Mega challenge of marine microplastics: keeping them off mother nature's menu

Microplastics in  a crustacean larvae.

Microplastics and larger plastic bits in saltwater or fresh are problematic for the fish, birds, crustaceans, bivalves and other organisms that ingest them. How do we keep plastic out of their diets?

Recent research suggests that the key attraction of the plastic bits to fishes, birds and invertebrates is the flavor/odor of the biofilm of bacteria that has colonized these plastic particles as solid habitats.

Like other organisms, bacteria eat and breathe and emit wastes andsignaling chemicals. Those emissions are attractive to animals from protozoa to invertebrates and vertebrates, who treat the plastic particles as though they were mini-wontons or micro- matzo balls.

Since we won't be training Mother Nature to avoid plastic, and we aren't likely to stop manufacturing and using the stuff any time soon, can we make plastic unattractive to microbes?

Plastic makers have been required to tweak their products chemistry to protect public health, so it is not impossible to require plastic people to make their stuff unattractive to marine bacteria, or freshwater ones.

Pastic-filled bird carcass & plastics taken from it

But that raises more questions:
While you _could_ add an antibacterial to the plastic, the ubiquity of the plastic bits in the bays and seas is such that you would be filling the water column with antibacterial chemical-emitting particles - specifically geared toward repelling or killing natural marine or freshwater bacteria that live there.

That's not a good way to go.. How else to make plastic unappealing to marine bacteria?

Acid Testing GAC Chemical's Stockton Harbor shore, August 4, 2013

On August 4, 2013, Friends of Penobscot Bay carried out pH testing of water and soils on both side of the first cove of Stockton Harbor near GAC Chemical.

( See photos of the pH tests being done here. (includes closeups of  pH meters at sites.)

The tests were not intended to be conclusive. They were carried out to see if there are anomalies or changes in acidity of the soils and sediments tested at various distances from the abandoned sulfuric acid plant (the bldgs above the "6" in the photo below).

Summary 

Test gear: Ferry-Morse "Electronic Soil Tester" and  Luster Leaf's "Rapitest." 

Narrative: The testing began on the end of the sandbar in the cove facing the old acid plant (1,2), crossed over the cove to the intertidal flats on the shore side of the cove (3,4), sampled three areas of the eroding bluff, (5,6,7)  then the gravelly beach shoreline(8) and two areas of mudflats close to and "downstream" from the abandoned facility (9, 10) Area 10 was tested multiple times.  

Results See photos of the pH tests being done here. (includes closeups of the pH meters at sites.) The pH was near neutral (pH 7) in areas 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5.  A lower pH was found  in site 6 above the concrete debris under the old sulfuric acid factory & storage tank.  Acidity increased sharply in the gray eroding material at area 7 on the steep path leading  from the shore to the old factory  (pH 4.5 to 4.8).  Readings in the  gravelly beach & mudflat directly below Area 7 and bayward were as low as pH 2.2.

A great deal of sulfuric acid  must have leaked from the old plant  (believed to have been shut down in the early 1970s) and its storage tank for it to still be leaking into the soils and shores and the intertidal flats!

Ocean windmills, turbulence avoidance and zooplankton.

A recent paper by  University of New Hampshire professor James Pringle What is the windage of zooplankton? Turbulence avoidance and the wind-driven transport of plankton reveals how strategies used by migrating zooplankton to get where they're going can have unexpected consequences when the wind blows or stops blowing.  Something that would-be deepwater windpower extractors need to keep in mind

As Bay Blog readers know,  Maine's East and West Coastal Currents are migratory thruways for the zoooplankton phase larvae of lobsters, sea scallops and many other marine animals These currents rise in the Bay of Fundy, passing Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and interfacing with other currents deeper in the Gulf of Maine. See currents here (flash video)

 Dr Pringle has discovered that migrating zooplankton avoid turbulent waters while travelling. When they encounter it, they  descend and try going under the turbulence, even if their phytoplankton prey is  more abundant in the turbulent water.

