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Christopher Gobler

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Christopher Gobler. Photo by Conor Harrigan

By Daniel Dunaief

When they can’t stand the heat, bay scallops can’t get out of the proverbial kitchen.

A key commercial shellfish with landings data putting them in the top five fisheries in New York, particularly in the Peconic Bay, bay scallops populations have declined precipitously during a combination of warmer waters and low oxygen.

In a study published in the journal Global Change Biology, Christopher Gobler, Stony Brook University Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation and Stephen Tomasetti, a former Stony Brook graduate student, along with several other researchers, showed through lab and field experiments as well as remote sensing and long-term monitoring data analysis how these environmental changes threaten the survival of bay scallops.

Stephen Tomasetti. Photo by Nancy L. Ford/ Hamilton College

Bay scallops are “quite sensitive to different stressors in the environment,” said Tomasetti, who completed his PhD last spring and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Of the regional shellfish, bay scallops are the most sensitive to environmental stress.

Indeed, since 2019, bay scallops have declined by between 95 and 99 percent amid overall warming temperatures and extended heat waves. These declines have led to the declaration of a federal fishery disaster in the Empire State.

Tomasetti used satellite data to characterize daily summer temperatures from 2003 to 2020, which showed significant warming across most of the bay scallop range from New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He monitored four sites with sensors in the water in addition to satellite data during a field deployment with scallops.

At the warmest site, which was in Flanders Bay, New York, the temperature was above the 90th percentile of its long term average during an eight-day period that overlapped with the scallop deployment. The bay scallops in Flanders Bay were “all dead by the end of the heat wave event,” Tomasetti said.

At the same time, low levels of oxygen hurt the bay scallops which, like numerous other shellfish, feed on phytoplankton. Oxygen levels are declining in some of these bays as nitrogen from fertilizers and septic systems enter these waterways. High nitrogen levels encourage the growth of algae. When the algae die, they decay, which uses up oxygen and releases carbon dioxide into the water.

Field and lab studies

In the field, Tomasetti measured the heartbeat of bay scallops in East Harbor, Massachusetts by putting optical infrared sensors on them that took heartbeat readings every 15 minutes for a month.

Stephen Tomasetti conducts field work in East Harbor during the summer of 2020.

When the average daily temperature increased, their average heart rate climbed, which the scientists used as a proxy for their respiration rate. A higher respiration rate meant that the scallop was expending energy more rapidly, potentially leading to reductions of energy reserves.

Additionally, Tomasetti measured how quickly the scallops fed on algae in the lab under warm temperatures and low oxygen.  These conditions caused the scallops to stop feeding or to feed slowly. Tomasetti interpreted this as a sign that they were waiting out the stress.

In the lab, bay scallops in the same conditions as the bays from Long Island to Massachusetts had the same reactions.

While a collection of fish and invertebrates feed on bay scallops, the effect of their die off on the food web wasn’t likely severe.

“I think there are other prey items that are likely redundant with scallops that cushion the impact,” Gobler explained in an email.

Solutions

Stephen Tomasetti with his wife Kate Rubenstein in East Harbor during the summer of 2020.

As for solutions, global warming, while an important effort for countries across the planet, requires coordination, cooperation and compliance to reduce greenhouse gases and lower the world’s carbon footprint.

On a more local and immediate scale, people on Long Island can help with the health of the local ecosystem and the shellfish population by reducing and controlling the chemicals that run off into local waters.

Waste management practices that limit nutrients are “super helpful,” Tomasetti said. “Supporting restoration (like the clam sanctuaries across Long Island that are increasing the filtration capacities of bays) is good.”

Gobler is encouraged by county, state and federal official responses to problems such as the decline in bay scallops, including the declaration of a federal disaster.

Long Island experience

A graduate student at Stony Brook for five years, Tomasetti was pleasantly surprised with the environment.

He had lived in New York City, where he taught high school biology for five years, before starting his PhD.

His perception was that Long Island was “a giant suburb” of New York. That perspective changed when he moved to Riverhead and enjoyed the pine forest, among other natural resources.

He and his wife Kate Rubenstein, whom he met while teaching, enjoyed sitting in their backyard and watching wild turkeys walking through their property, while deer grazed on their plant life.

Initially interested in literature at the University of Central Florida, Tomasetti took a biology course that was a prerequisite for another class he wanted to take. After completing these two biology classes, he changed his college and career plans.

Teaching high school brought him into contact with researchers, where he saw science in action and decided to contribute to the field.

At Hamilton College, Tomasetti has started teaching and is putting together his research plan, which will likely involve examining trends in water quality and temperature. He will move to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, MD this fall, where he will be an assistant professor in coastal environmental science.

As for his work with bay scallops and other shellfish on Long Island, Tomasetti looked at the dynamics of coastal systems and impacts of extreme events on economically important shellfish in the area.

Tomasetti is not just a scientist; he is also a consumer of shellfish.  His favorite is sea scallops, which he eats a host of ways, although he’s particularly fond of the pan seared option.

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Fish kills in Long Island have increased from about five per year to 50 this summer. Photo by Laurie Vetere

Fish kills in waterways around Long Island climbed to over 50 this summer from about five per year in earlier years, driven by increasing water temperatures, algal blooms and increased nitrogen in local waters.

