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Water being pumped into Tampa Bay could cause a massive algae bloom:
Millions of gallons of water laced with fertilizer ingredients are being pumped into Florida's Tampa Bay from a leaking reservoir at an abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point. As the water spreads into the bay, it carries phosphorus and nitrogen—nutrients that under the right conditions can fuel dangerous algae blooms that can suffocate sea grass beds and kill fish, dolphins and manatees.
It's the kind of risk no one wants to see, but officials believed the other options were worse.
About 300 homes sit downstream from the 480-million-gallon reservoir, which began leaking in late March 2021. State officials determined that pumping out the water was the only way to prevent the reservoir's walls from collapsing. They decided the safest location for all that water would be out through Port Manatee and into the bay.
Journal References:
1.) Jeff C. Ho, Anna M. Michalak, Nima Pahlevan. Widespread global increase in intense lake phytoplankton blooms since the 1980s, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1648-7)
2.) James W. Fourqurean, Carlos M. Duarte, Hilary Kennedy, et al. Seagrass ecosystems as a globally significant carbon stock, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1477)
3.) Janine Lemaire, Bénédicte Sisto, Hamilton Disston, et al. The Everglades Ecosystem: Under Protection or Under Threat?, Miranda. Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone / Multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal on the English-speaking world (DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/miranda.2881)
4.) Brian E. Lapointe, Rachel A. Brewton, Laura W. Herren, et al. Nitrogen enrichment, altered stoichiometry, and coral reef decline at Looe Key, Florida Keys, USA: a 3-decade study, Marine Biology (DOI: 10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9)
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @12:40AM (5 children)
Japan is gonna dump the fukushima radioactive water into pacific.
Godzilla time, baby.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @01:08AM (1 child)
The IAEA has backed the Japanese government's plan to dispose of the water, saying releasing it into the sea meets global standards of practice in the nuclear industry.
The Geneva-based body's Director General Rafael Grossi, during his visit to the Fukushima complex in February, said it is a common way to release water at nuclear power plants, even when they are not in emergency situations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @01:35AM
Why do you hate godzilla?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday April 10 2021, @02:24PM (2 children)
> radioactive water
Just out of interest, what radioisotopes are in the water and what is the level of activity?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday April 10 2021, @02:40PM (1 child)
Tritium, half life 12.32 years. The story I read said they will dilute it to https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/japan-comes-clean-admits-dumping-fukushima-radioactive-water-pacific-ocean-now
They did not indicate a source for the 2.5% claim.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday April 11 2021, @03:01PM
Thanks for the response.
> dilute tritium to 2.5 percent of the maximum concentration allowed by the country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium [wikipedia.org]
Just to make it clear, 2.5 per cent of the legal limit is pretty tame. Using the numbers in the wikipedia article, the dose from such water would be a small fraction of background radiation; and Tritium half life is 12 years so even this small amount will quite literally disappear in a few years,