Nature's Kidneys: How Coastal Wetlands Stop Ocean Pollution

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today we're gonna talk about nitrogen.

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And don't worry, it's not all bad news.

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There is some bad news in that excess
nitrogen creates a lot of problems like
algal

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blooms and red tide. But the good news is
that we can solve those fixes.

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And nitrogen is a natural process.

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We just gotta make sure that we get keep
it in control.

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and there are specific aspects of coastal
habitats.

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That can help keep it in control if those
coastal habitats are one present

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and are healthy. So we're going to talk
about that on today's episode of

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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast,

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why these coastal habitats are nature's
kidneys.

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All on today's episode, if you like this
type of stuff where we talk about ocean

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news, ocean science, and how you can
protect the ocean,

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then follow this podcast because it's
exactly what we are here to do.

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All right, let's start off with.

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You know, just an idea, Green water.

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Nobody likes green water. It's a smell
that just,

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you know, has a smell that won't go away.

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And then sometimes even like you'll get
dead fish washing up on the shore,

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and it's gross, and that's what too much
nitrogen does to our coastline.

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And here's what most people don't realize:

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a healthy stretch of marsh or mangroves
can pull out the nitrogen.

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straight out of the water before any of it
goes into the coastline and

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any of the green water happens.

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So as long as we keep those healthy and as
long as those can keep up with

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sea level rise, we are okay. And that's
what we're going to talk about

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all this week.

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yesterday's episode was an interview with
Adam Langley,

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who introduced a lot of things about
nitrogen and how it is taken

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up by mangroves and marshes in the U.S.

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We're gonna talk a lot of that.

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We're gonna focus on those two habitats,

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but there are also other coastal habitats
like seagrass,

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salt marshes, mudflats that do very
similar things just in different zones
within

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our world. The key here is keeping them
intact.

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And keeping them healthy. That's what we
want.

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Keeping them present, keeping them
healthy.

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That's the whole purpose of this episode
today.

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And look, I get it. We see a lot of news
that's happening around

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the world where we're talking about algal
blooms that are out of control,

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green water, red tide, where people can't
breathe on the beaches because there's

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so much dead in like dead fish and dead
manatees and dolphins and sea turtles.

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It can get heavy.

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It can get really heavy. And when you see
all this happening,

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especially with climate change bringing in
this exaggeration

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of what's happening because we're seeing
it more and more often,

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the thing here is it can actually be
controlled.

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This is something that we as humans can
control for a specific aspect.

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And now it's starting to get out of
control because we're

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not following certain regulations,

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or we're changing the regulations,

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or we're not doing certain things that
will keep it intact.

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But

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we can keep intact. And we're going to
talk about that all this week.

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and especially today, because I think it's
really important.

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Coastal wetlands, salt marshes,

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mangroves, we got wet ~ we got seagrasses,

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even coral reefs to a certain degree.

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all these types of coastal habitats play a
role.

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You know, mud flats, but they all play a
role in keeping not only carbon in place.

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Like they, you know, it's not just carbon,

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they actually store

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Nitrogen. They pull it straight out of the
water into the roots because they need

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nitrogen to survive. They need nitrogen to
feed their system,

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And they and they pull that out before it
reaches any kind of bay or

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any kind of coastland. And I think that's
that's an important aspect

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to to maintain is that these things are
there to keep nitrogen in check,

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That's what if you learn anything about
photosynthesis or anything about

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the health of animals of plants,

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and trees, they like nutrients.

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That's something that's that's important.

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So plants will take it up ~ into their
roots.

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And then the waterlogged soil starves out
any kind of bacteria that would release

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that new those nutrients back in.

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And then it locks away in the mud ~ for
centuries.

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And it's the same reason. I know this kind
of sounds weird,

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but it's the same reason why when you put
a a body in like a mangrove or

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in a marsh or a peat bog or if it's
somewhere where there's no oxygen in the
soil.

