V RaptureChrist Newsletter
July-August, 2005

How can something so big die?  Covering over 70% of the surface of Planet Earth, the oceans provide us with 80% of the oxygen produced.  We depend on them for our survival.  The oceans depend on nutrients from rivers to sustain life, but if too much nitrogen is added, then the aqueous environment promotes algal dominance and the water turns murky green - this is called a phytoplankton bloom.  These phytoplankton blooms de-oxygenate the water when the overabundant algae die,  fall to the bottom, and begin to slowly decompose turning the bright green water into a nasty blackish green blob of slimy dead water.  The surface of the ocean changes from deep blue to a bright vivid green similar in color to a pool without chlorine.  This foul murky water does not allow sunlight to penetrate so corals and other sea life begins to die off.

It is artificial fertilizers from farmers' fields that leach into rivers and streams. This nitrogen/phosphorus  runoff causes the dramatic green phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. 

The 2003 report from the Pew Oceans Commission says that over 60 percent of our coastal rivers and bays are moderately to severely degraded by excessive nutrient runoff.

Klaus Toepfer, UN environment programme (Unep) Executive Director, said: “Human-kind is engaged in a gigantic, global, experiment as a result of the inefficient and often over-use of fertilizers, the discharge of untreated sewage, and the ever rising emissions from vehicles and factories. The nitrogen and phosphorous from these sources are being discharged into rivers and the coastal environment or being deposited from the atmosphere, triggering these alarming and sometimes irreversible effects.”

“Some of these so called dead zones or oxygen starved areas are relatively small, less than one square kilometre in size, whereas others are far larger at up to 70,000 square kilometres. What is clear is, that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly “

According to Klaus Toepfer there are 150 dead zones or oxygen starved areas in the oceans of the world, caused by excessive levels of nutrient load (mainly nitrogen) in river water. For example, the dead zone just off Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of the state of New Jersey about 22,000 square kilometers.  Every year, the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers dump 1.6 million metric tons of nitrogen (mostly nitrate) from agricultural fertilizers into the Gulf of Mexico. These amounts are about three times what was dumped in the 1950's.  Farmers are responsible for most of this nitrogen. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is growing in size as more nitrogen comes in every year from the Mississippi River, but there are other much larger major dead zones.  In Europe, the Eastern Baltic is a permanent dead zone -- over 100,000 square kilometers; the Adriatic Sea in the Mediterranean, and the entire Black Sea below the pycnocline are also permanent dead zones.

New dead zones are developing. There is  now a new dead zone that formed in Chesapeake Bay after 2003, this dead zone is over 150 kilometers long. The ecosystems appear to have reached their breaking point.

In addition to excess nitrogen in the water, man made non-biodegradable plastics are a grave concern. There are now places in the ocean where there is more plastic than plankton.

According to Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Sargasso Sea, a prime spawning ground for fish, is filled with plastic - in excess of 3,500 parts per square kilometer. The same ratio is found in the North Pacific subtropical gyre. We are using this latter region as an "oceanfill" - a landfill on water.

The Pacific Gyre, a circular current with an area roughly the size of Texas, is a floating trash heap. This ugly eyesore in an area that should be pristine ocean is full of the detritus of modern civilization - plastic bottle caps, candy wrappers, bags, and other non-biodegradable objects which float as mute testament that our oceans have been turned into a gigantic cesspool.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, world's leading expert on floating junk, has begun calling the area the "eastern garbage patch."  It is full of the non-biodegradable detritus of industrialized Asia -- nations such as Japan, China, and Korea.

Charles Moore, head of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation calculates that there are three million tons of plastic waste currently floating in the ocean, and more is being added every day. Worldwide, about one billion tons of plastic are produced every year, and part of this mountain of garbage finds its way into rivers and streams which ultimately lead to the ocean as the final dumping ground of our "modern" civilization.

These floating fragments do not decompose, as no bacteria can digest plastic, but slowly break down into smaller pieces.  Mr. Moore calculates that it will take 500 years for "photodegradation" to totally decompose the floating plastic junk, but due to the fact that plastic waste continues to be produced, this problem cannot disappear. Charles Moore states "And for the past fifty years or so, plastics that have made their way into the Pacific Ocean have been fragmenting and accumulating as a kind of swirling sewer in the North Pacific subtropical gyre."

Plastic product waste is widespread; it is not limited to the North Pacific gyre. Charles Moore states that in the waters just off Los Angeles, there are two and one half pounds of plastic per pound of plankton.

Another contributor to ocean pollution are cruise ships. With modern ships carrying thousands of passengers on week- long cruises,  it is very expensive for a ship to have to carry millions of gallons of wastewater until it gets to port.  Cruise ships can "legally" dump raw sewage and garbage once they are three miles offshore, except in Alaska. These floating toilets are exempt from the clean water act.  According to the agency of Oceana, cruise ships generate up to 25,000 gallons per day of sewage from toilets, and 143,000 gallons per day of wastewater from showers, sinks, and galleys were food is prepared. When onboard a cruise ship, I was told that sharks follow the ship to eat garbage thrown overboard, and that sharks would start to ram the boat if no garbage was thrown overboard because they were hungry.

Jacques Cousteau said that the Mediterranean Sea, once teaming with fish, had turned into an oceanic desert devoid of life.  He showed films he had taken in the 50's of an area near France with giant schools of fish.  Films of the same area, thirty years later, were barren of life.  This effect was more pronounced in the shores of the Mediterranean near highly industrialized France, but it was a pattern that he saw develop not only in the Mediterranean Sea, but everywhere.  

These were his words in 1969: "I am diving since 33 years and I'm still diving actively.  I have made comparisons between some interesting places in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, in the Indian Ocean, in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and mainly in California, and I must say that, in all these places, the change is radical.  The vitality of nature has decreased at least 50%, or more, since 33 years.  In the Mediterranean, there are practically no fish on the coast anymore; there were plenty 30 years ago. The groupers have totally disappeared."

A fishing film. made in the 40's shows the mentality that lead to this rapid decline.

By the time Jacques Cousteau died in 1997, conditions in the oceans had grown much worse.

In the 1990's the most productive fishery in the world,  the Georges Bank, off Newfoundland Canada was destroyed.

Scientists blame overfishing of cod in the Georges Bank of Newfoundland for the population crash that reduced the number of fish by more than 95% from 1990 to 1994.