Water Pollution: Neuse river algae blooms in NC By: Saba Mirbaha, Connor Bell, Michael Fisher, and Trinity B.

What is it? Algae is a simple non flowering plant of a large group that includes seaweeds, and many single-celled forms. Algae contains chlorophyll but lack true stems, roots, leaves, and vascular tissue. Algae is formed from a combination of environmental factors, such as temperature, sunlight, ecosystem disturbance (stable/mixing conditions, turbidity), hydrology (river flow and water storage levels), and the water chemistry (pH, conductivity, salinity, carbon availability, and etc). Chlorophyll provides energy for photosynthesis, so even a small amount of algae can lead the Neuse river to be completely covered in algae.

What Happened and Where? In North Carolina, in the Neuse river the algae has been growing a couple of decades ago and began in 1980. The algae is called Priesteria Piscicida. This algae turns the tides red and it moves through coastal waters killing fish, shellfish, and even causing people to have symptoms such as nausea, disorientation, etc. Inhaling it’s vapors can badly hurt also. The Neuse river is one of North Carolina’s main provider for commercial fishing and holds some of the endangered species.

Videos https://www.brainpop.com/science/diversityoflife/algae/ https://www.brainpop.com/science/ourfragileenvironment/waterpollution/ https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/habharm.html

Type of Pollution The types of pollution that the Neuse river has is primarily from nonpoint sources. The nonpoint pollution includes fertilizers, animal waste, urban developed areas, farm fields, animal operations, and swine operation which contributes to the 60% of the nitrogen and phosphorus. The Neuse river is also being affected by point source pollution from more than 400 sites. Too many nutrients found in those wastes can contribute to excess growth of aquatic plants and low levels of dissolved oxygen.

Impact on ecosystem The algae produce toxins into the water which kill aquatic animals and other organisms. Since many animals are being killed, it is messing up the food chain basically making it go wild. There are also theories that as algae dies off, it will deplete dissolved oxygen making even more fish die.

Impact on Humans The Neuse River Algae Blooms mainly affect the ecosystem around itself because it can ruin these flourishing eturaires, this can ruin the commercial fishing in these areas. This will affect citizen’s jobs and some of the fish food source. Also, the toxins from these algae blooms can infect the water. This can easily kill fish, and may infect drinking water.

Remediation Efforts North Carolina’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF) was created to protect and restore the land and water resources. The educational initiative that began in the Neuse River Basin is now a statewide Adult Environmental Education program. The program promotes the idea that an individual’s personal choices and daily actions have environmental consequences. The remediation costs for the neuse river are more than $12 million which was for the project goals.

Has any legislation been passed? The Neuse Nutrient Strategy set rules to equitably regulate sources of nutrient pollution. The goal for these rules is to remove the Neuse estuary from the North Carolina impaired water list. A Senate Select Committee on Water Quality and Fish Kills was created to coordinate an investigation into the status of North Carolina waters. The Agriculture Rule is also created to set a 30% reduction from the nitrogen loading of the 1991-1995 baseline years.

Sources http://www.cees.iupui.edu/research/algal-toxicology/bloomfactors http://www.eenorthcarolina.org/Documents/RiverBasin_pdfs/final_web_neuse.pdf https://deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/water-resources/planning/nonpoint-source-management/nutrient- strategies/neuse https://www.americanrivers.org/river/neuse-river/ https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/hab/ http://www.ncagr.gov/SWC/watershed/NSW_strategies_Neuse.html https://cwmtf.nc.gov/ https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/nc_neuse.pdf