With temperatures climbing more than 2 degrees Celsius over the last two decades, waters around Long Island don’t have as much oxygen, particularly at night when photosynthetic plants are no longer able to catch sunlight and turn it into oxygen.

The fish kills represent a “pretty big number,” said Christopher Gobler, endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.

Members of Gobler’s lab sample Long Island waters routinely as a part of their research. While his team was out gathering data, Gobler asked them to report any fish kills that included 10 or more fish. The area between Hempstead Harbor and Northport Harbor routinely included observations of fish kills.

Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen than colder water, because oxygen can escape more easily from water in higher heat.

With temperature as the primary driver, a combination of factors robs the water of oxygen.

“The warmer the water gets, the quicker the bacteria take oxygen out, the faster the fish are respiring” Gobler said. 

He added the fish kills often included menhaden, or bunker, fish. These fish have returned in larger numbers in recent years to the waters around Long Island amid other conservation efforts. More menhaden this summer also brought sharks to the area, as these apex predators hunt bunker fish.

While global warming likely had a significant impact on the number of fish kills, Gobler said, an increase in nitrogen in local waterways also contributed to anoxic conditions and is something residents can control locally.

With more nitrogen, typically from onsite wastewater, algae have more nutrients to grow.

At the same time, when more abundant algae dies, the bacteria that break down the algae consume oxygen.

An additional emerging perspective suggests that the more abundant algae at night are respiring, removing oxygen from the water.

Gobler said people can reduce the release of nitrogen into local waterways, which can also affect groundwater, by upgrading their sewage treatment systems. Suffolk County has created rules, including a Reclaim our Water Septic Improvement Program, which protects the environment by reducing nitrogen emissions.

Gobler remains concerned not only for the fish that wash up in numbers along the shore, but for the marine organisms that aren’t as mobile, such as the invertebrates at the bottom of the waterways.

The fish kills are a flag that “these water bodies are impaired and are not capable of sustaining marine life in a way we’d like them to,” Gobler said.

As for the future, Gobler said it’s difficult to predict how the combination of factors, from global warming to nitrogen runoff, will affect marine life.

“Maybe next year, we go back to five [fish kills] in the summer,” he said. This year was “unlike anything we’ve seen” with a combination of high temperatures and numerous fish kills.

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Arjun Venkatesan is testing an enhanced coagulation approach to treat contaminated water. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

One person’s toilet flush is another’s pool of information.

Arjun Venkatesan, Associate Director for the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University, has gathered information from wastewater plants to search for traces of opioids and other chemicals.

Such monitoring is a “great tool” and relies on the sensitivity of the method, Venkatesan said.

Indeed, other scientists, including Professor Christopher Gobler, Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook, have used wastewater monitoring to collect information about the prevalence of Covid-19 in a community.

Gobler explained that such monitoring has proven to be an “ideal way to track community infections. Through early to mid 2022, positive test rates and wastewater virus levels tracked perfectly. Since then, people began home testing and now, wastewater epidemiology is probably our best sign of community infection rates.”

In a joint effort through the Center for Cleanwater Technology, Venkatesan’s team monitors for chemicals, including opioids and other drugs. Such tracking, which college campuses and local governments have done, does not involve gathering information from any specific home. Instead, the scientists take anonymous samples from a larger dorm or a neighborhood, hoping to track changes in the presence of chemicals or a virus to enable health care mitigation efforts.

Venkatesan has been looking at common over-the-counter drugs and anti-viral treatments that residents used to treat Covid-19 infection, particularly before the development and distribution of several vaccines. He noticed an increase in over the counter use that matched the increase of Covid cases, which suggested that the infected people took these pain medicines for their symptoms first.

Venkatesan’s group monitored the use of these drugs over the last two years to confirm the trends. This baseline allowed him to “see increasing trends” in usage, he said. The increase “clearly indicates something more than what the drugs are regularly used for.”

Opioids

Venkatesan’s group has been working with the Department of Health to develop standard protocols to measure drugs at these sewage treatment plants. The testing needs to be updated to account for changes in consumption of new drugs that are being synthesized.

Each sample Venkatesan and his colleagues collect typically has hundreds of thousands of people in it, because the treatment plants process sewage for a large collection of communities. “This keeps anonymity,” he said. “We don’t want to dig up [information] from a single family home.”

The method is also cost effective when a single sample represents a larger population. This kind of information, however, could help public health professionals monitor the presence of drugs broadly in a community, providing them with a way to track the prevalence of addictive and potentially harmful drugs.

Venkatesan is developing methods to track fentanyl, a highly addictive drug linked to numerous deaths throughout the country and the world. Studies in other regions have demonstrated elevated levels of this drug.

Venkatesan said New York State responded to the pandemic by developing surveillance over the last few years. The approach was not well known and was limited mostly to illicit drugs. The pandemic made a significant impact, which helped officials appreciate the value of such a tool.

The state could also theoretically monitor for any chemicals that are stable enough in sewage.

