Who contributes & who is blamed for marine pollution
Runoff to the Barrier Reef comes from, towns (some many kilometers upstream on the rivers as well as the coastal ones), small local industries, cane, bananas, mango and other farms and aquaculture farms. They all contribute to the pollution problems. However, aquaculture and some other industries with a definite outlet pipe have huge remediation and compliance costs. Many others have a diffuse outlet, far greater but they have no monitoring and none of the huge add-on costs.
Off the Adelaide coast there has been very serious loss of the sea-grass meadows and consequent large scale long-shore sand drift resulting in a lowering of the beaches in many places by several metres and very expensive sand trucking and dredging operations. This was caused by a combination of treated sewage effluent outfall and storm-water runoff. The high nutrient water discharged this way encouraged the growth of large amounts of small algae on the sea-grass leaves and the combination of the shading effects of all this algae plus the sediments from the runoff and outfalls shaded the sea-grass so much that it died. Storm-water is very high in nutrients and may contain other many other pollutants. It contains runoff from over watered and over fertilized gardens plus it is the dogs’ sewage system, although this latter is slowly beginning to improve in many places. This damage was clearly a mainly community pollution problem that has seriously impacted on the Adelaide coastal environment.
We all need to be aware of what we throw or pour into drains or onto streets. It is a cumulative community problem and we all need to think where we wash out that paint brush, discharge our swimming pool backwash or where we toss rubbish. It all ends in the sea or in lakes and rivers.
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