Fertilizers: Affecting Our Oceans on the Daily - Dhruvi Mehta
- amador_occ
- Aug 6, 2020
- 3 min read
Fertilizers are “a chemical or natural substance added to soil or land to increase its fertility”. While fertilizers may help our land become more productive and arable, they seem to be doing the opposite for our oceans and their marine environments.
So how exactly does fertilizer make its way to the ocean? Fertilizers find their way to marine ecosystems through a process called runoff. As rain or snow falls on fields, sometimes the soil cannot always soak up all the water. The excess water then collects and makes its way through the field (downhill due to gravity) until it finds a body of water to pour into. As this water moves through the field however, it collects the excess fertilizer, creating a mix of fertilizer and water that go on to damage our oceans.
How does fertilizer harm marine life though? Fertilizers will release nutrients when they are in contact with water. The nutrients released will cause the microorganisms in the ocean to grow and reproduce very high rates, and when this happens the dissolved oxygen found in the water decreases. This reduction in dissolved oxygen causes fish and other species to suffocate because there's not enough oxygen in the water. Not only does this put marine life at risk, but dead species also deplete the water quality and create very unpleasant odors. The fact that bad odors can come from the ocean due to fertilizers affects humans! A lot of cities built near the ocean are put at risk of worsened water quality and unpleasant smells if we continue to use fertilizers in the proportion we use them today.
Another effect fertilizer runoff and nutrients create is algae blooms. One of the nutrients in fertilizer, nitrogen, causes algae to grow much larger than their normal size. Although oceans usually have a little bit of these nutrients, fertilizers put them way out of proportion and cause the algae to grow uncontrollably. Although algae releases harmful toxins, there is usually not enough algae to affect their ecosystem. However, in large amounts, algal toxins can poison marine life. Also, algae requires a lot of oxygen to grow, as described in the earlier paragraph, and this contributes to the lack of oxygen that suffocates fish and marine organisms. The term “dead spot” can be used to describe a place where normal marine life cannot live anymore because of the copious amounts of toxins released by the algae. It can take many years for a marine ecosystem to return to its healthy self after experiencing a dead spot. As organisms flee from the dead zone and travel into neighboring ecosystems, they may become an invasive species. Invasive species harm our natural resources and the ecosystem they enter because they outcompete the native species for resources and can even cause native species extinction, completely deteriorating the ecosystem they migrated to.
Why should we care about fertilizer runoff affecting our oceans and water supplies? Nitrogen fertilizers have so much nitrogen in them, that the nitrates can seep into the groundwater supplies. Something called nitrate poisoning can happen to us if we drink highly contaminated water. Water full of nitrates has led to methemoglobinemia, a disorder that can cause dizziness, nausea, skin with a blue tint, and more terrifying symptoms.
Fertilizer, something that seems beneficial to crops and agriculture, is decimating our marine ecosystems. We must take action to stop the plaguing of our oceans with nitrogens from the fertilizer. The best way to do this would be just to move away from synthetic fertilizers! There are many other alternatives that are just as effective, such as bone meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa pellets, composted manure. If you are set on using fertilizer, however, switch to an organic fertilizer. Some great companies include Dr. Earth Organic Fertilizer, and Milorganite Organic Fertilizer. Two very popular synthetic fertilizers are Miracle-Gro, and Scotts Turf Builder. If you see your parents or friends buying these synthetic fertilizers, make sure you stop them, tell them why using them is harmful to the environment, and provide them with the alternatives above! Remember, saving the oceans starts with you!
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