While Venkatesan hasn’t measured traces of alcohol at sewage treatment plants, researchers and public health officials could create a screen to measure it. He was involved in a study that monitored for alcohol and nicotine consumption in many cities. “We could get interesting trends and understand community and population health in a better way,” he said. The pandemic has “helped establish the importance of this network.”

Surveys in which people call and ask about the consumption of drugs or alcohol can contain self-reporting error, as respondents may not know exactly how much they drink or may be reluctant to share those details.

Wastewater monitoring could capture trends, including whether communities have a spike in the use of drugs or alcohol on Friday nights or on weekends.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created standardized methods for monitoring Covid-19 in the wastewater of cities and states.

Wastewater monitoring techniques are different for detecting viruses compared to chemicals. Venkatesan’s group is developing different method to screen for opioids. “We are excited about it,” he said. “Hopefully, next year, we should be able to monitor communities.”

As long as the sampling doesn’t cross any predetermined ethical line, monitoring could provide an effective way of looking at the trends and data, he said.

With so much water flowing through pipes and treatment plants, one of the biggest challenges in these efforts is to understand variables that affect what the scientists are monitoring.

The time between when a toilet is flushed in an apartment to the time when it reaches a plant can vary, depending on numerous variables, which creates uncertainty in the data.

To reduce this variability, scientists could do some sampling in manholes, between treatment plants.

Scientific roots

Venkatesan took an elective at the end of college in environmental science when he attended Anna University in Chennai, India. It was the first time he observed a wastewater treatment plant.

Fascinated by the process, he earned a Master’s in Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and then went on to get a PhD at Arizona State. He also did his post doctoral research in Arizona.

Stony Brook was looking for a scientist to screen for contaminants in drinking water, including PFAS chemicals, which is a group of chemicals that are stable, hard to break down and are linked to thyroid cancer, among others.

PFAS chemicals are used in cleaners, textiles, fire-fighting foam and other applications.

Venkatesan leads drinking water efforts, while waste water epidemiology remains an ongoing project of interest.

Gobler hired Venkatesan five years ago to help run and then to exclusively run the drinking water initiative at Stony Brook.

Through the process, Venkatesan has “brought new insights and research programs related to wastewater epidemiology, bisolids and many other topics,” Gobler explained. Venkatesan has “exceeded expectations,” as he transitioned from a postdoctoral researcher to become Associate Director for Drinking Water Initiatives.”

Gobler called his colleague a “complete professional” who is “very positive and a good person to work with.”

In his research, Venkatesan develops technologies to remove these PFAS chemicals, while monitoring is also a part of that effort. Activated carbon filters can remove these chemicals from groundwater. These filters, however, require frequent replacement. Venkatesan is exploring ways to improve the life of the carbon filter.

PFAS chemicals make rain water unsafe to drink. Removing PFAS chemicals is an “important research topic locally and globally.”

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Pixabay photo

In late July, amid some of the hottest weeks of the year, the Suffolk County Water Authority put out a statement urging residents to conserve water.

“With continued hot and dry weather leading to excessive early morning water use that is pushing water infrastructure to its limits, the Suffolk County Water Authority is urging residents to immediately take steps to conserve water,” the statement read. “Though it is always important to conserve water, during hot and dry periods it is imperative to do so, as residents tend to overwater lawns and set their irrigation timers to the same period of time in the early morning hours.”

‘We’re asking people to shift their watering patterns to the nonpeak periods.’ ⁠— Joe Pokorny

SCWA’s deputy chief executive officer for operations, Joe Pokorny, outlined the issues surrounding high temperatures. While the underground aquifer is not at risk of going dry any time soon, he said high water consumption is placing a greater strain on the water authority’s infrastructure.

“There is only so much water that we can pump at any given time,” he said. “The aquifers are full of water, but we have limited wells and pumps in the aquifer to deliver water to the customer.”

Strain on the pumps is a problem of supply and demand, according to Pokorny. Higher temperatures increase the demand for water, thereby limiting the supply of water. Pokorny asks that customers be mindful that simultaneous water use can overwhelm their pumps, which could lead to diminished water pressure, possibly harmful to communities.

“We just can’t keep up with demand, so we ask people to curtail [water consumption] because our pumps can’t keep up,” he said. “If that happens for long enough, then we start to see a decline in water pressure and then we get concerned about having enough water available to fight fires and general pressure for people to have in their homes.”

To alleviate the challenges associated with high heat, Suffolk County customers are asked to modify their water habits slightly. By cutting back on water during the peak hours of the highest heat, residents can ease pressure on the pumps.

“We’re asking people to shift their watering patterns to the nonpeak periods,” Pokorny said. “That gives our infrastructure a break. People will still get the water they want, they just get that water at a different time.”

‘Literally, the height of groundwater in the aquifer is declining by many feet during the summer period.’

— Christopher Gobler

The conversation around water conservation prompted a broader discussion around the Long Island water supply. Christopher Gobler, endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation and a professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, discussed the unique relationship that Long Islanders share with their drinking water.

“We have a sole-source aquifer, which means that all of our drinking water comes from underneath our feet,” Gobler said. “When water hits the land, almost all of it seeps into the groundwater and, as it does, it carries with it what’s on the land. And once it’s in our aquifer, that’s our drinking water source.”