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it stays preserved for hundreds of years.

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And so, you know, don't do that,

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I guess. you shouldn't be doing that
anyway.

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But that's what happens. if you see an
animal or anything like that's been dead

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and it looks intact, it could have been it
could have been dead a long time ago.

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It just hasn't decomposed because there's
no oxygen or bacteria to decompose it.

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So it's kind of kind of interesting.

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Now here's the reality of the situation.

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We have coastal wetlands that have been
taken out a lot of the times because

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of development. And we're going to talk
about a specific example,

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a couple specific examples in a minute.

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But we know that when they are put back in
place,

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we know that they do well. Pretty much
that's what happens.

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There was a study by authors called
Skidmore and Kowarski,

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or Kowowski,

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sorry.

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~ where you know they restored a single
100 acre wetland and that cut ammonia
down,

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like cut ammonia release down by 62% and a
total nitrogen by 37%.

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And it saved local water systems about
$17,000 a year in treatment costs within
just

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three years. So you put a a restored area
intact and you keep it healthy,

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and within three years, you're cutting
down the release of ammonia and nitrogen.

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These are natural processes, it's not.

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A concrete wall. This is not like they
harden it with rocks and things like that,

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or the engineers when they want to keep
maintain like a specific area that's being

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eroded. No, these are natural wetlands
that can not only secure

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the coastline and make sure it doesn't
erode because it it keeps the soil intact,

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like close together and tight,

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it also reduces ammonia and nitrogen
within just within three years

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in this example anyway. And we've and we
find it's in other examples then ~ as
well,

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So like a patch of wetland.

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Smaller than most farms, was doing the job
of what municipal water treatments

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do for free. So think about that,

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Think about saving money and how that
works.

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It's it's all done for free. that just
because of the wetland is put together.

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Now, restoring wetlands and marshes and
mangroves and all that kind

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of stuff is expensive. There's no doubt
about that.

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That's why it's important to keep them
intact right from the beginning.

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Now, I want to talk to you about an
example.

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So actually two examples.

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The first one is Tampa Bay. So you know
the city,

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Tampa Bay. The reason why it's called
Tampa Bay is because there is actually

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a bay in Tampa Bay. in 19 in the 1950s and
1970s,

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Tampa Bay's population exploded.

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Sorry, I'm gonna start that again.

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From the 1950s to the 1970s, Tampa Bay's
population,

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you know, exploded.

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it exploded for one reason. Once air
conditioning was made available to
households,

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people said, hey, Florida's liverable all
year round,

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not just in the winters. So we can
actually handle the summers.

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So it went from population of 400,000
people to over a million by like 1970.

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So in 20 years, it grew by 600,000.

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That's a pretty big, that's a pretty big
jump.

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Now, when you have that jump in
population,

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development like ensues.

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Right. So development paved over mangroves
and marshes that had been filtering

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the bay's water for centuries.

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Now, all this now, untreated,

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you know, lightly treated sewage water,

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just poured into the bay. So nitrogen fed
the blooms that blocked the sunlight.

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Seagrass, which you know needs light to
survive,

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that was in the bay, collapsed to near
nothing.

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between nineteen seventy four and nineteen
ninety one,

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things started to change. There was
actually a sixty minute segment that held

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the bay up as a pollution poster child.

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And and and public pressure followed too.

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So from that segment, you know,

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in Florida, they they came up with a
regulation,

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an act. So Florida's 1978 Grizzly Fig Act
forced wastewater treatment plants

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to strip nutrients out before the
discharge.

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Before the wastewater treatment plants
weren't looking at nutrients,

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it's actually like a third sort of process
point that a lot of treatment plants just

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ignored. And for many times, this is not
just Tampa Bay.

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I don't want to single out Florida as many
people do.

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This happens all this was happening all
over the world.

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Nutrients weren't being filtered out.

