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Christopher 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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Dr. Hal Walker, co-director of the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology, speaks during a symposium at Stony Brook University Thursday, June 23, 2016. Photo by Barry Sloan

By Daniel Dunaief

Water, water everywhere and Harold “Hal” Walker is making sure there’s more than a few drops on Long Island to drink. The head of the new Department of Civil Engineering at Stony Brook is one of two co-directors of the Center for Clean Water Technology. The center received a $5 million commitment from New York State to pilot test a variety of ways to remove contaminants from drinking water.

“The center will be working with water authorities and water utilities to do pilot testing of new technology to deal with emerging contaminants,” Walker said. “One goal of the testing will be to collect information needed to assess new technologies and, if they are effective, to get them approved so they can be used by water utilities.”

Contaminants the center will explore include 1,4-dioxane and perfluorinated compounds, which have “turned up in some regions of Long Island,” Christopher Gobler, the co-director of the center and an associate dean for research and professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, explained in an email.

’One lesson we have learned is that it is critically important to protect the environment, since the environment serves as a natural buffer to these large storms.’ — Harold Walker

The technologies the center will test likely include novel membrane processes, advanced oxidation, novel absorbents and advanced oxidation processes. The center will explore “how these compounds are removed in conventional drinking water treatments processes,” Walker said. “If they are not removed sufficiently, what do novel technologies use and are they ready for the pilot stage?” Walker acknowledges that staying ahead of the curve in being prepared to protect drinking water requires an awareness of numerous new compounds that are a part of modern manufacturing.

Gobler said the center’s findings would be made public. New York State had previously committed $3.5 million from the Environmental Protection Fund to support the center. With an additional $5 million in funding, the center will develop new technologies to improve drinking water and wastewater quality on Long Island, according to the State Department of Environmental Protection.

The center was formed originally to focus on innovative alternative individual onsite treatment systems for reduction of nitrogen and pathogens. That was broadened this year to focus on the impact of emerging contaminants on water supplies, a representative from the DEC explained in an email.

Walker has built an expertise in developing and applying membrane processes for drinking and wastewater. At Ohio State University, where he worked from 1996 until 2012, when he came to Stony Brook, he spent considerable time analyzing drinking water in the Great Lakes. Gobler appreciates Walker’s expertise.“

He has worked with many federal and state agencies on these topics across the United States,” Gobler explained. “He is also well-versed in wastewater treatment technologies.”

Jennifer Garvey, the associate director for the center, meets with Garvey and Walker at least once a week. She also connects weekly for a call or meeting to discuss administrative and strategic issues. Walker is “at the leading edge of water treatment approaches and he understands where opportunities and obstacles lie,” Garvey said. The center has a sense of urgency about the work because “there is such a clear and immense need for wastewater infrastructure improvements,” she continued. The targeted and strategic work emphasizes near-term solutions. A leading focus is a nonproprietary passive system known as a nitrogen removing biofilter that they will be piloting in Suffolk County soon. “Our hope is that we can make systems available for widespread deployment within the next two to three years,” she said.

Apart from his work at the center, which Walker estimates takes about a third of his time, he is also a professor and the founding chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, which conferred bachelor’s degrees on its inaugural 13 undergraduate students this summer. Those students have all found engineering jobs within their field of interest or continued to pursue additional schooling. The civil engineering department has 10 faculty and is at the end of the first phase of its growth and development, Walker said.

Phase II will include building out the faculty and staff, developing new research and teaching labs and enhancing the recently approved master’s of science and doctoral programs in civil engineering, Walker explained. Resiliency of the coastal communities is a major thrust of his department. He said he recently hired a number of faculty in this area and launched an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Coastal Zone Management and Engineering in partnership with the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. “One lesson we have learned is that it is critically important to protect the environment, since the environment serves as a natural buffer to these large storms,” he explained.

Apart from water and the resilience of the coastal community, the civil engineering department is also involved in transportation. The department works with Farmingdale State College in a new Infrastructure, Transportation and Security Center. In that effort, the department collaborates with the Department of Computer Science, among others at Stony Brook, to bring new approaches to “improving the efficiency, sustainability and safety of our transportation system.”