For those who tap into the public water supply, the water that they drink typically comes from within just a few miles of their own homes. For these reasons, community members and local governments have a certain obligation to be mindful of their activities on land.

Open space, according to Gobler, is generally most beneficial for promoting water quality within the underground aquifer. These spaces generally act as filters, flushing out contaminants as they work their way through the groundwater and into the aquifer.

“Different land-use practices have different impacts on the way that the water that is falling on land affects our drinking water,” Gobler said. “For example, pristine forests or undisturbed vegetation tend to be really good at, say, taking out nitrogen as water strikes land or falls from the atmosphere.” He added, “Without that, you have just impermeable surfaces and the water may run directly into the groundwater without any benefits of vegetative treatment.”

As summers continue to become longer and hotter due to climate change, the question of the long-term prospects for water supply is likely to arise. Gobler explained that the aquifer is drained and then replenished based on the seasons.

“On average in any given year, about half of the rainfall that falls on Long Island … is what’s called ‘recharged’ into the aquifer,” he said. “The other half that is not recharged undergoes a process called evapotranspiration, which essentially means it either evaporates or is taken up by plants.”

In the warmer months, little to no water gets recharged into the aquifer as it evaporates. Gobler said the window of time during which no recharge is taking place is likely expanding because of climate change.

“I think there’s an old paper from the ‘80s and it said that Sept. 15 is around when the aquifer starts recharging,” he said. “Well, that’s probably not the case anymore. Our falls are getting warmer, and particularly after a really hot and dry summer, the ground is going to be really dry.”

Gobler said SCWA is experiencing two dilemmas at once. During the summer months, the water authority must accommodate both zero recharge to the aquifer and maximal extraction of its water. “Literally, the height of groundwater in the aquifer is declining by many feet during the summer period,” he said.

On the whole, the aquifer is being recharged at a greater rate than it is being extracted from. Long Islanders are not at risk of having their aquifer drained dry. However, climate change is altering the balance, which could create issues decades down the road.

“In broad-brush strokes, we’re fine,” Gobler said, adding, “We’re not in the Southwest of the United States where they’re relying on the Colorado River for their water supply. But we are at a time when the balance of water-in and water-out is getting closer to even.”

Moving forward, residents of Suffolk County should remain aware of the impact that they have on both the quantity and quality of their water supply. “Everybody needs to recognize that there is not only a quantity issue but also a quality issue,” Gobler said. “Everyone impacts both, as do all of the activities that are happening on land.”

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By Daniel Dunaief

Kelp, and other seaweed, may prove to be an oyster’s best friend. And, no, this isn’t a script for a new episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

A thick, heavy leafy seaweed, kelp provides an environmentally friendly solution to several problems. Amid higher levels of carbon dioxide, the air has become warmer and oceans, including coastal regions, are more acidic. That’s because carbon dioxide mixes with water, producing negative hydrogen ions that lower the pH of the water.

Enter kelp.

A rapidly growing seaweed, kelp, which is endemic to the area, uses that carbon dioxide in the same way trees do, as a part of photosynthesis. By removing carbon dioxide, kelp raises the pH, which is helpful for the area’s shellfish.

The above graph shows pH scale measurements with and without kelp. The graph shows continuous pH (NBS scale) bubbling, and the addition of 4 x 104 cells mL-1 Isochrysis galbana added daily to simulate daily feedings of bivalves.  Image provided by Chris Gobler

That’s the conclusion of a recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science by Stony Brook University Professor Christopher Gobler, Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and Mike Doall, Associate Director of Shellfish Restoration and Aquaculture at Stony Brook University.

In a series of five laboratory experiments and a field study, Gobler and Doall showed that kelp lowered acidification, enabling better growth for shellfish like oysters. “There was better oyster growth inside the kelp than 50 meters away” Doall said, in what he and Gobler describe as the “halo” effect.

Gobler was especially pleased with the implications of the field experiment.“While showing that  [result] in the lab was exciting, being able to improve the growth of oysters on an oyster farm experiencing coastal acidification proves this approach can have very broad implications,” Gobler said in a statement.

Doall estimates that kelp farmers can grow 72,000 pounds per acre of kelp in just six months, during the prime growing season from December through May.

Doall, whose primary role in the study was to grow the kelp and set up the field experiment, said he grew kelp at the Great Gun oyster farm in Moriches Bay that were up to 12 feet long. Over the last four years, he has grown kelp in 16 locations around Long Island, from the East River to Fishers Island.

This year, the team conducted kelp studies in nine locations. The best growth occurred in the East River and in Moriches Bay, Doall said. He harvested about 2,000 pounds each from those two sites this year and is primarily using the kelp in a host of fertilizer studies.

Gobler explained that using seaweed like kelp could enhance aquaculture.

“The intensification of ocean acidification now threatens bivalve aquaculture and has necessitated a solution,” Gobler said in a statement. “We believe our work is foundational to a solution.”