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So in 1991, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program
formed a nitrogen management consortium

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and it coordinated over 500 separate
nutrient reduction projects across
industry,

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agriculture, and local government,

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plus active habit habitat restoration
work,

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rebuilding mangrove and marsh acreages as
part of its its long-term habitat plan.

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So essentially what they did is they got
together and they said,

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Where are we seeing most of the nutrients
coming out of?

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Let's start.

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regulating those those discharges and make
sure that we do modeling,

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engineers will wastewater engineers will
come up with all this modeling to say,

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hey, at at the end of your pipe of your
industry,

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whether it's a factory or anything like
that,

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at the end of that pipe, when it goes into
the natural water,

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it has to be a certain value. It can't be
above a certain value.

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If it's like if ammonia or nitrogen is
above,

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like so they look at ammonia, nitrate,

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nitrate, if those are or nitrite,

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nitrate, because the way it goes,

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if those are elevated above a certain
level,

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That industry's in trouble because it's
going start to contribute

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to excess nitrogen. And that's what's
going to happen.

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We're going to start to see algal blooms
and seagrass is going to die

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and all this kind of stuff. So once you
have that regulation in place,

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then everything good, everything's good
because they look at all the industries

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as a whole system and they say,

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okay, if everybody stays below this level,

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we should be fine. Okay. And that's
exactly what happened.

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So nitrogen flowing into the bay from
wastewater sources dropped by about 90%.

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Just because of certain controls and
certain monitoring,

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when you know what's coming out of the
pipe from industry and from different
places,

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you can do really well. Seagrasses went
from roughly like covering 21,000 acres,

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just over 21,000 acres in 1982 to over
40,000 acres in 2015.

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Right? That's almost double what they what
they were covering,

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covering an area close to that size of
Manhattan,

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that's how big it

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was.

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a bay that was written off back in the 70s
now is like the poster child.

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And it and it's about one it creates one
in five jobs in the region because

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of that bay being healthy because of of
tourism.

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the the bay is actually usable.

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So people come in, they want to go around,

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they they start to increase like ~ you
know shops along the sides,

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along the bay. You get a nice walk around
there.

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That's important. That's an important
aspect of.

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How wastewater treatment upgrades,

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was one of the biggest levers to actually
to do the initial turnaround.

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And this is just the stuff at the end of
the pipe.

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that's what we call a point source because
we know at what point they come out.

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Non-point sources, where you never know
where it's coming out of,

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that can be taken up by all these coastal
habitats,

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Because usually if it comes out of a pipe,

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a point source, it comes out literally
right into the bay.

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or it comes into somewhere before it hits
the wastewater treatment plant.

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But we know where it's coming out.

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And it's just a long pipe from that
industry that goes into a specific water
body.

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With non-point sources, it can come out of
anywhere.

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It can go along roads. It can go into
these little streams that can't really

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be controlled or monitored that much.

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Well, it could be monitored, but not a lot
of times it's monitored.

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So then you you start to use those coastal
habitats as the way to take

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up those nutrients. I mean, look at the
Everglades.

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Everglades is a as a is a huge sink for
nitrogen.

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Right. It just takes it up into its system
and it works out really,

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really well, which is great to see.

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You know, that's what that's what we want.

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That's what we want to see. Now,

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there's another story too. When I talked
about a little bit about going back

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to that Skidmore and Kowarski Kowski
study,

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~ the what they looked at the wetlands
along the Mississippi River.

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The Mississippi River is a beautiful
place.

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However

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We've known for years that all of the
fertilizers and anything kind

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of that contributes to nutrients along the
Mississippi River goes down into

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the Mississippi and then it goes right
into discharged right into

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the Gulf of Mexico. I was actually on a
ship where we measured

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the consequences of all of those nutrients
going at the mouth of

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the of the Mississippi in the springtime.

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phytoplankton blooms in the springtime
where they're mixing and mixing because

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the winds are still there, mixing,

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and then the summertime mixing stops.

