DEP: Algae along N.J. appears to be thinning
Home News Tribune Online 06/1/07
By TODD B. BATES
GANNETT NEW JERSEY


LOCH ARBOUR -- As a heavy algae bloom appeared to be diminishing Thursday, activists urged Gov. Corzine's administration to take steps to protect coastal water quality and the Shore.

They include reining in coastal overdevelopment, controlling stormwater runoff and limiting nitrogen, an algae nutrient, from sewage-treatment plants, they said.

"I think it's important to recognize . . . we're playing roulette . . . with the Jersey Shore that people love," said Benson Chiles of the Coastal Ocean Coalition and Environmental Defense.

The coalition's policy agenda deserves consideration but should be accomplished by working with the administration and Legislature, said Lisa P. Jackson, state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner.

On Thursday, a heavy algae bloom was still affecting waters and beaches in Raritan and Sandy Hook bays, and "patches of heavy algae were also observed in the surf to approximately 300 yards offshore from Sandy Hook south to Manasquan Inlet," the DEP Web site said.

"Algae appears to be diminishing from earlier this week," it said.

Jackson noted that the DEP recently announced a number of water quality initiatives.

The dominant species of algae in the heavy bloom, a diatom called Dactyliosolen fragilissimus, is not harmful to human or ecological health, unless it goes to the bottom and depletes dissolved oxygen, according to officials.

The bloom, which turned waters brown and triggered complaints from beachgoers and boaters last weekend, is the heaviest DEP officials can remember in years, Virginia Loftin, a Department of Environmental Protection research scientist, said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Frank J. Pallone, D-6th Dist., and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., urged the immediate reinstatement of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's helicopter monitoring program for dissolved oxygen and bacteria off the New Jersey coast, according to an e-mail from Pallone's Office.

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