October 2, 2019

In the Netherlands, the largest bicycle parking facility in the world recently opened in the city of Utrecht. The underground Fietsenstalling Stationsplein (Bicycle Parking Station Square), in Utrecht’s city center, has space for 12,500 bikes. Double-decker racks hold thousands of bikes in a three-storied concrete and glass garage, and riders pedal directly into the building and up to their parking spaces. Part of the building opened in 2018, but the fietsenstalling did not reach its full operational capacity until August 2019.

A man parks his bicycle at the Fietsenstalling Stationsplein in Utrecht on Aug. 20, 2019. Credit: © Abdullah Asiran, Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Bicycling, or fietsen in Dutch, is a popular activity and sport in the Netherlands, but it is also a practical mode of daily transport. In Dutch cities, about 40 percent of people use bikes for daily travel (as opposed to fewer than 2 percent of people in United States cities). To accommodate all those bike commuters, Dutch cities have an abundance of bike lanes in the streets, protected intersections, special bike paths away from car traffic, and numerous bicycle parking areas. Utrecht has long had such “bike friendly” infrastructure (the world’s first bike lane opened there in 1885), but to handle the ever-increasing bike congestion in the city center, a more ambitious solution was needed.

The city of Utrecht worked with NS, the national Dutch railway, to build the bike garage at Stationsplein (Station Square). (NS [Nederlandse Spoorwegen, or Dutch Railways] estimates that about half its customers in Utrecht arrive at stations by bicycle, so it makes sense for the railway to accommodate bike commuters.) Stationsplein connects the busy Utrecht Centraal Railway Station with the Hoog Catharijne shopping center. The bustling area is a common destination for both shoppers and commuters, and the bike garage—directly beneath the square—provides an affordable and secure place to leave your bike. The first 24 hours of parking are free, and the garage never closes. A digital system directs cyclists to available parking spots, and the walls are color coded to aid in navigation. There are also bike maintenance areas in the facility and more than 1,000 bikes available to rent.

Adding to the bicycling infrastructure in the Netherlands is an important part of the nation’s commitment to fighting air pollution and climate change. Bicycling is a healthy, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly way to commute.

March 4, 2019

Yesterday, March 3, was World Wildlife Day, an international celebration of the Earth’s flora and fauna sponsored by the United Nations (UN). This year’s theme, “Life Below Water: For People and Planet,” singled out the crucial ecosystems and marine life of the world’s oceans. Life on Earth depends on the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans.

In 2019, the theme of World Wildlife Day is “Life Below Water: For People and Planet.” Credit: © World Wildlife Day

The first UN World Wildlife Day was celebrated on March 3, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973. The treaty—which went into effect in 1975—aims to control trade in wild animals and plants, their parts, and products derived from them. Over 170 countries around the world have joined the treaty. CITES forbids commercial international trade in certain endangered species, and it regulates trade in other species that might otherwise become endangered. Nevertheless, international wildlife trade continues to put many species at risk.

This year’s World Wildlife Day theme drew particular attention to the diverse animal and plant species that inhabit the world’s oceans. It also highlighted the importance of the oceans themselves, which—aside from providing energy, food, livelihoods, medicines, natural resources, recreation, sediments, and transportation—also absorb about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

Unfortunately, many ocean waters are polluted, and plastic marine debris in particular is poisoning the world’s waters and killing marine wildlife. Overfishing and other forms of exploitation are also reducing marine wildlife populations, as are the losses of coastal habitats and the effects of climate change. The goal of “Life Below Water: For People and Planet” was to raise awareness of the importance of marine life and to instruct people on responsible and sustainable behavior that can limit the many perils facing the world’s oceans.

March 8, 2018

In 1918, 100 years ago, the Congress of the United States passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) to help protect wild birds in North America from extinction. Bird populations, ravaged by habitat loss, overhunting, and pollution, had dropped sharply in the years leading up to the act. The MBTA helped preserve those populations and allowed them to recover and thrive. In late 2017, however, the administration of President Donald Trump weakened the protections provided by the MBTA, calling them an unnecessary burden to industry.

