Pfiesteria
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Since the dawn of the Industrial Era mankind has continued to pour untold levels of pollutants into our air, water and land. In the span of less than a century, we are the first civilization whose existence and endeavors threaten the destruction of the planet. From commercial manufacturing and tapping natural resources to farming and lawn maintenance, humans continue to pollute the environment with toxic substances of all kinds. The depletion of the Ozone layer, changing weather patterns (i.e., more 90+ degree days per year), well water pollution and many other consequences have occurred as a result of this mindless behavior. Within the past decade or so another pollution-caused consequence has occurred in the coastal waterways of states like North Carolina and Maryland. A microorganism known as pfiesteria piscidia, a one-celled dinoflagellate that secretes toxins, has been linked to large numbers of fish kills and even neurological damage in humans in the coastal waterways of the mid-Atlantic states, especially North Carolina and Maryland. This microorganism is a suspected result of phosphate pollution from the dumping of hog waste, pollution that has been cited as the cause of the pfiesteria blooms in North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay. Pfiesteria is unique because it does not act like typical phytoplankton, in fact, it acts like something more germane to a science fiction fantasy than to our coastal waterways:
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cts on fish and human health:
When three small areas in Maryland waters of Chesapeake Bay were affected by toxic pfiesteria outbreaks in 1997, Maryland officials chose to objectively evaluate the data we had published. For the first time in the history of this issue, during August 1997, a medical team from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins clinically examined people who complained of health problems shortly after exposure to known toxic pfiesteria outbreaks. The medical team had expressed a high degree of skepticism prior to conducting the study, and they took steps to ensure that their evaluation was objective despite this bias. They documented serious impacts on learning and short term memory functioning for people who had been exposed to fish disease events or fish kills that were linked to toxic pfiesteria. The issue was elevated beyond the controversy that had marked its history in North Carolina; the issue was treated with respect and objectively evaluated, and milestones of progress in our understanding about pfiesteria’s impacts on human health were achieved because of Maryland’s actions.
(Burkholder 6)
The pfiesteria outbreak in Maryland was responded to with leadership that not only developed manag
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3937
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)
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