For his part, Gobler welcomes the talent and expertise the civil engineering department brings to Stony Brook. “This is a tremendous asset” for Stony Brook, Gobler explained in an email. “Civil engineers solve complex problems and I have found that [Walker] and the people he has hired have the skill set and mind-set to address many environmental problems that are important on Long Island.

A resident of Port Jefferson, Walker lives with his wife Alyssa, who is a writer, and their three children, Abby, 14, Halliway, six, and Northie, who is five. They enjoy visiting the beach and traveling east to go apple and pumpkin picking. A native of Southern California, Walker started surfing at the age of 10. He was a four-year varsity letterman in surfing when he was in high school. He has surfed in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Japan, Portugal and Mexico.

As for the department, he said he feels excited by the responsibility for building only the second civil engineering program in the SUNY system. “I’d like the department to quickly become nationally recognized and be the leading source of expertise for the state on infrastructure issues, especially in the downstate area,” he said.

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Suffolk officials discuss environmental issues facing Long Island after thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Riverhead. Photo by Alex Petroski

The estimated nearly 100,000 dead bunker fish that have washed ashore in Riverhead may seem astounding, but it wasn’t all that surprising to the panel of experts brought before the Suffolk County Health Committee on Thursday.

In late May, the thousands of dead bunker fish, formally known as Atlantic menhaden fish, began appearing in the Peconic Estuary, an area situated between the North and South Forks of Long Island. According to a June 2 press release from the Peconic Estuary Program, the bunker fish died as a result of low dissolved oxygen in the water. This shortage of oxygen is called hypoxia.

Walter Dawydiak, director of the county’s environmental quality division, who serves on the panel, which was organized by the health committee chairman, Legislator William “Doc” Spencer (D-Centerport), testified that the number of dead fish was at or approaching 100,000.

“This one is bigger and worse than any,” Dawydiak said.

According to the PEP, which is part of the National Estuary Program and seeks to conserve the estuary, bunker are filter-feeding fish and an important food source for many predatory fish, including striped bass and blue fish.

Alison Branco, the program’s director, said the fish are likely being chased into shallow waters by predators, but are dying because of low dissolved oxygen levels in the waters. In addition, an algae bloom is contributing to the low levels and is fueled by excess nitrogen loading. Much of that nitrogen comes from septic systems, sewage treatment plants and fertilizer use.

“We’ve reach a point where this kind of hypoxia was run of the mill. We expect it every summer,” Branco, who also served as a panelist, said following the hearing.

While magnitude of the fish kill was astounding, the experts said they weren’t so surprised that it happened.

“I definitely thought it could happen at any time,” Christopher Gobler, a biologist at Stony Brook University, said in a one-on-one interview after the panel hearing. “There’s been an oxygen problem there all along.”

Gobler called it largest fish kill he’d seen in 20 years.

According to panel members, the worst of the fish kill occurred between May 27 and May 30.

Branco did suggest that this shocking environmental event could be turned into a positive if the right measures are taken sooner rather than later.

“It’s always shocking to see a fish kill,” she said. “As much as we don’t want to have things like that happen I think the silver lining is that it did capture the public’s attention.”

Prevention of a fish kill this large is possible, according to Branco. While preventing the harmful algal blooms is not possible, reducing the frequency and severity can be done if the amount of nitrogen in the coastal water supply is controlled.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an environmental policy advocacy group, agreed that curtailing the amount of nitrogen in the water is the easiest and most impactful way for prevention of a fish kill of this magnitude.

“The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step,” Esposito said in response to a question about the daunting task of fixing the Island’s sewage treatment techniques and facilities on a limited budget.

Esposito described the roughly $5 million from New York State, which was allotted to Suffolk County to deal with cleaning the coastal water supply, as seed money. Esposito and Branco both said they believe the commitment of time and money required to solve the nitrogen problem in the water supply will be vast.

“We can do this,” she said. “We have to do it. We have no choice.”

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