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The phytoplankton dies, it goes down to
the bottom of the ocean,

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it gets taken up into the microbial loop
where it gets broken down,

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and then oxygen gets taken out.

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But there's so much phytoplankton that
oxygen is almost removed from

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the bottom 1.5 layer of the bottom of the
Gulf of Mexico in this area where this

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plume is. Now, the Mississippi is one of
the biggest rivers in the world.

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It goes out pretty far. And so they would
measure the the amount of area that this

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plume would take up and make sort of
assumptions and measurements along those
areas,

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along that area, ~ and see where there's
you know lack of dissolved oxygen.

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Cause then you don't have fish or
invertebrates or things like that,

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and you're not having a productive
environment.

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And then what would happen is those
results would go back to Congress,

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because it's all in the US, would go back
to Congress.

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That scientist at the time, Dr.

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Nancy Rabelay, would go to Congress and it
would testify on the results.

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And that would essentially regulate the
amount of fertilizers

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and anything that causes nutrient overload
that would happen along the Mississippi.

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So all those all those farms and any kind
of in industry that would discharge

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nutrients, that would regulate what would
happen at the end.

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And that would regulate how much
fertilizer can be used.

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Now look, we use fertilizer. We have to
use fertilizer to feed all

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the people in each and one of our
countries.

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It's a matter of can we use fertilizer in
a way that's sustainable,

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that we're not.

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adding extra or excess nutrients into the
water to mess up our water system.

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And these coastal habitats like mangroves
and marshes will actually help

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in the process. But they have to be there.

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If we zoom out a little bit, like to look
at the world,

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I don't want you to over like take this
too much,

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but the world has lost roughly 20% of its
mangroves since 1980.

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You know, mostly because of coastal
development,

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And it's the exact same thing that almost
destroyed Tampa Bay.

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But global blue carbon habitat is still
valued at close to $191 billion

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a year in climate benefit alone.

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That's not including the economic

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benefit that it happens that it brings in
just like it did in Tampa Bay,

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It looked just like it does in Tampa Bay.

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Right. And that's huge. And that's not
even counting the nutrient filtering.

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That's how important these these these
coastal wetlands are.

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So the big thing is we need to keep these
habitats intact,

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the ones that are there and not pave over
them and not develop over them.

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And we also need to bring back the ones
that were lost.

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Because there are certain things that we
do as humans when we take certain things

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out that we don't know the ramifications
of that.

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In the Mississippi Delta in the 70s and
80s,

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there was a huge thing to harden the
coastline,

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meaning put in concrete or man-made
structures to make sure that certain parts

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of the Delta were not eroding away.

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Cause that's what was happening.

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Certain parts of them were eroding away
where people wanted to develop.

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But what we realize, or engineers realize,

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I remember this was at a coastal zone
Canada conference a number of years ago,

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and I remember the engineers talking about
it.

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00:15:10,536 --> 00:15:12,787
What they realized is that when they
harden that certain area,

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what was eroded from that area would build
up something else in the Delta.

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A lot of times was air were areas where
there was indigenous land.

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00:15:21,674 --> 00:15:25,237
And so by hardening certain spots in the
in the delta,

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00:15:25,237 --> 00:15:30,201
that that sand or that that sediment
wouldn't go build up the other.

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So all that other

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Part of like indigenous land would
actually erode away.

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00:15:35,412 --> 00:15:41,696
So there was a ~ new sort of push and
movement to green

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00:15:41,696 --> 00:15:44,878
the shoreline again and soften the
shoreline in a way so that

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the delta could actually rebuild all the
stuff that it did before.

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Right. So there are certain things that we
do ~ preemptively,

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and then we have to react to the mistakes
that we make because we don't realize it.

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And this is what happens when you try to
develop.

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Very quickly. We've seen it with so many
industries.