Above, Mike Doall during a recent kelp harvest in Moriches Bay. Photo by Cameron Provost

One of the challenges of using kelp to improve the local conditions for shellfish is that it grows during the winter through May, while the growing season for shellfish occurs during the summer.

“That is why we are now working on summer seaweeds,” Gobler explained in an email.

Gobler and Doall are looking for similar potential localized benefits from Ulva, a green sea lettuce, and Gracilaria, which is a red, branchy seaweed.

“Most water quality issues occur during summer, so it’s important to grow seaweed year round,” Doall said.

The Stony Brook scientists, who have worked together since the early 1990s when they were graduate students, are also exploring varieties of kelp that might be more heat tolerant and will try to use some of those on Long Island.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is leading a project to hybridize these heartier strains of kelp, Doall said. GreenWave, which supports regenerative ocean farming, is also participating in that effort.

Gobler explained that they also plan to start earlier, which will extend the growing season.

While the different growing seasons for kelp and oysters may make kelp only part of the solution for reducing ocean acidification for shellfish, the different growing seasons makes the seaweed a complementary companion crop for commercial shellfish diggers.

Summer laborers who work on oysters can transition to kelp harvesting in the fall and winter.

A resident of Rocky Point, Doall lives with his wife Nancy, who teaches at North Coleman Road Elementary School in the Middle Country School District.

The Doall’s 23-year old daughter Deanna, who is a graduate of the University of Tampa, is currently traveling in Guatemala, while their 20-year old daughter Annie is attending Florida Gulf Coast University.

Doall grew up in Massapequa Park. As a 12-year old, he pooled his lawn mowing money with a friend’s paper route funds to buy a small boat with a 1967 10-horsepower Evinrude engine. The pair went out on bays to fish and, periodically, to clam.

Doall, who loves gardening and being in the ocean, described the two of them as being “notorious” for needing tows back to the shore regularly when their engine died.

The former owner of an oyster farm, Doall also enjoys eating them. He particularly enjoys eating oysters in the winter and early spring, when they are plump. His favorite way to eat them is raw on the half shell, but he also appreciates his wife’s “killer Oysters Rockefeller,” as he described it.

As for kelp, the current supply in the area exceeds the demand. The excess kelp, which farmers harvest to prevent the release of carbon dioxide and nitrogen that the seaweed removed from the water, can be composted or used for fertilizer, explained Gobler.

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A screenshot of the app created by Christopher Gobler and Sung-Gheel Jung of Stony Book University.

Stony Brook University’s Christopher Gobler, endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation, and Sung-Gheel Jang, faculty director in the Geospatial Center at Stony Brook University, have created a free app that provides information on water quality on Long Island.

Through the downloadable Long Island Beach and Water Quality App, also known as LIBAWQA, residents can gather information that can connect to a person’s location, indicating the health and safety of beaches, bays, estuaries or waterways near them.

Gobler’s lab provides the water quality data, which comes from measures they make in 30 locations from East Hampton to Hempstead.

The New York State Department of Health provides updates on about 200 beaches across the Island, while the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation offers shellfishing data for more than 500,000 acres of bays, harbors and estuaries.

Jang, whose expertise is in the mapping related to geographic information systems, or GIS, helped build a service he targeted for the general public.

Instead of calling the county to find out if their favorite summer destination is open, residents can “use the app and you will know the current water quality,” Jang said.

Shellfishing and bathing restrictions use different criteria to determine the safety of swimming or pulling up clams and other shellfish.

“This is the beauty of the app,” Gobler said. One day last week, he noticed that a site in Center Moriches allowed swimming but not shellfishing. “The beach right next to it” allows shellfishing. “Which one would you rather go to?”

The app, which is available by installing ArcGIS AppStudio Player from Google Play, the App Store or the Microsoft Store and using a QR code on a camera, can show the health history of a beach.

While the system, which Gobler described as being in “version 1.0” doesn’t have text alerts, it does provide real-time information.

Users can track their location on the map in the app, checking on the shellfish or bathing status of nearby waterways.

The idea for this app came about a couple of years ago when Jang visited Gobler’s lab and the two Stony Brook researchers talked about collaborating.

“I was impressed by [Gobler’s] work,” Jang said. “His lab collected water quality data for many, many years.”

Jang suggested creating an easy-to-use mobile app. Gobler wanted to add other information beyond the water quality data his lab collected regularly.

Gobler and Jang expect to modify and enhance the information by next summer, when it could include a crowdsourcing opportunity, in which participants share updated information, including limitations on parking or beach closures.

Gobler and Jang said they would need to provide a filter before posting information to ensure it contains quality data.

The service isn’t available in the Google or Apple app stores yet.

“By next summer we hope we can release a new version,” Jang added. “We wanted to show we have a working app first.”

Scientists of any age, from primary school through postdoctoral researchers, can use the information for their own research papers or studies, Jang said.

Anyone who is interested in accessing and using the data for their own research projects can contact Jang through his email at [email protected].

The scientists have received funding from the Rauch Foundation and The Chicago Community Trust. The pair will seek renewals from both sources this fall.

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Image depicting the ability of Nitrogen Removing Biofilters to reduce wastewater effluent levels to less than 10 mg N per liter. Photo from NYS Center for Clean Water Technology

Water, water everywhere and several scientists want to make sure there are plenty of drops to drink.

