By Shangtong Li
Photo Credit: Shangtong Li96.8 F, radiant sun, clear sky, and a cool breeze brings the fresh briny smell of the sea. Tzortziou Bio-Optics Lab members boarded Patty Ann at the Captree State Park in Babylon, New York again—to sample stations along the Great South Bay.
An almost cloudless day, conditions were optimal for conducting radiometric measurements of the color of the water and linking to water quality state.
0 Comments
By Sandy Shangtong Li Photo credit: Sandy Shangtong Li On Monday, Tzortziou Bio-Optics Lab members Kyle, Dean and Sandy visited the Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay again to sample seven stations. Joining the fieldwork was a new undergraduate intern Andrew, funded as part of the NOAA CESSRST REU program.
This time, the team started farther west in Flanders Bay near the mouth of the Peconic River, in hopes of capturing the influence of freshwater inputs of dissolved carbon and particulate matter into the Peconic Bay. by Sandy Shangtong Li and Kyle Turner   Photo credit: Minsun Lee and Shangtong Li On Wednesday, a windy and rainy day, members of the Tzortziou Lab ventured to the Great South Bay, along the southern coast of Long Island, to extend field data collection to another new region of Long Island waters.
We boarded the Patty Ann, a boat operated by Captain Greg Gargiulo and crewmember Damien of Patty Ann Charters at the Captree State Park in Babylon, New York. Due to the heavy clouds and rain, the fieldwork focused on water collection (for measurements of water inherent optical properties, organic carbon quality, and phytoplankton community composition) and in-situ physical/biogeochemical profiles using the YSI EXO2 water quality sonde. Unfortunately, the radiometric measurements would have to wait for the next sunny weather trip. Greg and Damien grew up around the Great South Bay. They were let go from their old jobs due to the pandemic, and now it is their third season doing fish chartering full time. The business has been good, they said, while enjoying the view of their new office—the wheelhouse of the boat. When asked if they had observed any changes to the bay, they said that the water was cleaner when they were young. Now they have started to see red tides more frequently during summer, especially in July when the water is warmer. They suspected that fertilizer runoff and increasing temperatures are responsible for the algal blooms. As for the fish population in the bay, some species have made a comeback, such as the sand eel; while others have seemingly disappeared, such as the blackback flounder. Captain Greg has been seeing species that are not from the region, such as king mackerel and cobia from down south. According to Greg, the Blackback flounder is the best species, and the reason the whole port was established, as it was abundant and delicious. There were so many of them in the bay and sometimes people could catch twenty per person. But now, he has not seen them here for a long time. He thinks the blackback flounder’s disappearance in the bay is not due to overfishing but the expansion of residential complexes near the bay. Another factor that both Greg and Damien suspect has affected the bay’s ecology and water quality is the Bergen Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, also known as the “chocolate factory”, as the locals call it. The plant discharges treated effluent through an ocean outfall that passes beneath the Great South Bay and underneath Jones Beach Island to the Atlantic Ocean, but the pipeline has been determined to be in failing condition and need of replacement, according to the New York Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery in 2015. The construction has been ongoing since, but Greg and Damien are not confident that it will adequately prevent sewage from leaking into the bay. The final two stations the team visited were within the tidal salt marshes in the western part of the bay. It was an amazing sight to see as different species of birds flew across the lush Spartina alterniflora (smooth cordgrass). Along the boat ride, lab members saw birds diving into the water, laughing gulls flying over the boat and osprey nests on water marks. Greg and Damien said the marshes have been the same since they were kids. According to NOAA, salt marshes provide habitat for aquatic species, filter nutrients from upland sources, and help reduce the impact of coastal storms by absorbing wave energy. Marshes and wetlands play a critical role in coastal ecosystems and communities, combating rising sea levels and more frequent storms on our warming planet. by Sandy Shangtong Li and Kyle Turner On Monday, members of the Tzortziou Bio-Optics Lab—Jonathan, Kyle and summer interns Dean and Sandy — joined Captain Brad Ries from Someday Came Fishing Charters to sample nine locations in the Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay near the eastern end of Long Island. Throughout the day, Captain Brad Ries provided his perspective of the bay and its changes over time, as a local who has been working in the area for more than thirty years.
by Kyle Turner  A lovely day on the Sound Yesterday, we joined the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CTDEEP) on the R/V John Dempsey for their monthly Water Quality monitoring survey in Long Island Sound (LIS). We collected water samples and conducted radiometry at six different stations in the central region of LIS. It was a gorgeous early June day, clear skies, and serenely calm water (perfect for radiometry and satellite matchups!)...
Authors: Maria Tzortziou & Sherry Aine Te Photos by Alana Menendez and Kyle Turner Over the past week, the Tzortziou Group and collaborators from NRL and NASA have been collecting measurements aboard the R/V Ukpik to monitor the changing riverine fluxes and water quality in Alaska’s North Slope coastline - a region of high vulnerability to changes in the Arctic, characterized by increasing coastal erosion, permafrost thaw, rapid melting of snow and ice, and changing hydrological flow patterns...
Authors: Sherry Aine Te & Kyle Turner The Arctic crew in the Tzortziou Bio-Optics lab packing for gears, equipment and supplies (August 6, 2021). On August 10th, the Tzortziou Bio-Optics group will be voyaging to Alaska’s North Slope for a 3-week field expedition in the coastal Arctic...
|
RSS Feed
