Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 46

Roll – Crimson Tide – Roll, may or may not be your favorite shout at College football games, but if you are a fisherman, sportsman, beachgoer or other visitors to coastal waters where the dreaded Red Tide occurs, it can certainly bring an unwanted experience.

Red tides occur worldwide in oceans, bays, intertidal zones, and are most commonly caused by the upwelling of nutrients from the sea floor caused by massive storms, though anthropogenic causes such as urban/agricultural runoff may also be a contributing factor. During these upwellings, certain species of phytoplankton and dinoflagellates can multiply rapidly. These organisms contain pigments that vary in color from brown to pink to red and discolor the water and hence the name Red Tide. In the gulf coast region of the United States, the most common species causing Red Tides is Karenia brevis, one of many different species of the genus Karenia found in the world’s oceans. The northeast coast of the United States experiences Red Tides caused by another species of dinoflagellate known as Alexandrium fundyense. The growth of these algal blooms depends on wind, temperature, nutrients, and salinity. Red Tides do not occur in freshwater ecosystems. The occurrence of Red Tides in some locations appears to be entirely natural and is a seasonal occurrence resulting from coastal upwelling and the movement of certain ocean currents.

Red tides are often associated with fish kills from the algal production of toxins such as brevotoxins and ichthyotoxins that are harmful to marine life. These toxins can build up in shellfish that are then eaten by other animals. Fish typically exhibit neurotoxin poisoning by swimming in irregular spasmodic motions followed by paralysis, difficulty breathing and death.

Brevetoxins are tasteless, odorless, and heat and acid stable. Thus, these toxins cannot be easily detected, nor can they be removed by food preparation procedures. Humans can be affected by the Red Tide by eating contaminated shellfish, breathing winds that have become aerosolized, and sometimes by skin contact. People who eat contaminated shellfish may suffer from severe gastrointestinal and neurologic symptoms including vomiting, nausea, slurred speech. tingling lips, fingers or toes. Swimming among brevetoxins or inhaling brevetoxins dispersed in the air may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, as well as coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. People with respiratory illnesses such as asthma may experience these symptoms more severely.

The best way to avoid an unpleasant experience with Red Tides is to monitor reports from health agencies and heed public warnings. You should try to reduce exposure by avoiding winds blowing onshore, reducing time outside, and certainly keeping off the beach. You should use your home air conditioner less and use high quality small particulate matter-capture air filters. If you are driving, keep the vehicle air circulating within the cabin and avoid importing outside air.

Red Tides have been recorded for centuries and are here to stay. Learn more about what you can do to help prevent Red Tides and otherwise assist ocean health by becoming involved with Coastal/Oceanographic Organizations in your area.

Source:

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/redtide.html, What is a red tide? August 6, 2018

https://www.cdc.gov/habs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB)-Associated Illness, June 19, 2018

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 42

How significant does a nexus have to be?
By Marc Seelinger

The issue of what is and is not a significant nexus is center to the new EPA Clean Water Act (CWA) rules. In order for a wetland or other water body to be jurisdictional under the Act, it must have this connection to a navigable waterway. The problem is what is a significant nexus?

This whole issue arose as a result of the Rapanos and Carabell Supreme Court case in 2006. Justice Kennedy coined the term “Significant Nexus” in his lone opinion. It paralleled the plurality’s two-part test involving the receiving waters that have a relatively permanent flow and whether those waters have a continuous surface connection to navigable-in-fact waters. However, he went a step beyond the physical connection and introduced a water quality connection.

One other factor is that the plurality Justices did not feel that dredge or fill material normally washes downstream. Both Justice Kennedy and Justice Stevens in his dissent made it clear that this assertion simply is untrue. Justice Kennedy stated that the discharge of dredged and fill material should be treated the same as the discharge of any other pollutant under the Clean Water Act. Justice Kennedy further stated that the intent of the CWA is to maintain wetlands that provide filtering and other attributes to benefit adjacent bodies of water.

So the problem remains. What is a significant nexus?

There are two types of waters we need to assess. The first one is easy. Simply ask the question, is there a physical connection to a downstream navigable waterway? If the answer is yes, it is jurisdictional.

Now there are many ways a wetland could be connected. But for this analysis, we are more or less limited to surface and shallow subsurface connections of a foot or less. This has been the general rule of thumb since about 2007.