Christopher Gobler, director of the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology, and Arjun Venkatesan, the CCWT’s associate director for Drinking Water Initiatives, recently published two studies in which they highlighted how their efforts to reduce nitrogen also cut back on 1,4 dioxane, a likely carcinogen.

Gobler, who is also endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is leading a center whose mission is to solve the nitrogen overloading crisis in Long Island’s groundwater and surface water by developing alternative onsite septic systems.

Nitrogen, which comes from a host of sources including fertilizer, creates the kind of conditions that lead to algal blooms, which can and have closed beaches around Long Island. Nitrogen also harms seagrass meadows and can cause the collapse of shellfisheries like clams and scallops.

In the meantime, 1,4 dioxane, which is a potential health threat in Suffolk and Nassau counties, comes from household products ranging from shampoos to cleaning products and detergents. Manufacturing on Long Island in prior decades contributed to the increase in its prevalence in water sources.

Indeed, recent studies from the center showed “very high levels of 1,4 dioxane have been detected in our groundwater,” Venkatesan said in a recent press conference.

The chemical doesn’t easily degrade, conventional wastewater treatment doesn’t remote it, and household and personal care products contribute to its prevalence in the area.

A one-year study “confirmed this suspicion,” Venkatesan said. “The level of 1,4 dioxane in a septic effluent is, on average, 10 times higher than tap water levels.”

This finding is “important” and suggests that the use of these products can ultimately end up polluting groundwater, Venkatesan continued.

At the same time, the increasing population on Long Island has contributed to a rise in the concentration of nitrogen in groundwater, Gobler added during the press conference.

The center hoped to create a septic-enhancing system that met a 10, 20, 30 criteria.

They wanted to reduce the concentration of nitrogen to below 10 milligrams per liter, the cost to below $20,000 to install and the lifespan of the system to 30 years.

The center developed nitrogen removing biofilters, or NRBs.

In a second paper, the researchers showed that the NRBs removed 80 to 90 percent of nitrogen.

At the same time, the NRBs are removing nearly 60 percent of 1,4 dioxane, driving the concentration down to levels that are at, or below, the concentration in tap water, which is 1 part per billion.

This is the “first published study to demonstrate a significant removal of 1,4 dioxane,” Gobler said at the press conference. NRBs have advanced “to the piloting stage.”

The center anticipates that the NRBs could be available for widespread installation throughout Suffolk County by June 2022.

The center currently has 20 NRBs in the ground and will have over 25 by the end of the year. In 2022, anyone should be able to install them, Gobler said.

Residents interested in NRBs can contact the center, which is “working toward being prepared for widespread installation,” Gobler explained in an email.

Residents interested in learning what financial assistance they might receive for a septic improvement program can find information at the website www.reclaimourwater.info.

Gobler said the microbes in the NRBs do the work of removing nitrogen and 1,4 dioxane, which continually reside within the filters. He explained that they should continue to be functional for decades.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which has offices in five locations and is committed to an environmental agenda, was pleased with the research Gobler and Venkatesan presented.

She was “beyond thrilled with the science released today,” she said during the press conference. This research on the effectiveness of the NRBs “validates all of the work going on for the last four years.”

Esposito urged the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to test wastewater from laundromats, car washes and other sources to determine the amount of 1,4 dioxane that enters into groundwater and surface water systems.

Esposito is “thankful for science-based work that allows us to attain clean water.”

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SBU’s Christopher Gobler, with Dick Amper, discusses alarming trends for LI’s water bodies at a Sept. 25, 2018 press conference. Photo by Kyle Barr

Long Island’s water is facing a dangerous threat — not a mythical sea monster, but harmful and poisonous algal blooms. Recently released data showed the problem was more far reaching this summer than years past.

The Long Island Clean Water Partnership, an advocacy collective supported by the Rauch Foundation, that includes members from Stony Brook University and the Long Island Pine Barrens Society headed by Dick Amper, released an annual water status report Sept. 25 that showed new harmful algal blooms in Port Jefferson, Northport and Huntington harbors and in North Shore ponds and lakes.

“Every single water body across Long Island, be it the North Shore or the South Shore, East End, Suffolk County, Nassau County, all had significant water impairments during this time frame,” said Christopher Gobler, endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. “We would call this a crisis.”

“We are the nitrogen pollution capital of America.”

— Kevin McDonald

The Island-wide study, which was conducted from May through September, showed Northport Harbor suffered a bloom of Dinophysis, a type of algae that releases a powerful neurotoxin that can affect shellfish. Both Northport and Huntington harbors showed a rash of paralytic shellfish poisoning in other marine life from eating shellfish.

In May, shellfish fishing was temporarily banned in Huntington and Northport harbors by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation because of PSP. The harmful poison began to wane in June, Gobler said, and those bans have since been lifted, according to an automatic message put out by the state DEC.

Stony Brook University’s Roth Pond has been experiencing for years summer blooms of poisonous blue-green algae, a type that is harmful to animals. This past summer the researchers saw the algae spread into neighboring Mill Pond in Stony Brook. In 2017, Suffolk County had more lakes with blue-green algal blooms than any other of the 64 counties in New York, according to the report.

