Algae are in bloom, and they're choking life out of Barnegat Bay

On a clear morning in the Barnegat Bay, Pete McLain takes a small boatout to survey what's left of the beds of eelgrass underwater. Havingworked with the state's Department of Environmental Protection fornearly 50 years, he has studied the bay for a large part of his life.In the early 1930s, New Jersey's eelgrass - a form of sea grass thatserves as a habitat and food source for many marine species - was almostwiped out by disease. After decades of recovery, the eelgrass could belost once again."It's really not growing very well here," said McLain, 82, as he holdsshort, discolored blades in his hand. Healthy eelgrass grows to 3 to 4feet long, more than 10 times as long as what he sees in the bay.McLain, director of the Emily DeCamp Herbarium at Island Beach StatePark, and several other volunteers and students collect samples ofeelgrass and macroalgae. He estimates they have collected 20 to 30different species of algae since the project began earlier this year.The macroalgae in the bay have increased exponentially in recent years.McLain believes it's due to excess nitrogen coming from human waste thatfinds its way into the bay. Nitrogen is an essential element - itoutnumbers oxygen in the atmosphere almost four to one - and algaethrive on it.But eelgrass thrives on sunlight, and with so much algae covering theplants, the sunlight is unable to reach them, preventing photosynthesisand their ability to create oxygen for the species underwater that needit to live.Brick Township resident Christi Campbell, 19, is one of the students whois helping McLain with his research this summer. McLain takes studentsand other volunteers out to different parts of the bay, where they rakeup whatever algae they can find.As she pulls algae from the bay, Campbell peels the algae from theeelgrass. In many instances, the algae completely surround every blade."The light doesn't get to the small organisms, and they die," Campbellsaid.While McLain tackles the northern end of the bay, he's making sure thesouthern end is not ignored. He approached The Richard Stockton Collegeof New Jersey's Marine Science and Environmental Field Station with theidea that students taking part in a research education project alsocould collect macroalgae samples."We offered to make collections for him," said Steve Evert, the managerfor the field station. "We just utilized one of our existing courses."Algae collection is just a small portion of the work the studentsperform over the summer as part of an underwater survey methods classthe station offers. Evert said students found using snorkeling equipmentis the best method of collection.Once the students collected the algae, much like McLain's northern bayproject, they attempted to identify the different types they found inthe water. Since this is a new project, it provides an education to theinstructors as well as the students."We used this experience as a learning opportunity for ourselves withthese types of algae," Evert said. "Whether all of our identificationsare correct has yet to be seen."While this is the first year of the algae and eelgrass collectionproject, researchers know that the risks to sea grass and what hashappened over the past few decades are very real.Michael Kennish, associate research professor at the Rutgers Instituteof Marine and Coastal Sciences, calls algae a "very damaging species,"and said that Rutgers has known about the nitrogen problem in BarnegatBay since the 1990s."The sea grass is a good indicator of the water quality in the bay,"Kennish said.According to Kennish, one of the major problems with the Barnegat Bay isthat it is an estuary locked in by a barrier island, whereas an estuarysuch as the Delaware Bay flows directly into the Atlantic Ocean."There are no nitrogen problems in the Delaware Bay," Kennish said. "Thewater flushes out of the bay very quickly."Because of the barrier island, it can take as long as 75 days for excessnitrogen and other unwanted materials to be removed naturally by thewater in Barnegat Bay.Algae accumulation can be extremely problematic. As China prepares tohost the summer Olympics next month, crews have been working around theclock to clean up excess algae where the world's top sailors areexpected to compete. The algae bloom covers one-third of Qingdao Bay.It's the kind of situation that, through proper research and action,McLain is hoping to avoid close to home."We're not there yet," McLain said. "But it's bad enough now that wedon't have the bay the way it should be."E-mail Ben Leach:BLeach@pressofac.com