Bald eagles are one of more than 1,000 bird species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Credit: © FloridaStock/Shutterstock

The widespread and largely unregulated growth of industry led to new pollution problems in the United States in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. Wildlife of all sorts were threatened by pollution as well as the reduction of forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats. At that time, nongame birds in particular were threatened by the commercial trade in birds and bird feathers—especially in millinery (ladies’ hats). Species such as the sandhill crane, the snowy egret, and the wood duck were hunted to near extinction. The National Audubon Society and other conservation groups pushed Congress to pass the MBTA, which made it illegal to harm or kill migratory birds, either intentionally by hunting or “unintentionally” as a by-product of industry.

The MBTA saved millions of birds from the feather fashion trend (which did not last) and from many environmentally detrimental industrial practices. Congress levied heavy fines against industries that did not take common sense steps to prevent bird deaths. For example, a company could be fined for having oil, gas, or tar waste pits that birds mistake for typical ponds (resulting in poison deaths), or for having unmarked power transmission lines (resulting in collision or electrocution deaths). And in the case of environmental disasters, MBTA fines helped pay for the recovery of bird habitats. After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP, one of the world’s largest international oil companies, paid a $100 million fine under the MBTA (part of a much larger overall settlement). Most industries have readily complied with the MBTA over its long history.

On the eve of the MBTA’s 100th anniversary, however, the Trump administration changed how the act would be interpreted. The Department of the Interior said it would punish only the intentional killing of migratory birds. This move frees industries from responsibility for the “unintentional” killing of birds through environmentally unsound practices. The feather fashion industry may have gone away, but pollution has not; natural habitats continue to disappear, and environmental disasters continue to happen. Migratory birds have recovered largely because of the industrial application of the MBTA. Without it, birds are once again at the mercy of industry, which is much less likely to invest in precautionary measures to prevent bird deaths.

June 29, 2017

The Bay of Bengal forms the northernmost part of the Indian Ocean. Bordered in an arc by the populous nations of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar (also called Burma), the bay plays an important role in the lives of hundreds of millions of people. For thousands of years, people have subsisted on the bay’s rich marine life. With its waters dirtied and its sea populations dwindling, however, the bay’s fruitful abundance is lessening and may soon come to an end.

Traditional fishing boats crowd the harbor at Visakhapatnam, India, on the Bay of Bengal. Larger trawling vessels can be seen in the background. Credit: © Shutterstock

Covering an area of some 840,000 square miles (2.2 million square kilometers), the Bay of Bengal is one of the world’s largest marine ecosystems. The bay’s deep waters, coral reefs, estuaries, and mangroves provide a remarkable diversity of life. The rare Irrawaddy dolphin, which lives in fresh and brackish (slightly salty) waters, lurks in the muddy river mouths along the coasts. The bay’s salty and swampy mangrove forests provide a key habitat for Bengal tigers in India and Bangladesh, and for saltwater crocodiles, river terrapins, and other endangered species throughout the region. The dynamic mix of salt and freshwater habitats makes the coasts hotspots of fish biodiversity as well. At least 24 species of shrimp, 50 species of crab, and hundreds of different types of mollusks live in the bay’s shallower waters. These waters also host an abundance of squid and octopus species.

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The Bay of Bengal is the northern part of the Indian Ocean. The bay borders on India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The Bay of Bengal is best known, however, for its rich fishing. Seemingly endless populations of tuna, mackerel, sharks, reef fish, prawns, oysters, and other marine animals have long provided people with food and a steady income. For centuries, people fished the bay with pole and line, they trolled from light boats, or they practiced beach seining (hauling in nets anchored to the beach). These methods—which are still common today—produced ample results for both home and market, yet they did little harm to the bay’s overall fish stocks. Over the past 50 years or so, however, industrial fishing—which leans heavily on the use of trawlers—has largely supplanted the traditional sustainable fishing techniques, and the results have been disastrous.

