Scientists are racing to discover the depth of ocean damage sparked by the LA wildfires
Los Angeles (AP) – On the last Sunday, Triss Quinn led the highway in the Pacific Coast to assess the damage that occurred on the coast by Core.
The water line was dark. The remnants of the burning washing machines, dryers and metal devices were scattered around the coastal line. Edge rugs. The waves were linked during the high tide to the charred houses, the clouds of debris and possibly toxic ash in the ocean as they decline.
The president and CEO of the Environmental Group, Hill threm, said his team about the ashes and wreckage of ashes and wreckage, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the Balsades burning area, west of Los Angeles.
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While the crews are working to remove hundreds of thousands of tons of dangerous materials from Los Angeles fires, researchers and officials try to understand how fires on the ground affected the sea. the Palisades and Eaton fires Burning thousands of homes, companies, cars and electronics, and converting daily elements into Ash Made of pesticides, asbestos, plastic, lead, heavy metals and more.
Since many of them may end up in the Pacific Ocean, there are concerns and many unknown people about how fires affect life under the sea.
“We haven’t seen the homes and buildings burned near the water,” Queen said.
The wreckage of the fire and the toxic ash may make the water unsafe for surfers and swimmers, especially after the rains that can transport chemicals, garbage and other risks to the sea. In the long run, scientists worry if the charred urban pollutants and how they will affect food supply.
the The atmosphere and Clay collapses This led to the exacerbation of the Los Angeles area last week, some of these concerns.
When the fires erupted in January, one of Mara Dias’s first concerns was the pollution of the ocean water. The director of water quality, for Surfrider, a non -profit environmental institution, said that the strong winds were carrying smoke and ash beyond fire before it settled in the sea.
The marine environment scientist Jolly Denkce of the University of California, the Skrips Institute in San Diego, San Diego, San Diego, San Diego, said that scientists on a research ship during fires discovered ash and waste on water up to 100 miles (161 km) abroad. Things like branches and shad. The smell stated that it is burning electronics, “not like the fire of the camp is Latifa.”
The surface flow of rain is also a great and immediate concern. The rain captures pollutants and garbage during the flow towards the sea through a network of banks and rivers. This surface flow can contain “a lot of nutrients, nitrogen and phosphate that ends in the ashes of the burning material that can enter the water”, as Dias, as well Give it when you burn different types of fuel.
The clay collapses and debris in the burning area of Palisades can also flow the most dangerous waste in the ocean. After the fires, the soil in the scars of burning is less able to absorb rainfall and the water blocking layer can develop from the remains of the burned organic matter. When there are less organic materials to hold the soil in place, the risk of clay collapses and debris flow increases.
Los Angeles County officials, with the help of other agencies, have developed thousands of feet from concrete barriers, sandbags, silt socks and more to prevent debris from reaching the beaches. The La County Supervisors Council recently issued a request to obtain assistance from states and federalism to expand beach cleaning operations, prepare for the flow of the surface flow of storms and test ocean water to obtain toxins and potential chemicals, among other things.
In addition to the usual samples, state water officials and other total and dissolved minerals are tested, such as lantern organic compounds, lead, aluminum and flying.
It also takes accurate plastic samples, multi -loop aromatic hydrocarbons, or Pahs, harmful to humans and Water lifeAnd multi -chlorine biphenyls, or multi -chlorine vinyl compounds, a group of human chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer in animals and other serious health effects. It is now banned from manufacturing, and was used in products such as dyes, paints and electrical equipment.
The provincial health officials said that the chemical tests of the water samples last month did not raise health concerns, so they reduced the closure of one beach to an ocean water consultant. Beach pioneers still recommend staying outside the water.
Dinasquet and its colleagues understand to an understanding of the extent of the ash and the sample debris all over the ocean, the extent of their depth and extent of their sinking, and with the passage of time, where it ends.
Forest fires can deposit important nutrients such as iron and nitrogen in the environmental system, which enhances the growth of plant plankton, which can create a successive positive effect through the ecosystem. Denkitte said that the potential toxic ash of urban coastal fires could have severe consequences.
“Reports already show that there are a lot of bullets and asbestos in ash,” she added. “This is really bad for people, so it is also possible to be very bad for marine creatures.”
A great concern is whether toxic pollutants from the fire will enter the food chain. Researchers plan to take tissue fragments from fish to obtain heavy metal signs and pollutants. But they say it will take some time to understand how the huge urban fire will affect the larger ecosystems and our food supplies.
Dias noted that the ocean has long taken pollution from the ground, but with fires and other disasters, “everything is double and the situation is more clear.”
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