A red tide in the Yellow Sea

[Gatortailale]

 

Story here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/30/asia/china.php

 

BEIJING: With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.

 

Local officials have initiated an all-out effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently covered a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic races.

 

Water quality has been a concern for the sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China's coastline.

 

But officials in Qingdao said pollution and poor water quality did not have a "substantial link" to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the bloom on increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea. Algae are now blooming over more than 12,900 square kilometers, or 5,000 square miles, of the sea, according to Xinhua.

 

"We will make all our efforts to finish this job," said a propaganda official in Qingdao. "Now, forces from the entire province have become involved." He said ships and boats had been sent from two other coastal cities, Rizhao and Yantai, to help haul away the algae.

 

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee, said Sunday that the government would attempt to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing area by installing a fenced perimeter in the sea that is more than 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, long.

 

"I believe we will make sure the Olympics sailing area is clean by July 15 through our efforts, and make sure the Olympics sailing goes smoothly," Yuan said, according to the Shandong News Web site.

 

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

 

Residents of Qingdao have been anticipating the city's Olympic moment for several years.

 

One local newspaper reported that 11,000 college students had volunteered for cleanup duty during the weekend. Several companies organized teams of employees to help.

 

The massive algae outbreak comes as some sailing teams are already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics.

 

Photographs in the Australian press showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a training run.

 

Huang Yuanxi contributed research.

[civitan.erichanson]

Oh good, so they will take it back up stream to feed the pigs so it will be reporcessed and dumped into the same effluent and run back into the Yellow Sea - yup, that will fix it...

[Integral9]

Sailing *ALWAYS* gets the shaft at the summer games. Coverage usually amounts to a sentence or two and that's if there is any at all.

[gmubeach]

Anyway I hope they can get the mess cleaned up... my bigger hope is that this will show people world wide the need for conservation.... Anyway my heart goes out to the volunteers (if they are volunteers) china's government has a very difrent policy then America anyway have a great day and I hope the races go well

[MisterTang]

...rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China's coastline.

 

Easy fix - just order a Trochus snail clean-up crew and some chaeto online

[Jon Lazar]

Snails and chaeto just treat the symptoms, not the underlying problem of excessive nutrients. What they really need is a larger skimmer and to consider feeding less while they get this under control. They should also cut back on the photoperiod and see if it's time to change the bulb.

 

Jon

 

 

Easy fix - just order a Trochus snail clean-up crew and some chaeto online

[jason the filter freak]

Snails and chaeto just treat the symptoms, not the underlying problem of excessive nutrients. What they really need is a larger skimmer and to consider feeding less while they get this under control. They should also cut back on the photoperiod and see if it's time to change the bulb.

 

Jon

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe it's time to work on theat ETOH fule from algea thing...

[Amuze]

If all that green was bud, I'm sure there's a few of us here who'd smo..I mean clean it up.

 

 

Serious note, that place is a complete mess when it comes to pollution.

[Highland Reefer]

Algae is nutritional. They can process to feed all there hungry.

[GaryL]

throw some zebra mussels and a large phosban reactor in there, or maybe mcdonald's in china can re-introduce the mclean deluxe. too bad our body doesnt break down cellulose.