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| By Mark Rain |
To get them all done in time to avert ecological armageddon, the thirteen prescriptions for healing the planet offered by the concerned scientists who signed the updated warning to the world would require coordination at the highest level conceivable. Coordinating implies a grasp of the larger system effects of any particular activity, prioritizing some over others as needed for the good of the whole. Though strategic coordination is sorely lacking on the environmental front, focused efforts may still help, if not just to allow more time for wiser leadership to ascend.
One of the ominous trends shown in the report is the 75% increase since 1992 in the number of dead zones in the oceans and estuaries. The supplemental report's description reads,
Coastal dead zones which are mainly caused by fertilizer runoff and fossil-fuel use, are killing large swaths of marine life. Dead zones with hypoxic, oxygen-depleted waters, are a significant stressor on marine systems and identified locations have dramatically increased since the 1960s, with more than 600 systems affected by 2010.The trend has been nearly linear for the past 50 years, in which about 12 additional aquatic zones have died each year. One of these is the upper Chesapeake Bay where I live. Dead zones are a degenerated condition of algae blooms that rampantly feed on phosphorus and nitrogen, overpopulate, and die, with the consequent breakdown of algal biomass starving the surrounding waters of oxygen and releasing chemical toxins. In 2016, toxins from blue-green algae were found in one-third of lakes and reservoirs in the U.S. One of those was the 90-acre lake in my neighborhood.
Agriculture is blamed for much of the nutrient runoff in the developed world. Fossil-fuel use is also implicated in the report as a cause of dead zones. In less developed areas, sewage is the main contributor. In that respect, my neighborhood belongs to the less developed category. With 4,500+ homes on 6 square miles of hilly land, the number of septic systems overloads the watershed.
While hilly land promotes more runoff, it may also be key to a solution. Most of the runoff does not flow directly into the lake, but into ravines that eventually empty into the lake. My idea to lessen the amount of nutrients in the lake is to install filtration wattles not along the entire lakefront, but one wattle per ravine at the endpoint of contributing septic drainage. Using a mixture of biochar and ablated clays, zeolites, vermiculite, and possibly peat, wood chips, mushroom spawn, or compost, the wattle can be imbedded at the surface of the streambed. This would be done initially at several of the largest ravines with test filters which could be used to measure phosphorus buildup after a year. The ravines with the largest amounts of phosphorus in their test filters would then receive a larger number of wattles to capture the major nutrient flows. I am hoping to get a grant to execute this plan, possibly teaming with a local biologist and academia as an innovative research project. Without funding, I could probably perform a limited version of the plan.
For those whose decisions lack global reach, thinking globally and acting locally at least gains you some cred, raises awareness, encourages replication, and offers the consolation of confronting the world's problems, though they may seem to mount. As one's credibility grows, one can possibly take a leadership role which could involve less hands-on implementation and more coordinating. I am not knowledgeable enough to adjudge priorities between the thirteen global solutions recommended by the thousands of scientists who issued the warning, but that doesn't stop me from taking action at a local level.