The summer also saw the rise of a rust tide in Port Jeff Harbor and Conscience Bay caused by another poisonous algae, which, while not dangerous to humans, is dangerous to marine life. Gobler said while it did not necessarily lead to fish kills along the North Shore, places like Southampton saw the deaths of tens of thousands of oysters and fish due to rust tide. If the problem persists, Port Jeff might start to see a fish die-off, which could have lasting implications to the local ecology.

The algal blooms and hypoxia were both exacerbated by a particularly warm summer, a trend expected to continue due to climate change. In coming years, Gobler said he expects the number of dangerous algae to spread because of this trend.

“We’re expecting that temperatures will rise 5 or 10 degrees this century, so we need to make changes or things will get significantly worse,” Gobler said.

The prognosis looks grim, with multiple other places across Long Island experiencing harmful algal blooms, but the source is already well known. This year’s study cites heavy loads of nitrogen pollution from sewage and fertilizers as the ultimate source of the algal events, particularly the nitrogen waste from old cesspool systems leaking into local waters.

Suffolk County and several state and local politicians have been advocating for changes, either for creating sewer systems — such as Smithtown’s projects in Kings Park, Smithtown Main Street and St. James — or by creating financing programs for property owners to overhaul waste systems.

In 2014 Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) called nitrogen pollution the county’s “environmental public enemy No. 1.” Since then the county has worked with local scientists and engineers to craft technology that could replace Long Island’s old cesspool and septic tanks, but some of those replacement systems have been very cost prohibitive. Suffolk has made some grant money available to those interested in upgrading.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed legislation in April that put $2.5 billion toward clean water protection and improving water infrastructure, including $40 million for the new sewer systems in Smithtown and Kings Park, and adding a rebate program for those upgrading outdated septic systems. Suffolk County and scientists from Stony Brook University are currently working on cheaper nitrogen filtration systems, but commercial availability of those systems could be years away.

“Technology and governmental policies are rapidly changing to address our island’s water crisis, but we need to increase our pace of change.”

— Adrienne Esposito

Kevin McDonald, the conservation project director at The Nature Conservancy, said that there is a strong impetus for all of Long Island to change its waste standards.

“We are the nitrogen pollution capital of America,” McDonald said. “We can’t reverse climate change by ourselves, but with the right support and engagement and leadership we can aggressively respond to this problem at a faster pace than at present.”

Many of these areas now experiencing algal blooms were only encountering hypoxia, or a depletion of dissolved oxygen in water necessary for sea life to survive, in the same report released back in summer 2017. Last year Mount Sinai Harbor was spared from severe hypoxia, but now has seen a decrease in necessary oxygen levels this past summer. Gobler said it wouldn’t be out of the question that Mount Sinai Harbor could experience a potentially dangerous algal bloom next summer.

One thing is for sure, according to Gobler: Long Island will experience more hypoxia and harmful algal blooms until new waste systems can catch up to the amount of nitrogen that’s already in the water.

“Technology and governmental policies are rapidly changing to address our island’s water crisis, but we need to increase our pace of change,” said Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

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Port Jefferson Harbor. File photo by Alex Petroski

Port Jefferson Harbor is currently undergoing an alarming phenomenon that an expert called “uncharted territory” locally.

The harbor is currently experiencing a rust tide, or an algal bloom, caused by a single-celled phytoplankton. Rust tides don’t pose any harm to humans but can be lethal to marine life.

Christopher Gobler, endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, said rust tides are spurred by hot air, water temperatures and excessive nutrients in the water, especially nitrogen. The Gobler Laboratory at SBU, named for the chairman, is monitoring the situation, performing research into its specific causes, and is looking for solutions to reduce nitrogen loading and thus the intensity of events like these, according to Gobler. He said he has been studying the phenomenon on the East End of Long Island for about 12 years, but this is only the second time it has occurred in Port Jefferson Harbor.

“We never had these blooms even on the East End before 2004,” Gobler said. “Now, they occur pretty much every year since 2004 or so.”

Blooming rust tides typically start in late August and last into mid-September.  However, as water and global temperatures continue to rise, Gobler said there are a lot of unknowns. He said this is one of the hottest summers he has ever witnessed regarding the temperature of the Long Island Sound, adding that temperatures in the local body of water have increased at a rate significantly faster than global averages.

“The big issue is temperature, so these blooms tend to track very well with warmer temperatures,” Gobler said.

George Hoffman, a co-founder of Setauket Harbor Task Force, a nonprofit group which monitors and advocates for the health of the harbor, said his organization saw some early evidence of a rust tide in Little Bay while conducting biweekly water testing Aug. 24. Little Bay is located within Setauket Harbor, and within the larger Port Jefferson Harbor complex. Hoffman said the task force’s readings suggested salinity levels and water temperature were within the parameters needed for the growth of a rust tide.