Even such small stern trawlers as the one above catch large amounts of fish, including non-commercial marine species known as bycatch. Credit: © Colin Munro, Alamy Images

Trawlers use funnel-shaped nets called trawls to trap sea life. Trawls are very effective at corralling huge quantities of sea life, particularly valuable shrimp and prawns (often referred to as “pink gold” in the Bay of Bengal). A single trawler can catch many more fish in a day than a dozen or more traditional fishing craft. But trawling is a destructive fishing practice that can devastate marine ecosystems. The heavy trawls, usually weighed down and dragged along the sea floor, do not discriminate. They catch everything too big to slip through the net, including dolphins, rays, sea turtles, and many types of other non-commercial fish. These accidental catches are swept up in the nets, hauled on board the ship, and dismissed as bycatch. Some animals caught as bycatch are returned to the sea alive, but most die and are either discarded or sold to produce farm animal feed. Bycatch can constitute as much as 90 percent of a trawler’s haul—a devastatingly inefficient and wasteful percentage. Trawlers can leave a swath of lifeless sea in their wake, and they also hurt the sea floor itself. The heavy nets mow down sensitive corals and plant life.

In the Bay of Bengal, the switch from local to corporate and industrial fishing—to unsustainable and destructive trawling—has largely depleted the waters’ once-rich fish stocks. As fish hauls have decreased over the years, many traditional fishing families have had to find other ways of life. At the same time, trawling fleets—pushing ever further to find their elusive catch—have caused international disputes as they encroach upon foreign nations’ territorial waters.

Overfishing has done great harm to the Bay of Bengal, but ocean pollution may be the bay’s greatest enemy. Pollution has killed large amounts of marine life, poisoned or otherwise contaminated the bay’s waters, and even drained the life-giving abilities of the water itself. In some areas—including a massive “dead zone” in the middle of the bay—the once organically rich marine environment has become a tangled web of plastic garbage floating on oxygen-poor waters nearly incapable of supporting life.

Water pollution in the Bay of Bengal comes from many sources. Deep-water gas and oil drilling can cause great harm, as can ever-running boat engines and acid rain falling from the polluted air of the “brown cloud” drifting from the Asian mainland. The largest amounts of pollutants, however, come from the bay’s feeding rivers. Many major rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, including the Meghna, the Ganges, and the Mahanadi. These mighty rivers carry fresh water into the salty bay, but they also bring pesticides and fertilizers from farming lands as well as massive amounts of trash and untreated sewage from urban areas.

Aside from the obvious harm from toxins, fertilizer runoff provides the bay’s plankton with an excess of nutrients. This causes the plankton population to rise sharply. The plankton then use up much of the water’s oxygen supply, leading to areas of hypoxic (low oxygen) waters. Few marine species can exist in hypoxic waters, so most animals either die or go elsewhere. In the center of the bay, a 37,000-square mile (60,000-square kilometer) area devoid of fish has appeared—a massive hypoxic zone often referred to as “dead.” Without action to reverse the bay’s decline, this dead zone may grow until, one day, it takes over the entire bay.

Anthropogenic (human caused) climate change, too, is threatening the Bay of Bengal. Climate change affects southern Asia’s seasonal monsoons, causing erratic, stronger, and unpredictable storms and flooding, increasing freshwater runoff and pollution and further deoxygenating the bay’s waters. Global warming leads to warmer ocean water temperatures and encourages the expansion of low-oxygen or even anaerobic (oxygen free) dead zones. Warmer ocean waters also melt polar ice at an increased rate, which causes sea levels to rise. As water inches up the Bay of Bengal’s coastline, it will displace millions of people. It will also take away land badly needed for agriculture, forcing humans to rely still further on fish from the bay—fish that soon may be nearly impossible to find.

As food security in Bay of Bengal countries becomes increasingly threatened and marine species become harder to find, slowing—or, if possible, reversing—the demise of the Bay of Bengal will become increasingly urgent. Bay communities and governments must choose more sustainable methods of fishing as well as more responsible methods of agriculture and commerce. At the same time, they must do their best to reduce pollution and waste. Many scientists see the plight of the Bay of Bengal as a warning signal to the rest of Earth. The bay is an example of a global trend in which unsustainable fishing methods, pollution, and climate change are slowly killing the world’s oceans. The Bay of Bengal is at a breaking point, but it is not too late to save it. Swift immediate and long-term action is needed, and the area’s people must make a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility.

