River, acquatic health tips and links - not all nutrients are good!

And it is another blooming hot day, however, am glad to say I heard some good news on the smelly rivers and stinky inlet front.  I shall backtrack for a moment.  I was down at Barwon Heads for our annual summer jaunt in January, and I noticed a smell in the inlet as I was swimming in my favourite spot, where many of the Sea Change TV scenes were filmed.  There was a smell I had never noticed before at the Heads, which made me want to clamber out of the water 'tout de suite'.  Later my suspicions were confirmed that algal blooms were posing a huge problem in the area, and these were probably the cause of the smell. These blooms create a green tinge on the surface of our waterways, and a gasey odour. They are caused by high levels of nutrients and other 'nasties' seeping in to the rivers and acquatic systems.When untreated sewerage gets in to drains or when loads of sediment flows in to our rivers, or when we feed our gardens with phoshorus and nitrogent rich fertilisers these materials seep in to our ground-water and active river systems and cause a chemical imbalance.

Fish get poisoned by the toxicity of the water, oxygen levels drop, the waterways become a no-go zone, and people and pets swimming (unaware of the risks) in these systems can come down with cyanobacteria poisoning, too.  Entire seafood, fishing and tourism industries get affected by these blooms.

Am seeing reports of these outbreaks in New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada, and no doubt other places I've not yet stumbled across.

The great news is that scientists at the CSIRO in Australia are coming up with antidotes to the formation of these blue green algae, and one of these is Phoslock, a type of clay which stops the release of the nutrients. I heard on the radio today that this substance is being distributed in around 20 countries already.  The other good green news about these green (and often red or pink) blooms, is that not all algal blooms are harmful.

Here is a link to the wonderful CSIRO's discussion on point.

Footage of our beaches turning red from algal blooms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=NRJUTj63Zmg&feature=endscreen

Some more video links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhJs9jfhI4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmKgd7w5-rk (funny - mostly - educational video)

In the meantime, what can we do to minimise these blooms:

(1) fertilise our lawns, gardens and productive plots with organic, low nutrient fertilisers.
(2) use low phosphate laundry powders and detergents as sewerage run-off to seas and waterways does commonly occur
(3) take care with our pets toilet habits (pick up after them)
(4) instal rain gardens or encourage our councils to do this
(5) farming regulations need to be rigorously enforced and buffer zones be created around waterways to ensure ruminant animals don't do their 'business' around rivers and creeks

What we feed our earth feeds us!

Rather worrying when you ponder that what we feed our gardens can end up playing havoc with our body functions in more ways than one.  Indeed, people are getting sick from eating mussels, due to algal blooms.  An entire shellfish farm has been closed in Tasmania and the shellfish has had to be recalled.

Typically, these algal blooms are not just due to natural processes in the waterways, but are caused by man-made land-management factors.  So that means that what we feed our gardens and agricultural crops ends up in the waterways (nutrients such as phosporus and nitrogen) and ends up in our rivers and potentially then ends up in our stomachs, depending on our diet, of course.

(I wrote a few blogs on this a while back, as these algal blooms have been happening all over Australia.)

So, let's remember to avoid over-feeding our gardens with fertilisers, as this gets in to the drains and ground-water and creates a chemical imbalance in our eco-systems at large.

Algal bloom waterways campaign growing

Glad, as I said in a recent post, to hear that the connection between land use and our waterways is becoming better understood.

Over recent months I have been writing letters in to newspapers, and on other blogs hoping that this issue will get in to the spot-light.

Here is one of the submissions I wrote to the Age, and sometime later an article was done on this.  So hopefully  annoying the Editor or the environmental editor did make a difference.

Like land – like local landscapes.        

Most of us tend to think of private landscapes, public landscapes or rural landscapes, as though these are separate, distinct and different. “One is out in my backyard, one is shared, and the last one is lurking out there in the wild, somewhere.”  With land-management issues, like weeds, and land-clearing, we city-dwellers tend to think, 'Oh, that only happens on the land.’

In fact, we all live on the land, and all land zonings have a lot in common.  Our landscapes are teeming with natural and man-made biological processes which may be in need of some taming! 

Take the blue-green algae outbreak in Lake Burley Griffin (ACT) which is preventing locals from swimming (Canberra Times, 7 January, 2012).   Algal blooms (or cyanobacteria) are caused by too many nutrients and contaminants entering our waterways from both agricultural land and private land.   Elements contributing to these algae consist of phosphorus, nitrogen, animal and human effluent and other pathogens.   Nutrients sound generally nourishing and positive (!), but as with anything an over-dose of any nutrient can make humans, wild-life and our land extremely ill.  Algicides can’t be used to eradicate the algal blooms, because they are also harmful to other (beneficial) organisms and animals in the water-ways.

