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Marine Pollution. Marine Pollutants. Petroleum hydrocarbons Plastics Pesticides Heavy metals Sewage Radioactive waste Thermal effluents. Petroleum Hydrocarbons. Oil drums on a beach in Pulau Redang, Malaysia. . Petroleum Hydrocarbons. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge
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Marine Pollutants • Petroleum hydrocarbons • Plastics • Pesticides • Heavy metals • Sewage • Radioactive waste • Thermal effluents
Petroleum Hydrocarbons Oil drums on a beach in Pulau Redang, Malaysia.
Petroleum Hydrocarbons Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge 100,000 gallons jet fuel spilled 2003.
Petroleum Hydrocarbons Casitas NOAA Marine debris vessel Annual collection of 100 metric tons of debris July 5, 2005 Debris cleanup ship grounded 7/5/2005 has aboard 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel, 3,000 gallons of gasoline and 200 gallons of lubricating oil
Exxon Valdez (1989)- Prince William Sound, Alaska • 10 million gallons of oil spilled • 400 miles of shore line affected • $3 billion and 2 summers cleaning
Spain November 19, 2002 • The Prestige: a 26-year-old Bahamas-flagged single hulled vessel • Sunk with 20 million gallons of viscous fuel oil • Hundreds of miles of rugged coastline have been fouled by the stricken Prestige's cargo, destroying wildlife and wrecking the area's renowned fisheries and shellfish industry. incident sinking Lifeboat w/ dead bird
Persian Gulf War (1991) • 240 million gallons of oil spilled
BP offshore drilling rig (Deepwater Horizon) April 20, 2010; 50 miles off Louisiana Spilling 5,000 barrels/day = 200,000 gal/day
Containing oil spills: • Floating booms- contain oil and then pump into other ship • Burning oil off • Chemical dispersants • Bioremediation- bacteria
Containing oil spills: • Hair Booms
Relative amts of petroleum in the ocean: River runoff 31.1% Tanker operations 21.8% Coastal facilities 13.1% Atmospheric fallout 9.8% Natural seepage 9.8% Other transportation activities 9.8% Tanker accidents 3.3% Offshore petroleum production 1.3%
Plastics • 100,000 marine mammals & 2 million sea birds die each year after ingesting or being trapped in plastic debris • WHOI 1987 survey off N.E. coast of U.S.: found 46,000 pieces of plastic floating on surface
North Pacific Subtropical Gyre • “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” • Estimate: 46,000 pieces of floating garbage/mi2.
North Pacific Subtropical Gyre 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N
North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Great Pacific Garbage Patch- Good Morning America 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M&feature=player_embedded http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#6
Laysan Island hypersaline lake (120-140o/oo) Large bird rookery and guano mining In 1857, reported 800,000 birds.
Sooty tern Laysan albatross Laysan finch
Bits and pieces of plastic are collected at sea and deposited on the Laysan Lake shoreline
A dead Laysan Albatross chick with seven bottle tops in its gullet. Adult Albatross feed on flying fish eggs that the adult fish attach to floating debris.
2004-2007 Barber’s Point
Japan Tsunami 2011 Prediction of Marine Debris Drifting Trajectories Hawaii http://www.hawaii247.com/2011/04/07/tsunami-2011-japan-debris-likely-to-hit-hawaii-twice/
Pesticides & Herbicides • Designed to kill a variety of pests, such as mosquitoes, agricultural pests and weeds. • Toxin enters food chain and effects non targeted species • Pesticide toxicity often effects human health Rachael Carson- Silent Spring Bioaccumulation biomagnification
Pesticides Halogenated hydrocarbons or organochlorines: Include DDT and PCBs, which are slow to biodegrade Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane (DDT): • used as a pesticidefrom 1939-late 1960s • fatsoluble compound • the world’s production has substantially decreased since it was banned in the West • detected in mud of deep sea and snow & ice of Antarctica
Polychloronated biphenyls (PCBs) • produced since 1944 • banned in U.S. by 1979 • used in production of electrical equipment, paints, plastics, adhesives, and coating compounds… • found everywhere in the ocean • released in env. by unregulated incineration of discarded products DDT & PCBs affects: • copepod and oyster development • death of shrimp and a variety of fish
Toxic Metals Hg, Pb, Cd, Cu Heavy metals resist biodegradation Natural occurrence- volcanoes • Mercury (Hg)- toxic when attached to short carbon-chain alkyl group, strongly neurotoxic, birthdefects • Lead (Pb)- from batteries, sewage, fuel additives, neurotoxic effects, mental development in children • Cadmium (Cd)- from batteries, sewage, electroplating factories, effects on human kidney function, bone deformities
Heavy Metals Minamata Disease (1953-1960)– Japan • Industrial pollution from plastic plant; dumped mercuric chloride into bay • Ingestion of Hg tainted shellfish 43 dead and 700 permanently disabled • Symptoms: kidney damage, neuromuscular deterioration, birth defects,insanity, death • Bay is still unusable for fishing and shell fishing • Surviving victims received $24,200 as settlement
Cu: • Tributyl tin (antifouling paint for boats) • Banned in U.S. 1980s • Acts as an immunosuppressor • Accumulations unusually high in small whales • May be associated with strandings
Pb: • Leaded gasoline invented 1920’s • Enters water from automobile exhaust, runoff and atmospheric fallout of industrial waste and landfills, mines, dumps • Leaded gas banned in US in 1980’s has reduced pollution in ocean Bioaccumulation biomagnification
Point Source Pollution Sewage • Causes disease outbreaks • Contributes to eutrophication
6/13/2006 Raw sewage dump in Ala Wai. Beaches Close! 48 million gallons Why? • 40 straight days of rain • 42-inch pressurized underground pipe broke during heavy rains
Sewage Discharge and Agricultural Runoff • nutrient enrichment of coastal waters • physiological consequences on corals • ecological consequences • phytoplankton bloom reduces light penetration • benthic seaweeds overgrow and smother corals
Atomic Testing Coral reef at Enewetak Atoll, former nuclear test site.
Ocean Dumping USSR total > 10 million Curies Three Mile Island (‘79) = 17 Curies Chernobyl (‘86) = 100 million Curies Great Britain US Other Switzerland
Soviet Union’s Atomic Dumping Ground Arctic Ocean Moscow Russia
Thermal Effluents Power plants
Non-Point Source Pollution Constructed 1920-28 to reduce mosquitoes, but failed. Ala Wai
Pflueger at Pila’a, Kauai $7.5 million for Clean Water Act violations
Types of Non-Point Source Pollution • sediments from coastal urban and agricultural development • nutrients from detergents, fertilizers, leaky septic tanks, and domesticated animals • pesticides (home use, agricultural, & golf courses)