May 25, 2016

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) survey released earlier this month, billions of city dwellers throughout the world experience unhealthy levels of air pollution. WHO is an agency of the United Nations that helps build better health systems throughout the world, especially in developing countries. The WHO survey reported on air quality data from 3,000 cities around the world. The most severe air pollution conditions were found in some of the world’s poorest regions, but the report also showed problematic air pollution in wealthy nations. The WHO report found that about 80 percent of the world’s urban citizens are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution daily.

Smog obscures residents of Fuyang, a city in China’s Anhui Province, during morning excercises. A recent report estimated that 80 percent of the world’s cities have unhealthy levels of air pollution. Credit: © Imaginechina/AP Photo

Air pollution is a serious problem worldwide. When people breathe polluted air, the impurities can irritate their air passages and lungs. Particulates (small particles) often remain in the lungs, and they can worsen such respiratory ailments as asthma and bronchitis. Air pollution, including smog, soot, and ozone, reduces resistance to colds and pneumonia and can aggravate emphysema. Carbon monoxide interferes with the transfer of oxygen from the lungs to body tissues.

Compared to data gathered in similar reports over many decades, this newest WHO survey shows that air quality has rapidly declined in most cities across the world. This is especially true for cities in developing nations, where infrastructure improvements have not kept up with rapid population growth, especially among the poor. Increasingly, cities are becoming polluted with smog and soot from cars and other transports, industry, construction sites, farming, and wood-burning stoves. Fast-growing cities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific are the most impacted, with many showing pollution levels at 5 to 10 times above recommended levels.

Onitsha, a fast-growing port city in southeastern Nigeria, has the world’s worst air quality according to the WHO report, while 16 of the 30 most polluted cities are found in India. Air pollution levels were found to be generally lower for cities in developed countries, but unhealthy levels were frequently recorded in London, New York City, and Sydney, Australia. The purest air was reported in Muonio, a small city in Finland about 95 miles (153 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. Other cities noted for especially clean air included Norman Wells in Canada and Campisábalos, Spain.

December 23, 2014

A world-famous hot spring in Yellowstone National Park owes its brilliant rainbow colors to tourist trash, a new study has revealed. Before the park began attracting millions of visitors each year, the pool was deep blue. According to the study, bottles, coins, rocks, and other objects thrown by tourists into the hot spring over the years are responsible for the pool’s new appearance.

Yellowstone, the oldest national park in the world, has more than 300 active geysers and thousands of hot springs. Most of the park’s landscape was created by volcanic eruptions about 600,000 years ago. A large mass of molten rock still lies beneath the surface of the park. This rock, called magma, furnishes the heat for the park’s geysers and hot springs. The colors in the pools come from bacterial mats–complex communities of bacteria.

Like other hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, Morning Glory Pool is famous for its jewel-like colors.  (© Sascha Burkard, Shutterstock)

To determine the hot springs’ original color, researchers from Montana State University and Germany’s Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences first created a mathematical model to explain how chemical reactions are producing the colors in Morning Glory Pool today. The model was based on data from images of the pool made with several kinds of light and on a chemical analysis of the water. Then the scientists “reverse-engineered” the process to determine the color of the water in 1872, when the park was established.

The waters of Morning Glory Spring were a brilliant blue in 1872, when Yellowsotne National Park was established. Today, the thermal pool displays yellow, orange, and green because of changes in the bacteria inhabiting the pool. (Joseph Shaw and Paul Nugent (Montana State
University), Michael Vollmer (Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences))

The scientists found that trash thrown into Morning Glory Pool by visitors has partially blocked one of the pool’s underwater vents, lowering the temperature of the water. As a result, the kinds of bacteria in the pool have changed, turning the water from deep blue to green, yellow, and orange.

Additional World Book articles:

• A Place Where Earth Speaks (a Special Report)
• The Biggest Eruptions on Earth (a Special Report)

December 1, 2014

Interpol, an international organization of police authorities, has launched its first operation asking for public assistance in locating and bringing to justice fugitives wanted specifically for crimes against the environment. The new Operation Infra (International Fugitive Round Up and Arrest) Terra includes a “Most Wanted” list of 9 of the 139 fugitives being sought for such crimes as wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and trading in illegal ivory.

