Injection Wells in West Maui (fwd)

[Coral Health and Monitoring Program]

The following is a message from Ed Parnell of University of Hawaii, and is 
herewith forwarded to the list.  Sorry for the delay in posting, brought  
about by the U.S. Government budget impasse.  In the future, any messages  
sent to coral-list at reef.aoml.noaa.gov will be automatically forwarded to  
the list without need for human intervention (we hope!). 

	JCH 

---------- Forwarded message ---------- 
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 10:22:44 -1000 (HST) 
From: Ed Parnell <parnell at soest.hawaii.edu> 
To: Coral Health and Monitoring Program <coral at coral> 
Subject: Re: Injection Wells in West Maui 

Deb Schulman and Ed Laws in the oceanography dept. at UH found that  
ammonia, nitrate, silicate (indicator of freshwater), and del N-15 ratios  
were higher at Barbers Point and Ewa Beach than most other areas of Mamala  
Bay.  They implicated cesspools to account for the high ammonia and/or 
groundwater intrusion from the Ewa plain (cultivated for sugar cane for  
the last 100 years) to account for the other high variables.  The pattern  
of higher nutrients and del N-15 was robust over the ranges of seasonal  
variation they observed.  This work was part of the Mamala Bay study. 

Brad Gould, in a separate study within the MBS, found that nitrate  
concentrations were significantly correlated with wave energy.  The  
relationship was non-linear; nitrate concentrations increased with  
increasing wave energy, and the slope at which nitrate concentrations  
increased became steeper with increasing wave energy.  Pore waters  
(including groundwater) are pumped by increasing wave energy.  This all  
means that groundwater is a likely significant source of nitrate. 

Algal diversity and biomass was quantified as part of MBS by Alison Kay  
et al.  They studied three areas; 1) the natatorium (Waikiki) 2) Sand  
Isalnd and 3) Honouliuli.  Algae were studied at three depths 7, 17, and  
27 m during winter 94, summer 94, and winter 95.  Temporal and spatial  
variability of dry weight data was so great, just by looking at their  
graphs (no stats done unfortunately), that no clear pattern emerged.   
Algal diversity (as # of genera; no diversity indeces were calculated)  
was highest at Barbers Point.  Lynbia and Pterocladia were dominants at  
all three sites.