October
31, 2006
RESEARCHERS TO STUDY WHY DEAD ZONE
RETURNED TO LAKE ERIE
A
$2.5
million grant will fund a 5-year study examining why dead zones have
returned
to Lake Erie, and
researchers hope the
findings will allow them to detect the cause and stop the spread before
the
fishery and tourism industries suffer.
"This
is a very serious problem," said University
of Michigan's
Donald Scavia, professor
in the School
of Natural Resources
and Environment, and
lead investigator of the project. "In the 1960s and 1970s the Lake Erie dead zone was a key
driver for enacting the
Clean Water Act and stimulating the environmental movement. We thought
the
problem was solved, and the surprise is in the last few years the dead
zone is
back."
Researchers
from U-M, the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems
Research,
NOAA, and several other universities will study the possible causes of
the dead
zone, as well as develop management and policy options and guidance on
a course
of action to alleviate the problem. CILER is one of 11 National Oceanic
and
Atmospheric Administration joint institutes and is administered by the
SNRE.
The grant, funded by NOAA's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean
Research,
provides scientists $506,190 for five years.
A
dead
zone is an area of oxygen-starved water that cannot sustain aquatic
habitat,
said Scavia, who is also the director of Michigan Sea Grant. In the Lake Erie case, researchers will
examine three main
culprits and the relationships among them: excess phosphorous; zebra
mussels;
and global warming.
Of
the
three causes, nitrogen from farm runoff and treatment plants is the
most well
known. The nitrogen in fertilizer causes algae blooms that sink to the
bottom
and are consumed by bacteria, which consumes oxygen.
The
second theory is that the zebra mussels may shunt the oxygen-consuming
organic
matter from the near shore to the bottom waters. In the third scenario,
global
warming has caused the layer of bottom water to become thinner, with
less
oxygen.
The
dead
zone materialized in Erie's
central basin and can cover as much as three quarters of the area,
Scavia said.
It was discovered through routine monitoring of the lake.
The
Great
Lakes contain 18 percent of the world's surface freshwater and 90
percent of
the surface freshwater in the U.S.
They serve as the focus for a multi-billion dollar tourist and
recreation
industry, supply 40 million people with drinking water, provide habitat
for
wildlife and fish, and support transportation and agriculture
production. Lake
Erie is the smallest of the five Great
Lakes.
##
Contact:
Laura
Bailey
University
of Michigan
734-647-7087
baileylm@umich.edu
This text derived from:
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/
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