

Florida’s Special Sponge for Soaking Up Pollution: Fish - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/floridas-special-sponge-for-soaking-up-pollution-fish

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adminprof
Doesn't using the chad as bait for fishing simply put the pollutants in other
waters? It seems a little shortsighted but maybe I'm not understanding the
full story.

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CapitalistCartr
Lake Apopka is 30,000 acres, about 47 sq. miles, a decent sized lake. The Gulf
of Mexico is 615,000 sq miles with the Gulf Stream running through it.
Compared with what the Mississippi dumps into it every day, this is a
thimbleful.

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dgemm
Can't you reuse these nitrogen- and phosphorus- rich fish as fertilizer?

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remarkEon
I would assume so? I remember my grandfather doing something like that with
fish in South Dakota caught from lakes that had similar problems with
fertilizer run-off.

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johnohara
Phosphorus is crucial to human life. It underpins modern agriculture
worldwide, and like fresh water, is a finite resource globally. There is
disagreement over the exact time frame for reaching "peak phosphorus" as well,
estimates range from 15 to 100+ years. So while these fish represent one
method of phosphorus recovery, it doesn't address the wastefulness of allowing
important resources like nitrogen and phosphorus to runoff into Lake Apopka in
the first place.

