Algae

A New York senator wants the federal government to provide more direction to water utilities when it comes to treating water contaminated by toxic algae. 

During a press conference in May, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., "called on the EPA to regulate cyanotoxins and provide help and guidance to local water treatment plants in testing and filtering the toxin from drinking water. It’s something both Canada and the European union have already done," the Buffalo News reported.

There is a need to step up monitoring of our coastal waters for harmful algal blooms as they pose public safety concerns and economic risks.

ON the morning of Feb 11, fish farm operators in Tanjung Kupang, Johor, woke up to the ghastly sight of fish floating belly up in their pens in the Straits of Johor. In the days that followed, the fish kept dying.

The fish kill lasted two weeks, at the end of which commercially valuable stocks of snappers, estuary cods, seabass and threadfins in some nine farms were wiped out. One operator reported losses of RM150,000.