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00:16:01,948 --> 00:16:04,831
We've seen it with housing. We've seen it
with industry.

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00:16:04,831 --> 00:16:07,279
we see it now, we're starting to see it
with data centers.

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00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:09,325
You know, data centers have to pop up all
over the place,

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00:16:09,325 --> 00:16:11,897
and we're now starting to pay attention to
it because they've done it before.

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00:16:11,897 --> 00:16:14,490
You know, people starting to put in
underwater data centers.

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00:16:14,490 --> 00:16:16,582
That's what they want to do. Doesn't make
sense.

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00:16:16,582 --> 00:16:19,244
It's not proven. We don't know what's
going to happen to fish habitat

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or anything else that's that's done,

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00:16:20,586 --> 00:16:25,430
and they're all done in small towns where
there's not going to be a big kerfuffle.

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Basically, They're not going to make a lot
of noise,

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00:16:27,909 --> 00:16:29,670
even if they reject it or try and fight
it.

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So there's there's a lot of and there,

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00:16:31,871 --> 00:16:35,962
and of course, there's different tactics
they use to entice certain communities

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00:16:35,962 --> 00:16:40,054
to say, yes, let's do this because it'll
benefit benefit us in the end.

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00:16:40,054 --> 00:16:44,177
But the thing is that there's certain
things that you can do right away,

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00:16:44,177 --> 00:16:45,218
Like going back to

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00:16:45,854 --> 00:16:49,156
not contributing nutrients, you can cut
back on synthetic fertilizers.

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00:16:49,156 --> 00:16:51,537
I know here in Ontario the government did
that on their own.

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00:16:51,537 --> 00:16:53,178
They said a long time ago, they said,

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00:16:53,178 --> 00:16:56,900
hey, we can't use certain pesticides and
nutrients because it's causing

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00:16:56,900 --> 00:17:00,982
too much problems in the Great Lakes
watersheds and in the Great Lakes
essentially.

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00:17:00,982 --> 00:17:04,493
But we also need to ~ move and and so
sorry,

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00:17:04,493 --> 00:17:07,806
instead of using synthetic, you can use to
a slow release or organic option,

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00:17:07,806 --> 00:17:10,268
Which is not going to be as effective on
your lawn,

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00:17:10,268 --> 00:17:12,388
but that's okay because it's for the
betterment

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00:17:12,409 --> 00:17:13,409
of.

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00:17:12,944 --> 00:17:15,194
the entire environment that is around you.

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00:17:15,194 --> 00:17:18,076
If you don't like green water in your
lakes or in your streams and things,

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00:17:18,076 --> 00:17:20,347
then maybe think about doing this.

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00:17:20,347 --> 00:17:21,957
But it's not just tied to individually,

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00:17:21,957 --> 00:17:27,089
We are looking at government aspects to
help make sure that industry

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00:17:27,089 --> 00:17:29,450
is following those point source numbers.

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00:17:29,450 --> 00:17:31,871
There are a lot of times where government
is just going to say,

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00:17:31,871 --> 00:17:34,532
hey, you know what? We're just going to
leave it alone.

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00:17:34,532 --> 00:17:37,774
Where you can do your best management
practices.

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00:17:37,774 --> 00:17:39,919
Follow the best management practices to
keep it as low as possible.

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00:17:39,919 --> 00:17:41,185
Other that, you should be fine.

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00:17:41,511 --> 00:17:45,715
And we're gonna talk about that tomorrow
because that can lead to red tide,

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00:17:45,715 --> 00:17:48,217
especially in an era of climate change.

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00:17:48,217 --> 00:17:50,295
So I think that's where we're gonna leave
for tomorrow.

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00:17:50,295 --> 00:17:51,840
We're gonna end the episode here.

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00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,063
But I want you to think about how Tampa
Bay has changed,

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00:17:55,063 --> 00:18:00,948
between the 1950s and 1970s, it looked
horrible because of such massive growth

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00:18:00,948 --> 00:18:01,948
and development and everything.