Right now these blue-green algal blooms are multiplying in the Gippsland Lakes (Vic), Goulburn Murray region, and are found at different times in much of Australian waterways.

Many of us don’t realise that building up our gardens (commonly referred to as ‘the outdoor room’) and urban landscapes do mean more stormwater run off to creeks.  Our activities in our backyards have huge consequences as nutrients, animal matter, sewerage over-flows, hydrocarbons enter our creeks and make their way to the sea. It may not be surprising that Melbourne beaches got a ‘fair’ rating recently, which isn’t wonderful news for local tourism or for marine life.  

Most people don’t take an interest in the contents of our drains.  But, most of us do like gardens, wildlife, and dangling our feet in the sea! These are some steps we can take to reduce the detriment to our wildlife and marine life, and they really aren’t that difficult. As a minimum, we should:

Allow for more porous surfaces in our gardens so that more stormwater is absorbed  and less water gets flushed away down drains. Outdoor rooms should be downsized, as these tend to involve hard, non-permeable areas with increased urban run-off to drains.

·       
          Avoid using chemical fertilisers on our gardens and lawns (look for organic, seaweed solutions). Pesticides may be avoided if we practice companion planting, and mix up the species a bit more, and increase bio-diversity.

·       
          Pick up pets’ droppings

If we are real devotees, we can :

·         

      Chose landscapers that practice or are certified as sustainable landscape designers (who practice erosion, contamination and sedimentary control). (Eg SGA's ECLIPS programme). 

·        

      Chose organic food or grow our own, as chemicals in farming are leaching out and affecting our eco-systems and ground-water.

·        

      Buy food from community markets selling locally produced food, where broad-acre farming is less likely to be practiced.  

·        

      If possible, incorporate a rain-garden (inground or above ground) and plant plants with bio-filtration functions (cleaning out hydrocarbons, nutrients, sediment).

Many farmers and land-managers are already setting up the necessary safeguards. These are just some of the things farmers can do to protect our waterways:

·       Ensure buffer zones are placed (10m wide) each side of farming land to reduce run-off to local waterways.

·        

      Ensure these buffer zones (natural vegetation) are preserved and managed to avoid erosion and loss of vegetation in times of drought.

·        

      Restrict farming stock from grazing near creeks and tributaries as grazing can cause erosion to river banks and mean contamination of waterway

      

      Control the use of agricultural chemicals and restrict their use well away from waterways and buffer zones. 

Well-considered approaches in relation to our urban backyard management and farm-land are needed. 


This means a multi-disciplinary team of government personnel, town-planners, WSUD experts, horticulturalists, land-managers coming together to address common problems like top-soil disturbance, contamination and bio-diversity threats which affect us what-ever type of land we inhabit.

Nicolle Kuna is a Melbourne blogger, web-site writer and project worker and someone who likes to drone on about drains and be loquacious about landscapes (since completing her qualification in Sustainable Landscape Design).  She has a blogspot: BloomingandBold.Blogspot.com.  In her previous life, she campaigned with the Australian Democrats (House of Reps) on environmental issues, was a lawyer, and author of Common-Sense Law, Hybrid Publishers. 

The landscape mimicks the land

Blue-green algae in Gippsland lakes and elsewhere are making havoc for local fishing, wild-life, and of course tourism.  Blue-green algae is caused by excess nutrients entering the waterways, due to sewerage run-off and over fertilisation. Our lands grow barren as we turn over crops without practicing traditional crop rotation, companion planting or other permaculture principles. Meanwhile birds and other pollinators head off to greener pastures.  Hence pests become a problem and the bad cycle continues with pesticide use on the rise and land and habitat degradation compounding as a result. The land needs a bit of a rest. 

Similar things are happening at the local urban level, in our back-yards as we are turning them in to mono-cultures resulting from more streamlined gardens, which means the pollinators don't have much to attract them.  Again off the birds and bees go to greener pastures. Urban run-off leaves little water left in the ground, with the water-table needing replenishing after years of drought.  Run-off to creeks, and oceans is on the increase as we continue to build up our back-yards. Fertilisers high with nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogent) leach in to the ground and flow off in to creeks which lead to the sea, again causing blue-green algae blooms, and making eco-systems sick.  I wonder if it is a coincidence that  our Melbourne metropolitan beaches are being rated as 'fair' .

Remember, that our back-yards, though seemingly just our private domain are also an extension of the wider land and our waterways, and we should be much more careful as to how we use them.