Sydney Harbor Seaweed Has Highest Bioconcentrations Of Lead, Copper Ever Measured

[hatrack]

Much of the familiar brown seaweed that festoons Sydney Harbour's bays and headlands has the world's highest known levels of lead and copper contamination, which kills millions of small marine animals, a new study has revealed. Rushcutters Bay and Balmain's Mort Bay are among the most polluted, according to measurements taken along an eight-kilometre stretch of the harbour by researchers from the University of NSW.

In some parts of the harbour, lead levels in seaweed were six times higher than those off Hong Kong Island, and well in excess of water quality guidelines. "I found it very surprising to be honest because Sydney Harbour really does come across as a clean and healthy harbour, and to find those levels of pollution came as a bit of a shock," David Roberts, the lead author of the report, said. The copper and lead levels were the highest ever recorded in seaweed, Mr Roberts said.

The study confirmed that in areas of high copper concentration, particularly Rushcutters Bay and Woolloomooloo Bay, the small marine animal population had been slashed, according to the report, to be published in the next issue of the journal Environmental Pollution.

Epifaunal amphipods - tiny, prawn-like crustaceans that feed on the seaweed algae - are typically present in the harbour at a rate of about 6000 a square metre. But about 60 per cent fewer of the crustaceans were found in areas around one common type of brown seaweed, which leaches copper from the harbour floor.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/sydney-seaweed-worlds-most-contaminated-report/2008/04/08/1207420365712.html

[diane in sf]

1. Time to harvest the seaweed and reclaim the copper?

[Quantess]

2. All the meth addicts of Australia are rushing to the harbor right now

to figure out how to extract the copper so they can sell it.