With the new EPA rules, there is discussion on unidirectional and bidirectional flow patterns. This further demonstrates the connection to the navigable waterway. What is new is the introduction of non-wetland areas that have bi-directional water patterns and connections to downstream navigable waters. By default, these areas are connected and therefore jurisdictional. Floodplains are an example of this. By the way, this is new.

The remaining waters are either adjacent wetlands that do not have obvious physical connections. These may also be isolated wetlands. Adjacent wetlands by rule are jurisdictional. Isolated wetlands need to have a significant nexus.

So what is a significant nexus?

If there is no physical connection, you are asked to assess the chemical and biological connectivity to the downstream waters. This was the subject of the recent EPA “Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters”, report that described in great detail how all waters are connected to all other waters. I believe you would have to have a project on the moon in order to not satisfy the connectivity of one water to another based upon the EPA report.

However, that only addresses the concept of nexus. The issue is significant. Pardon the pun.

Really the issue is the significance of the connection. If the connection from one water body to another is altered, can you prove and quantify degradation to the water quality?

The biggest problem that was identified with the EPA report is the lack of discernment of the significance of one connection versus another. The entire report’s premise was to reduce the number of case by case studies on projects. The idea was that the water body is connected therefore it is jurisdictional. However, Justice Kennedy used the word significant. That remains undefined. Neither the new rules nor the recent EPA report quantifies what is significant.

So what is significant?

That is left for you to decide. Is there a significant loss of water quality that would result from your project?

There is also the issue of whether this loss of water quality going to affect commerce? It is not just that the water quality is degraded, but rather that there is an interstate or international economic loss as a result. Without this commerce connection, there can be no jurisdiction thanks to Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.

One last thought. What if you project improves the downstream economy? Would that still be jurisdictional as Justice Kennedy’s Significant Nexus only speaks to degradation of the downstream water? Just asking.

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 38

Research has shown that most people migrate for economic reasons. The search for jobs and a better way of life are what brought millions of people to the shores of the United States and we continue to admit over a million legal immigrants every year. Cultural and environmental factors also induce migration. Cultural factors can be especially compelling, forcing people to emigrate from a country. Forced international migration has historically occurred for two main cultural reasons: slavery and political instability. Today though, the reason an ever-increasing number of people are migrating is that of environmental factors – climate migration.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) proposes the following definition for environmental migrants:

“Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad.”

Climate change will transform more than 143 million people into “climate migrants” escaping crop failure, water scarcity, and sea-level rise, a new World Bank report concludes. Most of the changes in populations will occur in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but it is also occurring in our own country.

Whatever the cause of climate change, be it human meddling or the natural course of events, climate change is happening, and at an accelerated rate. One factor seems to be increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Average global temperatures have increased, sea levels around the world have increased and the amount of ice contained in the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have decreased. The loss of Arctic sea ice is one of the clearest signs of climate change. The past four winters have been the lowest four maximum sea ice extents since 1979. At the same time, the region’s climate has seen temperatures increase at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, with record-shattering seasons becoming more common.

In our own country, significant numbers of people are relocating. The increasingly hot temperatures and dwindling fresh water supplies of the southwest, the sinking coastline of the Gulf states, and the increasing number of devastating hurricanes that have plagued the south have motivated many to move to more northern locales like Seattle, Washington, and Madison, Wisconsin. People are more concerned than ever about the future of adequate water supplies, moderate weather, and comfortable temperatures to raise their families.

The decision to move to safer climates is obviously deeply personal, influenced by a person’s connection with the community they live in, their financial situation and their tolerance for risk. In the U.S., a recent study by Mathew Hauer, a demographer at the University of Georgia, estimates that 13 million people will be displaced by sea level rise alone by the year 2100. Extreme weather due to climate change displaced more than a million people from their homes last year and could reshape our nation.

Climate change is going to remap our world, changing not just how we live but where we live. As scientist Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, puts it, “There is a shocking, unreported, fundamental change coming to the habitability of many parts of the planet, including the U.S.A.”

At a certain point, you have to ask: how long can New Orleans, a city already below sea level, keep pumping water out? In Miami and other cities vulnerable to sea level rise, there is much talk among architects and urban planners about sea walls and coastal barriers and floating houses. But in practice, it’s much more complex.

