[Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports

[C. HU]

It must be rainfall caused runoff - at Todd's location color is much
darker than usual (the dark band, parallel to the coast, is about 40 km
wide), and SeaWiFS "chlorophyll" is > 16 mg/m^3 (normally it is less
than 2 mg/m^3). Of course SeaWiFS "chlorophyll" has a lot of
uncertainties in this region (most of the signal may be due to dissolved
matter for this runoff), but this high contrast explains a lot. Plus,
this site is away from the Mississippi plume. Chuanmin

Greg Challenger wrote:

> While it is good information, it would be nice to have a feel for
> natural variation. Over the last two years would indicate two "fall
> monitorings"; hence it would seem there can be no statistical
> conclusion of a striking loss of fish or reduced DO.
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Todd Barber
>      Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 6:54 AM
>      To: brian.keller at noaa.gov; Chuanmin Hu
>      Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; Multiple recipients of
>      list BLACKWATER
>      Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports
>       The Reef Ball Foundation has been, over the last two years,
>      conducting fish
>      count surveys over artificial reefs in Manatee County.  On
>      Wed of this week
>      we got in our fish counts from our "offshore" reefs which
>      are 7 miles of the
>      coast of Manatee County.  Although one would hope that the
>      Piney Point
>      dumping was too far away to cause an effect, we had a very
>      striking loss of
>      fish....specifically speaking, our Fall monitorings have
>      always reported
>      huge schools of baitfish (herring, etc) around the reefs and
>      they were
>      completely absent.  All fish count population were
>      significantly down or
>      absent.
>
>      Not to point the finger at Piney Point....there has also
>      been some Red Tide
>      activity and higher than normal rainfall activities as well
>      as reported
>      sewage overflows due to the rain in the county (any one of
>      which or a
>      combination of which could be to blame).  As another note,
>      we also recorded
>      the lowest D.O. levels offshore since we began surveying at
>      3.0 (we normally
>      average between 4-6) I just wanted to let folks know that
>      something is
>      causing an unusual disturbance offshore in terms of fishery
>      behavior.
>
>      Thanks,
>
>      Todd Barber
>      Chairman, Reef Ball Foundation, Inc.
>      President, Reef Ball Development Group, Ltd.
>      6916 22nd Street West
>      Bradenton, FL 34207
>      941-752-0169 (Office)
>      941-752-1033 (Fax)
>      941-752-0338 (Personal)
>      941-720-7549 (Cell when traveling)
>
>      reefball at reefball.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: "Brian Keller" <Brian.Keller at noaa.gov>
>      To: "Chuanmin Hu" <hu at seas.marine.usf.edu>
>      Cc: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>; "Multiple recipients
>      of list
>      BLACKWATER" <blackwater at seas.marine.usf.edu>
>      Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 5:14 PM
>      Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point satellite report #2
>
>
>      > Thank you very much for preparing and distributing these
>      reports. I would
>      > like to provide a clarification about the impact of the
>      2002 blackwater
>      > event on Keys coral reefs. The documented declines of live
>      coral occurred
>      > at only two of the 43 sites monitored by the Coral Reef
>      Monitoring
>      Project.
>      > The spatial extent of apparent blackwater impacts on reef
>      communities was
>      > limited, probably mainly because there are few reefs in
>      areas of the
>      > Sanctuary impacted by the blackwater event. At one of
>      those sites (Content
>      > Keys off the north end of Big Pine Key), the decline was
>      from very low
>      > pre-existing live-coral cover to even less live coral,
>      i.e., the reef was
>      > nearly devoid of live coral before the purported impact of
>      blackwater
>      > (monitoring is conducted annually, and there may have been
>      impacts on live
>      > coral over that period in addition to blackwater).
>      >
>      > Chuanmin Hu wrote:
>      >
>      > > Dear all: our report #2 is ready at
>      > > http://imars.marine.usf.edu/Piney_Point/reports/
>      > > Also, (if you are not aware yet,) we have generated
>      MODIS images in near
>      > > real-time (within 2 hours of satellite overpass) for
>      many areas. Just
>      > > come to http://modis.marine.usf.edu and choose one area
>      (say, West
>      > > Florida Shelf) and click on qc.html - you'll love it!
>      The 250-m RGB
>      > > images are available for some estuaries, for example
>      "Florida Bay" and
>      > > "Tampa Bay"
>      > > Cheers,
>      > >
>      > > Chuanmin Hu
>      > >
>      > > _______________________________________________
>      > > Coral-List mailing list
>      > > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>      > > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>      >
>      > --
>      > Brian D. Keller
>      > Science Coordinator
>      > Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
>      > P.O. Box 500368
>      > [Street address: 5550 Overseas Hwy., Main House]
>      > Marathon, FL 33050
>      >
>      > 305-743-2437 x25   fax 2357
>      > brian.keller at noaa.gov
>      > http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/
>      >
>      >
>      > _______________________________________________
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>
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