There’s a new study that finds harmful algae blooms in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries have been increasing dramatically over the last 20 years.
This is in addition to the seasonal algae blooms that occur when the weather warms up in the spring and the summer.
One strain Prorocentrum minimum was found to have doubled during the period running from 1991 through 2008 while another cyanobacteria in the tidal waters rose from 13 percent per year 23 percent during the 1990’s.
A third type Kalrodinium veneficum saw a major jump during the five year period between 2003 to 2008.
Pat Glibert, a professor at the Center’s Horn Point Laboratory and the author of the report, says the rise in nitrogen has been a leading cause of the increase.
The report says that excess nutrient runoff has been mainly due to the population growth along the Baltimore-Washington urban corridor and the development of animal and plant agriculture in the watershed.