Rust tide is caused by cochlodinium polykrikoides, according to a fact sheet compiled by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. The single-cell phytoplankton may harm fish and shellfish because it produces a hydrogen peroxide-like compound that can damage their gill tissue. Fish can avoid these dangerous blooms by simply swimming away. Fish and shellfish harvested in areas experiencing rust tides are still safe for human consumption.

Gobler said the installation of septic systems capable of removing more nitrogen in homes, especially that fall within watershed areas, would go a long way toward reducing hazardous algal blooms. Suffolk County has taken steps in recent months to increase grant money available to homeowners interested in installing septic systems with up-to-date technology capable of reducing the amount of nitrogen discharged into local waters. In addition, members of the New York State-funded Center for Clean Water Technology at SBU unveiled their nitrogen-reducing biofilter April 26 at a Suffolk County-owned home in Shirley.

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From left, Christopher Gobler with his research team Andrew Griffith, Theresa Hattenrath-Lehmann and Yoonja Kang. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Christopher Gobler searches the waters around Long Island for signs of trouble, which can appear starting in April. This year, he found it, in Shinnecock Bay. Monitoring for a toxin carried by algae called Alexandrium, Gobler recently discovered levels that were three times the allowable limit from the Food and Drug Administration. His finding, along with measurements from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation of toxins in shellfish in the bay, have caused the recent closure of shellfishing in the bay for the fourth time in seven years.

While Gobler, a marine science professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, watches carefully for the appearance of red tides from these algae locally, he recently completed a much broader study on the spread of these toxins.

Gobler led a team that explored the effect of ocean warming on two types of algae, Alexandrium and Dinophysis. Since 1982, as the oceans have heated up, these algae have become increasingly common, particularly in the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, according to a study Gobler and his colleagues recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When they become concentrated in shellfish, these algae can lead to diarrhea, paralysis and even death if people consume enough of them.

Over the course of the study, algae have begun to form “denser populations that are making shellfish toxic,” Gobler said. Temperature is one of many factors that can affect the survival, growth and range of organisms like the algae that can accumulate toxins and create human illness. “As temperatures get higher, they are becoming closer to the ideal for some species and out of the ideal for other species,” Gobler said.

The strongest effect of changing temperatures are at higher latitudes, which were, up until recently, prohibitively cold for these types of algae. The biggest changes over the course of the study came in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, in Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and Alaska. The toxic algal blooms increased in frequency between 40 and 60 degrees north latitude, according to the study. These are places where toxic algae lived but weren’t as prevalent, but the warming trend has created a more hospitable environment, Gobler said.

Raphael Kudela, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz who wasn’t involved in this research, explained that other papers have suggested a similar link between temperature and the movement of these algae. “We’ve seen the expansion of ciguatera fish poisoning, as the temperature range has moved poleward for those algae,” Kudela wrote in an email. NOAA biological oceanographer Stephanie Moore has documented an expanded window of opportunity for paralytic shellfish poisoning linked to changes in temperature, Kudela said. “While we can point to specific events, and it makes intuitive sense, the Gobler paper actually documented these trends using a long time series, which hasn’t been done before,” Kudela continued.

R. Wayne Litaker, a supervisory ecologist at NOAA’s National Ocean Service, collaborated with Gobler on the project. He said small differences in temperature are significant for the growth rate of these toxic algae. Extending this to other organisms, Litaker explained that fish are also extending their ranges amid a rise in global temperatures. “There’s been a general movement of temperate species toward the poles,” Litaker said. He’s seen tropical fish, such as butterfly fish, off the docks of North Carolina that he hadn’t seen that far north before.

Gobler and his colleagues estimate that the need to close shellfish beds, the increase in fish kills, and the health care damage to people has exceeded a billion dollars since 1982. The largest problem for people in areas like Alaska is their lack of experience with red tides.

“Communities are being exposed to these blooms where they had not been in the past,” Gobler said. “[The blooms] can be most dangerous when they take a community by surprise.” Gobler said this happened in Alaska during the study. In the last decade, shellfish toxins that are 1,000 times more potent than cyanide caused illnesses and were suspected in two deaths in Haines, Alaska.

Litaker said he gave a talk several years ago at a conference. Gobler approached him and asked if they could work together. “One of the wonderful things about these meetings is that you see things that trigger possibilities and whole new projects are born,” Litaker said.

Litaker described Gobler as a “major player in the field” who has done “fantastic work over the years.” Litaker said he was “quite impressed with what he’s done.” Litaker explained that the climate is changing and urged fisheries and shellfish experts to prepare to respond throughout the country. “As we get warmer and more run off of nutrients, toxic cyanobacteria [algal blooms] are causing problems in all 50 states,” Litaker said.

Kudela suggested that the “new records every year for the last several years … will undoubtedly continue to impact the range, duration and toxicity of blooms.”

Locally, Gobler continues to monitor dozens of sites on Long Island, where he suggested that Alexandrium could become less prevalent with warming, while Dinophysis could become more common. Temperature and other factors favorable for algae growth have led to red tides in the past.

In oceans across the world, Kudela said the next logical step would be to explore the interaction of temperature and nutrients. “We know both are changing, and they are likely to have additive or synergistic effects, but we haven’t done the same careful study as the Gobler paper looking at how the trends are interacting,” he explained.

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