San Francisco. Chronicle (2023, August 1). San Francisco Bay’s toxic algae bloom is suddenly back. How bad will it get?
The toxic algae blooms that have plagued California returned this summer. The original 2022 red algae bloom arrived in mid summer last year and killed tens of thousands of fish, meaning that even though the current bloom has killed none so far, it could cause yet another ecological disaster in the Bay area. The source of the algae blooms comes from fertilizer runoff from local farms. The nutrients from the fertilizer help expedite the rapid growth of algae, which eventually die. The death of these algae all happens at the same time, leaving a rotting mass of red slime which chokes out native wildlife. These areas are called dead zones, and we can already see them getting much larger with each passing year.
This article represents an ecological disaster that directly affects us. The toxic algae blooms, though not harmful to us, will kill the species that we rely on en masse, repeatedly wrecking the bay’s health. The algae blooms last for several months at a time, and with an area that has temperate weather most of the time the blooms can be especially bad. With environmental science, we can see that scientists are already tracking the algae bloom and hopefully looking to take preventative measures to protect the Bay Area.
How about that- right as we are studying this in class it shows up in the news. We of course suffer from fertilizer runoff too. So these algae are toxic, in addition to causing degrees of hypoxia. Did the article say if anything is being done to address this?
This was a great abstract and post. Nice job beefing it up a bit.
There was supposedly talks with a wastewater agency, in potentially reducing phosphates in their water, but no updates as far as I can tell.