There are plenty of unknowns in how this will all play out, including unforeseen climate tipping points, technological innovations that help us adapt, and outbreaks of war and but at what point will we pass the tipping point and have to evacuate coastal cities and desert our “new” deserts.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/welcome-to-the-age-of-climate-migration-202221/ Welcome to the Age of Climate Migration – Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell, February 25, 2018

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/climate-migrants-report-world-bank-spd/, 143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants

http://www.phschool.com/atschool/ap_misc/rubenstein_cultland/pdfs/Ch3_Issue1.pdf

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 30

If you’ve ever driven our country’s major highways, you have most likely come across a few of the world’s more interesting phenomena. Billboards the size of an Imax screen exclaim, “Come and see the world’s largest ball of yarn, the world’s tallest Tepee, (or one of my favorites), world’s largest cherry pie!” Well, not to be outdone, Mother Nature has put in a bid for a “worlds largest” recognition but you won’t see it on any billboard because it only occurs every 3-10 years on average, and even then, it’s only visible for about 24-48 hours. It’s hard to plan to advertise when you don’t know the exact arrival date, about as hard as predicting the birth of a baby.

So without further ado, Mother Nature proudly presents, “The World’s Largest Flowering Structure (inflorescence) on Earth, the Amorphophallus titanum!” AKA “The Corpse Flower” because of the smell it produces, and the less descriptive name, Titan arum. This unique plant is native to the rainforests of western Sumatra, Indonesia, on steep hillsides that are 120–365m above sea level, but it has also been successfully propagated over 570 times around the world since 1889.

The Titan Arum grows from the world’s largest known corm, sometimes weighing up to 220 lbs. (100kg). During the non-flowering years, a single leaf, the size of a small tree, shoots up from the corm. This leaf branches out into three sections with each of these sprouting more leaflets. Each year, this shooting leaf dies and a new one grows in its place. After many years, the plant finally gathers enough energy to bloom. But when it does, it goes all out, producing the largest unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom, ranging from 1-4m tall.

This past July the author was part of a large crowd of onlookers who were able to witness the rare bloom of “Peter Grande” at the Plant Delights Nursery, Raleigh, NC. One way of keeping track of Amorphophallus clones is to name them, hence, “Peter Grande”. Other names of specific plants include The Amazing Stinko, Carrion my Wayward Son, and Pewtunia! Who knew Botanists had such imagination?

Once the “flower” appears, a not completely understood process that includes powerful waves of olfactory-battering scents reminiscent of decaying flesh begins the process of pollination. According to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s blog, an analysis of the stench found that it consists of dimethyl trisulfide (also emitted by cooked onions and Limburger cheese), dimethyl disulfide (which has an odor like garlic), trimethylamine (found in rotting fish or ammonia), isovaleric acid (which also causes sweaty socks to stink), benzyl alcohol (a sweet floral scent found in jasmine and hyacinth), phenol (sweet and medicinal, as in Chloraseptic throat spray), and indole (like mothballs). This potpourri of chemicals is assumed to attract pollinators to the plant that they make their way down to the bottom of the inflorescence, deposit pollen on the stigmas, and then remain with the plant for about 24 hours before departing. If successfully pollinated, numerous red fruit, often called berries, are produced. Since the plant draws large amounts of energy from its corm as the seeds develop, eventually the plant dies. Should pollination not occur, the plant survives and begins the process all over again.

Mother Nature has produced a truly amazing plant, but one that is known to be vulnerable to extinction. The rainforests of Sumatra are under massive threat of deforestation, as vast areas are logged for timber and to make way for oil palm plantations. It is estimated that Indonesia has now lost around 72% of its original rainforest cover, and the scale of deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate.

We are fortunate botanists have been able to cultivate this rare species in greenhouses around the world and we owe our thanks to nurseries like Plant Delights, for helping assure that people in future generations are able to witness this wonder of nature.

Sources:

https://www.livescience.com/51947-corpse-flower-facts-about-the-smelly-plant.html Corpse Flower: Facts About the Smelly Plant, By Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor | May 30, 2017

https://www.plantdelights.com/pages/amorphophallus-titanum-flowering July 2018

http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:84456-1

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18 Issue 23

Based on Kepler Space Telescope data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way, 11 billion of which may be orbiting stars like our own sun. These are the “Goldilocks Planets,” planets at just the right distance from its Sun to allow temperatures for liquid water. They would be not too hot and not too cold and could potentially allow life to evolve.

On Earth, it is not just the presence of liquid water that gives our planet Goldilocks status. Our orbit, the percentage of reflective surfaces, and the chemical composition of our atmosphere all contribute. The energy Earth receives from the Sun is in balance with the energy our planet loses to space.

