Water Quality
Priorities for Healthy Beaches and Seafood
Oyster Photo credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Division
To help ensure healthy beaches and safe seafood in our coastal areas, the Alliance has identified four water quality priorities that will guide the partnership’s efforts:
- Reducing risk of exposure to disease-causing pathogens in coastal waters,
- Minimizing occurrence and effects of harmful algal blooms (HABs),
- Identifying sources of mercury in Gulf seafood, and
- Improving monitoring of Gulf water resources.
These issues are far-reaching and are best addressed through regional-scale efforts such as the Alliance.
Long-term Goals
- Develop a monitoring network that identifies the sources of pathogens and their impacts
- Implement a HAB tracking and forecasting system that supports the reduction or elimination of blooms and can be used to minimize the negative effects
- Reduce the risk of mercury-induced health effects from Gulf seafood consumption
- Develop a monitoring network that provides vital information about the status and trends of Gulf water quality
ACTIONS
Water Quality 1: Coastal Pathogens
Action: Improve the understanding of waterborne, disease-causing microorganisms (pathogens), including their sources and survival so that coastal managers can make informed decisions that benefit public health and coastal economies.
White Paper Published in "Journal of Water and Health"
The USEPA is revising its recreational water quality criteria and some of those changes reflect points raised in a white paper written by the Water Quality Team and published in the Journal of Water and Health. The paper outlined a number of concerns regarding existing and proposed methods and criteria, including ensuring that criteria formulation uses data that include Gulf of Mexico-specific conditions, that rapid-testing methods be feasible and adequately controlled, and that USEPA maintains investments in water quality research once the new criteria are promulgated in order to assure that outstanding scientific questions are addressed and that scientifically defensible criteria are achieved for the Gulf of Mexico.
Project Contact:
Steve Wolfe
steve.wolfe@dep.state.fl.us
Water Quality 2: Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)
Action: Reduce the effects of HABs by improving our ability to detect, track, forecast, and mitigate HAB movement and their effects along the Gulf Coast.
Overview of Methods for Sampling and Analyzing HAB Toxins
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Project Contact:
Steve Wolfe
steven.wolfe@dep.state.fl.us
Water Quality 3: Mercury in Seafood
Action: Identify sources of mercury in Gulf fishery resources, understand its presence in the Gulf food web, and develop the ability to reduce the human health risk of exposure.
Click for agenda, presentations, etc. from the October 2011 Mercury Forum....
Conceptual Model for Mercury Cycling in the Gulf
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Project Contact:
Steve Wolfe
Steven.wolfe@dep.state.fl.us
Water Quality 4: Monitoring
Action: Obtain and provide vital information about the conditions of Gulf waters to support better management decisions regarding coastal fisheries, recreation, tourism, public health, and infrastructure planning.
Recommendations for Long Term Monitoring in the Gulf
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Project Contact:
Steve Wolfe
Steven.wolfe@dep.state.fl.us
