Lake Erie is the shallowest and smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and is heavily influenced by agricultural and urban runoff. It is subject to periodic outbreaks of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and hypoxia. These problems were identified as the highest priority of the International Joint Commission (IJC) as it drafts guidelines and targets [...]
An unusually warm winter means Northport and Huntington waters may see an early arrival, and exit, of red tide this year, said Dr. Chris Gobler of Stony Brook University, an expert on toxic algal blooms. Speaking at the Northport Harbor Water Quality Protection Committee meeting at Huntington Town Hall on Thursday, Gobler explained that warmer [...]
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation recently hosted a meeting in Albany, NY that brought together potential federal partners to discuss NY’s Great Lakes current efforts and ways forward to remove Beneficial Use Impairments and monitor the recovery of Areas of Concern (hot spots). NCCOS scientists shared with NY State AOC coordinators and managers its past, current [...]
Representatives from the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science met with the Federal-State Areas of Concern Coordinating Committee (FEDSTACC), a group of regional stakeholders from across the Great Lakes basin, to discuss the common goals of removing EPA-designated Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI) from designated sites and monitoring the recovery of EPA-designated Areas of Concern (AOCs), areas defined by [...]
EPA Region 5 in Chicago recently hosted the second meeting on “effects-based” monitoring in the Great Lakes and scientists from NCCOS’ Mussel Watch Program attended. Scientists have long recognized that chemical contaminant monitoring in environmental matrices is expensive and limited in its ability to identify ecological risk. Molecular, biochemical, histological and morphological changes in organisms are useful to risk [...]
A new study mapping out habitats in and around the waters off New York was released on Tuesday, bringing the state a step closer to determining the potential for wind energy projects offshore. The study is the product of a two-year joint effort by New York’s Department of State and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric [...]
On March 20, 2012, NOAA and New York’s Department of State jointly announced the release of A Biogeographic Assessment of Seabirds, Deep Sea Corals and Ocean Habitats of the New York Bight. The 2-year study, led by scientists at NCCOS and New York’s Department of State Ocean and Great Lakes Program, will advance New York’s management of its [...]
Research conducted by scientists at the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s (NCCOS) will be published as a chapter in, Quagga and Zebra Mussels: Biology, Impacts, and Control, Second Edition, edited by Thomas Nalepa (NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory). The book will include over 30 chapters dealing with ecological consequences of dreissenid mussels in [...]