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00:18:01,699 --> 00:18:03,471
And then we realize that we can fix this.

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00:18:03,491 --> 00:18:05,472
This is fixable by human intervention.

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00:18:05,472 --> 00:18:10,913
And we can continue to make progress on
that in each and every area.

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00:18:10,913 --> 00:18:15,395
If our government has our back and the
people pressure the government to say,

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00:18:15,395 --> 00:18:16,795
hey, you know what? We need to do this.

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00:18:16,795 --> 00:18:20,456
We need to do this not from an
environmental standpoint,

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00:18:20,456 --> 00:18:24,577
but from a safety standpoint. The
environment standpoint just comes
together.

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00:18:24,577 --> 00:18:26,518
It is how our our world works.

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00:18:26,518 --> 00:18:29,819
We can't change everything to benefit
ourselves.

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00:18:30,053 --> 00:18:31,634
Without seeing the consequences.

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00:18:31,634 --> 00:18:33,405
And we're starting to see those
consequences,

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00:18:33,405 --> 00:18:35,587
or we have seen those consequences for
decades.

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00:18:35,587 --> 00:18:37,939
It's a matter of can we fix them or not?

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00:18:37,939 --> 00:18:42,072
We know there's a proven fix. We know that
nature will figure out a way if

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00:18:42,072 --> 00:18:44,073
we put it back or if we leave it the way
it is,

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00:18:44,073 --> 00:18:46,175
and that we'll be okay if that happens.

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00:18:46,175 --> 00:18:47,836
So that's the episode for today.

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00:18:47,836 --> 00:18:50,268
I hope you enjoyed ~ this episode.

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00:18:50,268 --> 00:18:51,879
I would love to hear your comments.

364
00:18:51,879 --> 00:18:53,941
If you're listening to this on Spotify,

365
00:18:53,941 --> 00:18:56,142
please let me know your thoughts.

366
00:18:56,142 --> 00:18:57,142
By the way.

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00:18:57,207 --> 00:18:59,978
Starting a new YouTube channel with how to
protect the ocean.

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00:18:59,978 --> 00:19:01,658
I know for those of you who've been
following,

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00:19:01,658 --> 00:19:05,269
I did one on the channel that's now called
Ocean Decoded,

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00:19:05,269 --> 00:19:07,730
which I go live on every Monday to
Thursday.

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00:19:07,730 --> 00:19:11,491
But I'm gonna start a new channel where
I've where I've actually been posting

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00:19:11,511 --> 00:19:15,442
all the audio to this, but I'm actually
gonna start posting the videos to this.

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00:19:15,442 --> 00:19:17,013
It's gonna be the same episode,

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00:19:17,013 --> 00:19:18,213
but you get to watch the videos.

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00:19:18,213 --> 00:19:19,453
I'm gonna provide some editing.

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00:19:19,453 --> 00:19:22,194
I hope you enjoy it. let me know your
thoughts.

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00:19:22,194 --> 00:19:23,575
I'm gonna let you know when this is.

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00:19:23,575 --> 00:19:24,935
And if you're watching this on YouTube
now.

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00:19:25,201 --> 00:19:27,382
I appreciate subscribe, you know,

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00:19:27,382 --> 00:19:31,055
hit that notification bell. And if you're
listening to this on audio,

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00:19:31,055 --> 00:19:37,212
love you always for that. ~ if you want to
give me a comment on Spotify or

382
00:19:37,212 --> 00:19:40,188
~ if you want to contact me through my
socials,

383
00:19:40,188 --> 00:19:43,370
links are in the show notes. I want to
thank you so much for joining

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00:19:43,370 --> 00:19:45,942
me on today's episode of the How to
Protect the Ocean podcast.

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00:19:45,942 --> 00:19:48,744
Have a great day. We'll talk to you next
time and happy conservation.