Environmental crime, according to Interpol, involves both wildlife crime–the illegal exploitation of the world’s wild flora and fauna–and pollution crime, the illegal trading and disposal of hazardous wastes or resources. Estimates of the annual value of environmental crime range from $70 billion to $213 billion. The illegal wildlife trade alone is worth some $19 billion a year, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. In recent years, terrorist organizations have turned to poaching and other forms of wildlife crime to fund their activities.

Poaching poses a major problem in a number of national parks that provide homes for threatened wildlife. This photograph shows elephant tusks that were seized from ivory poachers in Africa. (© Masterfile)

Among those on Interpol’s first environmental “Most Wanted” list are Italian Adriano Giacobone, wanted for, among other crimes, the illegal transport and discharge of toxic waste; Zambian Ben Simasiku, wanted for the unlawful possession of elephant tusks; and Indonesian Sudiman Sunoto, wanted for illegal logging. “We believe that the capture of these criminals on the run will contribute to the dismantlement of transnational crime groups who have turned environmental exploitation into a professional business with lucrative revenues,” said Interpol official Stefano Carvelli.

Additional World Book articles:

• Animal (The future of animals)
• Deforestation
• Elephant (Protecting elephants)
• Endangered species
• Rain forest (The future of rain forests)
• Wildlife conservation

June 5, 2014

Unusual rocks found on a beach in Hawaii may become long-lasting evidence of the impact humans are having on our planet as well as a marker for the start of a new division of geologic time. The rock is a conglomerate, a rock made up of pebbles, gravel, or the like, held together by a mineral cement. Only in this case, the cement is melted plastic from trash washed or blown ashore. The scientists involved in the rock’s identification have named it plastiglomerate. They also suspect that the new rock can be found along other coasts.

Marine researcher Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach, California, found the rock on Kamilo Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. The beach, which is heavily litered with plastic trash, has been called the dirtiest beach in the world. After hearing Moore talk about the rock, geologist Patricia Corcoran and artist Kelly Jazvac of the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in Canada decided to check out the rock for themselves. Their investigations revealed two versions of the new rock. The first, called in-situ plastiglomerate, consists of porous volcanic rocks whose many tiny holes contain melted plastic. The second, more common, kind is called clastic plastiglomerate. It consists of sand, coral, bits of wood, and other debris glued together by melted plastic.

Moore originally thought that the plastic had melted because of lava flows common to the volcanically active Big Island. However, Corcoran and Jazvac discovered that campfires, not lava, were responsible for the plastiglomerate. “It’s so polluted you couldn’t have a campfire there without burning some plastic,” Jazvac told a UWO newsletter. “The quantity is so high that if you’re living near this beach, and you want to live there, what else are you going to do with this material?”

When the scientists analyzed the rock, they found plastic from netting, ropes, and other fishing-related debris; containers and lids; tubes and pipes; and other objects. They suspect the debris came from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” one of the worst regions of plastic pollution in the ocean. The Patch, which lies between California and Japan, is created by spiraling, wind-driven ocean currents carrying trash from coastal waters and other sites throughout the North Pacific.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the area of Texas and contains an estimated 3 million tons (2.7 metric tons) of plastic. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

For future geologists, the plastiglomerate may be marker for the beginning of a new geologic period. Currently, we are living in the Holocene Period, which began 11,500 years ago, with the end of the Ice Age. However, some scientists have suggested establishing a new geologic period called the Anthropocene Period to mark the time during which humans have significantly changed Earth’s natural features and ecosystems. Cocoran’s team believes that plastiglomerate, which is much denser than ordinary plastic, could become buried in the sand and, thus, become part of the rock record. “If someone came along a million years from now, and was looking at a stratigraphic [layered] section through the rock, they would be able to see this plastic along one horizon and say this was the time when humankind was using so much plastic and not disposing of it properly,” Corcoran said.

Additional World Book articles:

• Earth (Age of Earth)
• Geology
• Plastic Planet (a Special Report)

March 13, 2014

Four new chemicals that are almost certainly human made are threatening the recovery of the protective ozone layer in Earth’s upper atmosphere, according to scientists from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. The origin of the gases, which were not in the atmosphere before the 1960′s, is unclear, but they appear to be coming from somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Even more worrisome, emissions of two of the gases seem to have risen in recent years.

