s nothing officials can do to clean it up. Thousands of fish have died from the sugary sludge. Crabs lay […]
By Mark Memmott12 September 2013 (NPR) – “Everything down there is dead.” That’s one stunning quote from Hawaii News Now’s latest report about the devastating damage that’s been done to the marine life off Honolulu’s Sand Island by 233,000 gallons of molasses that were spilled into Honolulu harbor on Monday. Gary Gill, deputy director of […]
By William L. Stefanov, Jacobs2 September 2013 (NASA) – This photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station highlights a late summer plankton bloom across much of Lake Ontario, one of North America’s Great Lakes. Microscopic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, can reach such large concentrations and color the water to such an extent […]
By Alister Doyle; Editing by Simon Robinson and Sara Ledwith30 August 2013 (Reuters) – Last year the Haida, an indigenous group in Canada, set out to increase their salmon stocks and save the planet. Helped by American businessman Russ George, a group of villagers dumped 100 metric tons (110.23 tons) of iron dust from a […]
[Apologies for the tardiness; don’t know how this story got by Des last month.] By Wilfred Chan7 July 2013 (CNN) – For years, China has talked about promoting “green growth.” But this probably isn’t what they had in mind. For the seventh year in a row, monstrous quantities of green algae known as enteromorpha prolifera […]
11 August 2013 (NPR) – Algae blooms are green or red or brown, slimy, smelly and you don’t want it coming soon to a waterfront near you. Most of us don’t give a lot of thought to algae until the furry-like monstrosity is spreading over beaches, rivers, lakes and bays, but gigantic algae blooms have […]