Posted on 03/27/2002 8:32:50 PM PST by green team 1999
Black water: Test results trickle in; researchers not yet drawing conclusions
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
By CATHY ZOLLO, crzollo@naplesnews.com
The results are trickling in on black water samples sent far and wide for testing, but researchers are not yet drawing conclusions on its cause or on the effect it may have had on sea life in the waters off Southwest Florida and in the Keys.
Scientists will meet Thursday in St. Petersburg at the Florida Marine Research Institute, which is heading up the search for answers, to discuss their findings and draw some conclusions.
In the meantime, researchers from as far away as Fairfax County, Va., are looking into possible reasons for the phenomenon.
Robin Smith, a biology graduate student, takes a Hydrolab out of the water off the coast of Summerland Key during a trip with Mote Marine Laboratory to collect samples of black water. The collection was made during a trip that Mote does every four weeks to study red tide. The Hydrolab measures the salinity, pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen in the water. Romain Blanquart/Staff
Robert Jonas, a microbiologist at George Mason University, has samples collected by Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Tropical Research in the Keys and is trying to count bacteria.
Jonas wasn't sure yet if his samples would lend themselves to such testing because he has to be certain that bacteria weren't reproducing since they were collected.
"We have certain expectations about the number of bacteria in normal coastal ocean water," Jonas said. Good, clean ocean water has between 1 and 3 million bacteria. Elevated levels would be in the area of 10 times that, Jonas said.
And Dr. Larry Brand, professor of marine biology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine at Atmospheric Science, said he heard about a routine sampling expedition that collected the black water in February.
Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration trip weren't aware of the phenomenon at the time they were sampling between Key West and the Ten Thousand Islands that hug Florida's southwest coast. They collected in areas on the fringe and the core of the water, according to later reports by fishermen. Brand's samples came from the edge.
Brand refused to speculate on what his findings might mean but said the samples had an odd array of organisms, including green algae that is not normally found in gulf water.
"There are a lot of surprising results people would not have expected," Brand said. "Generally, you see green algae under polluted conditions."
Brand cautioned that what appear to be differing reports may be different aspects of the same phenomenon.
Mote Marine Laboratory personnel take a sample of highly diluted remains of the black water reported by commercial fishermen off the Florida Keys. Romain Blanquart/Staff
"They appear to be contradictory, but they may not be," Brand said.
So far, researchers returning results to the marine research institute have found that the water has indications of large amounts of plant plankton and has no evidence of red tide, a naturally occurring algae that has plagued Florida's Gulf coast for years.
In the most recent status report on the event published by the marine research institute, Research Administrator Beverly Roberts still questions whether a red tide connection exists.
In the months leading up to and including the black water phenomenon that may have begun as early as November, red tide was rampant along the Southwest Florida coast, littering its beaches with dead fish and causing respiratory problems for residents and visitors.
Roberts noted that there were no dead fish associated with the black water, "but perhaps a relevant point is that fish kills were occurring when this phenomenon was being observed in January," she said in the report.
What researchers say repeatedly is that the event was an unusual and complex one.
Fishermen were the first to spot the black water that they said, at its worst, floated large gelatinous globs and had spider web-like filaments running through it.
They also noted an absence of game fish in normally rich waters, and fishermen are reporting the worst season for several different types of fish that they've seen in many years.
They'd spotted a huge mass of black water apparently devoid of fish just off Southwest Florida and moving slowly toward the Florida Keys. Satellite imagery from January and February shows the water mass was larger at some points in time than 730-square-mile Lake Okeechobee in central Florida and had its beginning as early as November.
for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.
first image jan-9,second image feb-4.
I almost spit pop in my keyboard with that one
hehehe
More like 100 miles by 50 miles in the second photo.
I read elsewhere they think it might be runoff from the Snake River. No idea what it is yet.
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