But these peace-seeking plankton can run into a problem. When they leave the surface currents they have been migrating on, and are no longer near the surface, they leave the migratory thruway they were in.   If they go too deep while trying to go under the turbulence, they may come into contact with and settle upon the seafloor ecosystem at that location. Or they may be washed outward to settle on the archipelagoes of seamounts of the Gulf of Maine - while their siblings continue down the Maine Coastal Current.

It is not  unreasonable to hypothesize that the sea surface turbulence and water column turbulence and destratification stimulated by operating deepwater ocean windmills  will be just what zooplankton avoid. and finding it impossible to go under the

What is the windage of zooplankton? Turbulence avoidance and the wind-driven transport of planktonBy James M. Pringle, UNH
ABSTRACT
Observations of turbulence avoidance in zooplankton are compared to estimates of the wind-driven turbulence in the upper ocean. Turbulence avoidance is found to prevent the transport of zooplankton in the surface Ekman layer at realistic wind speeds.Plankton that avoid turbulence by moving deeper are no longer transported by the wind-driven Ekman currents near the surface because they are no longer near the surface. Turbulence avoidance is shown to lead to near-shore retention in wind-driven upwelling systems, and to a reduction of the delivery of zooplankton to Georges Bank from the deeper waters of the Gulf of Maine."
End of abstract

MIT fishery researchers finally turn to wild plankton management.

After all, if your freshly hatched cod, flounder, haddock , scallops, lobsters etc don't have the right food available - and in the right quantity - they starve to death before they're as big as a grain of rice.  See this report from Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute.  So:  


MIT SeaGrant Performance Measure 2010-2014:
 * Tools and training for accurate evaluation of planktonic food sources as they relate to climate change and other factors delivered to NMFS, MA DMF, and other state and local agencies.

MIT SeaGrant Target 2010-2014:
* Five top-level fisheries managers will be trained and their agencies able to evaluate planktonic food resources, changes in blooms and overall productivity.

Go for it, MIT!

Penobscot Bay shallow waters protection plan to kick off at Maine Coastal Waters Conference on Wednesday

Group to kick off Penobscot Bay protection plan at 2nd annual  Maine Coastal Waters Conference at  the Conference Center atop Ducktrap Mountain in Northport.

In addition to renewable energy and climate change's impacts to the Gulf of Maine conference attendees willl consider  Community participation in the management and conservation of coastal ecosystems .

An example of such community action began with last week's  granting by Maine Department of Marine Resources of a special license to Ron Huber, executive director of  Penobscot Bay Watch.  The  license allows group's members to use a 60 foot long small mesh beach seine net to catch and release nearshore juvenile cod and and other small fishes once a month at three locations along the shore of West Penobscot Bay: Stockton Harbor, Searsport Harbor and Rockland Harbor.

Captured fish and invertebrates will be photographed and  their size and color itemized, before they are released alive back into their homes.

"Sampling Maine's nearshore coastal waters for the presence or absence of our native fishes and crustaceans is vital to understanding the ecological health of the most vulnerable part of Penobscot Bay's  ecosystem, its nearshore waters" Huber said.  "We can't know where to go, unless we know where we are." 

"This shallow zone from low tide to 6 feet deep is  an ecological front line. It is where polluted runoff and shoreland development can have their most harmful effect."  Huber said.  "It is extremely important for a fishery recovery of Penobscot Bay that these shallow aters are watched over very closely. Penobscot Bay Watch aims to do just that."

Huber said that people interested in helping with the survey  to contact his group at 691-7485 or by email at ron.huber@penbay.org.  "It's strenuous but  a lot of fun," he said. describing pulling in the seine as "like playing Tug of War with Neptune."   Further information is available at the Penobscot Bay Watch website www.penbay.org

Penobscot Bay Watch: People who care about Penobscot Bay