Ozone is a gas that is present in small amounts in Earth’s atmosphere. In the troposphere (the lowest level of the atmosphere), ozone is a pollutant. However, in the stratosphere (the layer above the troposphere), ozone blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, protecting life on Earth.

In the 1970′s, scientists monitoring the atmosphere over Antarctica noticed that the ozone layer was becoming depleted (less concentrated) each spring. This area became known as the ozone hole. In 1985, researchers discovered that the ozone hole had grown since the 1960′s. That is, over the years, the area of low concentrations of ozone had become larger. In addition, the ozone concentrations had become smaller. Scientists soon linked the ozone hole to chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). CFV’s were once widely used as refrigerants and as propellants in aerosol spray cans. The international community acted quickly to protect the ozone layer. In 2010, a total global ban on CFC production went into effect. But an ozone hole still occurs every year because of CFC molecules that remain in the atmosphere. Although atmospheric concentrations of ozone-damaging chemicals have fallen in recent years, the ozone hole was not expected to heal completely until at least 2050.

A false-color view shows the total ozone over the Antarctic pole on March 7, 2014. The purple and blue colors are where there is the least ozone, and the yellows and reds show where there is more ozone. (NASA/Goodard Flight Center)

Three of the newly discovered chemicals in the ozone layer are CFC’s. The fourth is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), which also damages atmospheric ozone. The British scientists reported that 82,000 short tons (74,000 tonnes) of the gases have been released into the atmosphere so far. Analyses of old, compact snow, known as firn, and modern air samples revealed that the gases have appeared in the past 40 to 50 years.

The scientists speculated that the new chemicals could be appearing because of loopholes in the Montreal Protocol, which banned most CFC’s. The treaty allows the use of extremely small amounts of CFC’s in the manufacture of certain insecticides and in solvents used to clean electronic equipment. However, the gas emissions could also be the result of illegal production. The scientists called on governments to identify the source of the gases so production can be halted immediately.

Additional World Book articles:

• Air pollution
• Greenhouse effect
• Rowland, Frank Sherwood
• Smog
• Environmental pollution (1988) (a Back in Time article)
• Environmental pollution (1990) (a Back in Time article)

September 13, 2013

A pipeline running from storage tanks to ships in Honolulu Harbor in Hawaii ruptured on September 9, spilling up to 233,000 gallons (882 million cubic meters) of molasses into the bay. Divers report that the spill has turned Honolulu Harbor into an environmental disaster area, with thousands upon thousands of fish and other marine creatures dead from suffocation. Because the molasses is heavier than water, it is settling to the ocean floor, displacing oxygen-rich water that marine life need to breath, said Keith Korsmeyer, professor of biology at Hawaii Pacific University.

The shipping company that owns the pipeline, Matson Navigation, has issued a statement regretting the spill but contending that there is nothing it can do to clean up the mess. Molasses is a sugar product that, unlike oil, will dissolve over time. However, scientists expect that the dissolved sugar will encourage the growth of bacteria, resulting in blooms (dense populations) that will also sap oxygen from the water. “This is the worst environmental damage to sea life that I have come across, and it’s fair to say this is a biggie, if not the biggest that we’ve had to confront in the state of Hawaii,” Gary Gill, deputy director for the Environmental Health Division of the U.S. Health Department, stated in an interview with Honolulu’s NBC affiliate, KHNL.

Honolulu is Hawaii’s capital, largest city, and chief port. Its main urban area, shown here, is on the southeastern coast of the island of Oahu. Diamond Head, a famous extinct volcano, rises in the background. (© Corbis/SuperStock)

Marine biologists worry that the fish die-off will lure such predators as sharks, barracuda, and eels into the harbor and into neighboring Keehi Lagoon, a major recreational area. Health officials in Hawaii warned swimmers, snokelers, and surfers to stay out of the waters near the harbor. Molasses is manufactured at Hawaii’s last sugar cane plantation and is transported by ship to the mainland.

Additional World Book articles:

• Eutrophication
• Water pollution