In speaking of the “habitable” zone surrounding a star, the word is a bit misleading. Habitable for what? Life found on Earth? We don’t really know what a planet needs to harbor life. Worlds inhospitable to human life could be teeming with life we can’t even begin to understand. All we know is that for the kind of life that exists on Earth, liquid water is a necessity – at least intermittently. With current technology, we don’t have the capability to conclusively detect liquid water on the surface of any worlds outside our own solar system, so we use the temperature of the star and the distance of the planet’s orbit. Even though water can be liquid on the surface, various geophysical aspects, such as atmospheric pressure, radiation, and planet chemistry must be taken into account.

But distance isn’t everything. When it comes to the temperature on a planet’s surface, the atmosphere has an enormous effect. Too thick (think Venus), the planet is too hot. Too thin (think Mars), the thin atmosphere might cause the planet’s store of ice to sublime directly into water vapor, yet both of these planets are considered to be within the habitable zone of our sun.

So, are we going to eventually find swamps, marshes, bogs, fens, lagoons, vernal pools, and pocosins on Goldilocks planets? Wetlands are areas that must meet three important factors: hydric soils, wetland vegetation, and wetland hydrology. By that definition, we already have a good chance of finding two criteria, soils and hydrology. But life on another planet, well, that’s the big question.

Since wetlands tend to be on larger bodies of water because of their topography and used for water retention and filtration, we would be looking for more than just a trace of water or ice. Liquid water would have to be at least intermittently present for the chemical processes that are required to make most hydric soils. Natural ponds and wetlands most often occur as lowlands or depressions, so the surface of the Goldilocks planet must also be compatible with these landforms.

Would seasons be a requirement for soil/wetland production? Perhaps not if there was still a significant period of liquid water through a “Goldilocks” year. A “day” corresponds to one rotation of a planet. Could wetlands survive a constant sun-oriented model with no rotation at all, or a whirlwind of day and night caused by a fast rotation?

Life originated in our seas on Earth. Would it do the same on “Goldilocks” or would it be so different that life would develop directly on land? Would there be wetland plants just because we had water? Maybe water is not essential to our new “exo-plants”. Depending on the density of the atmosphere and specifics of the sun, radiation could be strong and constant. Would this affect the evolution of plant life, causing mutations, or premature death of the plants? Would trace elements not usually found on Earth affect growth or spread of plants? Would the chemical processes of life not work, or would they just be different?

When it comes to the organic component of soils, we need plants! The plants characteristic of ponds and wetlands include moisture-loving plants, some of which are totally submerged, partially submerged, float on the surface or favor the shoreline and commonly include algae, grasses, sedges, rushes, water lilies, and forbs. On Earth, plants can grow and prosper in a variety of mediums from water to cracks in rocks. It seems that if life were to evolve then plants should do well if our Earth is any type of example.

At some point, the Army Corps of Engineers might have to come up with a brand-new set of indicators for the new “Exoplanet Regional Supplement,” but at least for hydrology, (the study of water), the presence of water on a planet would naturally give us many of the same indicators like standing water, saturation, etc. Would we see moss trim lines or evidence of aquatic fauna though?

For soils, would there be redox features without free oxygen in the atmosphere? Where would we be without our F3 indicator! Since so many of our soil indicators are based on the presence of plant life in some form or another, A indicators might be problematic.

In all likelihood though, it seems as if indicators would be found on a Goldilocks planet. They may not be the same on earth, but they would do the job. Maybe a pristine exo-wetland might even help us develop new and better wetlands on Earth!

Now, if we can only keep Earth invasives like Phragmites and Reed Canary Grass out, we’d be golden.

References:

https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/education/Pages/PlantListWetland.aspx
https://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/earth-our-goldilocks-planet

https://www.coursera.org/learn/global…/the-goldilocks-planets

Cosmos 72 – Dec-Jan 2017, “‘Goldilocks’ planets might not be so nice,” issue 72, by Kate Mack https://cosmosmagazine.com/issues/parallel-worlds-science-or-sci-fi
https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/education/Pages/PlantListWetland.aspx
http://www.usace.army.mil/

NASA, Chromospheric variations in main-sequence stars, Jan. 01, 1995

E. E. Mamajek; L. A. Hillenbrand (2008). “Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics”. Astrophysical Journal. 687 (2): 1264