This one really requires no comment.
EPA Region 2 press office just sent me this press announcement of grant funding for NJ DEP of $102,509 to study harmful algae blooms.
Harmful algae blooms are caused and driven by excessive loads of man made nutrient pollution (i.e. polluted runoff from development, farms, fertilizers, septic tanks and leaking sewer lines etc) and warm water, which is exacerbated by the climate emergency.
DEP has done a terrible job on all aspects of regulation of HAB’s; from failure to adopt enforceable numeric water quality standards for nutrients; to failure to track and quantify nutrient pollution; to failure to limit over-development that is a source of excessive nutrients; to failure to mandate reductions in nutrient pollution sources.
DEP has even weakened HAB standards.
As a result, HAB’s are proliferating and so are risks to human health and ecosystems, forcing closure of recreational activities.
But instead of studying the sources of and ways to enforce reductions in man made nutrient pollution that is causing HAB’s, EPA and DEP are targeting natural salt marsh ponds as sources!
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection was awarded $102,509 in grant funding to provide baseline documentation for salt marsh ponds as potential reservoirs of harmful algal blooms (HAB) for New Jersey coastal ecosystems due to climate change. Certain environmental conditions in water bodies can intensify algae growth, causing algal blooms. Blooms with the potential to harm human health or aquatic ecosystems are referred to as harmful algal blooms or HABs. The project includes sampling of salt marsh ponds on the Tuckerton Peninsula for HAB species through laboratory analysis, performing DNA sequencing, interpretation, and the analysis of results, and developing a website to host project results and distribution maps.
“Certain environmental conditions in water bodies”? WHAAAT?
You mean like too much pollution from over-development?
And lax DEP regulatory standards and weak enforcement that allow that to occur?
Wow.
And what are they going to do if they find a “reservoir” of HAB’s in a salt marsh pond? Nuke it with chemicals?