The significance of dilution in evaluating possible impacts of wastewater discharges from large cruise ships.

In response to public concerns about discharges from large cruise ships, Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) sampled numerous effluents in the summer of 2000. The data showed that basic marine sanitation device (MSD) technology for black water (sewage) was not performing as expected. Untreated gray water had high levels of conventional pollutants and surprisingly high levels of bacteria. Both black water and gray water discharges sometimes exceeded state water quality standards for toxicants. The state convened a Science Advisory Panel (the Panel) to evaluate impacts associated with cruise ship wastewater discharges. The effluent data received wide media coverage and increased public concerns. Consequently, legislative decisions were made at the State and Federal level, and regulations were imposed before the Panel completed its evaluation. The Panel demonstrated that following the rapid dilution from moving cruise ships, the effluent data from the Summer of 2000 would not have exceeded water quality standards, and environmental effects were not expected.

Estrogens from sewage in coastal marine environments.

Estrogens are ancient molecules that act as hormones in vertebrates and are biologically active in diverse animal phyla. Sewage contains natural and synthetic estrogens that are detectable in streams, rivers, and lakes. There are no studies reporting the distribution of steroidal estrogens in marine environments. We measured estrogens in sewage, injection-well water, and coastal tropical and offshore tropical water in the Pacific Ocean, western Atlantic Ocean, and Caribbean Sea. Concentrations of unconjugated estrone ranged from undetectable (< 40 pg/L) in the open ocean to nearly 2,000 pg/L in Key West, Florida, and Rehoboth Bay, Delaware (USA); estrone concentrations were highest near sources of sewage. Enzymatic hydrolysis of steroid conjugates in seawater samples indicated that polar conjugates comprise one-half to two-thirds of "total estrone" (unconjugated plus conjugated) in Hawaiian coastal samples. Adsorption to basalt gravel and carbonate sand was less than 20% per week and indicates that estrogens can easily leach into the marine environment from septic fields and high-estrogen groundwater. Of 20 sites (n = 129 samples), the mean values from 12 sites were above the threshold concentration for uptake into coral, indicating that there is a net uptake of anthropogenic steroidal estrogen into these environments, with unknown impacts.

Alkalinity to calcium flux ratios for corals and coral reef communities: variances between isolated and community conditions.

Calcification in reef corals and coral reefs is widely measured using the alkalinity depletion method which is based on the fact that two protons are produced for every mole of CaCO3 precipitated. This assumption was tested by measuring the total alkalinity (TA) flux and Ca(2+) flux of isolated components (corals, alga, sediment and plankton) in reference to that of a mixed-community. Experiments were conducted in a flume under natural conditions of sunlight, nutrients, plankton and organic matter. A realistic hydrodynamic regime was provided. Groups of corals were run separately and in conjunction with the other reef components in a mixed-community. The TA flux to Ca(2+) flux ratio (ΔTA: ΔCa(2+)) was consistently higher in the coral-only run (2.06 ± 0.19) than in the mixed-community run (1.60 ± 0.14, p-value = 0.011). The pH was higher and more stable in the mixed-community run (7.94 ± 0.03 vs. 7.52 ± 0.07, p-value = 3 × 10(-5)). Aragonite saturation state (Ω arag) was also higher in the mixed-community run (2.51 ± 0.2 vs. 1.12 ± 0.14, p-value = 2 × 10(-6)). The sediment-only run revealed that sediment is the source of TA that can account for the lower ΔTA: ΔCa(2+) ratio in the mixed-community run. The macroalgae-only run showed that algae were responsible for the increased pH in the mixed-community run. Corals growing in a mixed-community will experience an environment that is more favorable to calcification (higher daytime pH due to algae photosynthesis, additional TA and inorganic carbon from sediments, higher Ω arag). A paradox is that the alkalinity depletion method will yield a lower net calcification for a mixed-community versus a coral-only community due to TA recycling, even though the corals may be calcifying at a higher rate due to a more optimal environment.