TITLE: Delaware Bay safe from deadly microbe * Officials say the waters of the bay are "too fast flowing" for the microscopic organism.
BYLINE: Mark Jaffe Knight-Ridder Newspapers
EST. PAGES: 1
DATE: 09/24/97
DOCID: FBEE320117
SOURCE: The Fresno Bee; FBEE
EDITION: HOME; SECTION: TELEGRAPH; PAGE: A14
ORIGIN: PHILADELPHIA
(Copyright 1997)
The microbe that has killed marine life, closed fishing
grounds, and generally terrorized the eastern Chesapeake Bay has
little chance of causing similar problems in the Delaware Bay
or along the Jersey shore.
"The conditions just aren't right," said JoAnn Burkholder,
a University of North Carolina biologist who is the foremost expert
on the organism. Burkholder, who was in Philadelphia on Tuesday,
said the waters of the Delaware Bay are "too fast flowing"
and the water along the shore probably "too cold" for
the microscopic organism -- "Pfiesteria pisicida" --
to do serious damage.
But this past summer in Maryland and North Carolina, "Pfiesteria"
ravaged marine ecosystems, killing millions of fish and sickening
some fishermen.
The outbreak will be the subject of Congressional hearings
scheduled to take place on Thursday in Washington.
Burkholder, who briefed officials at the federal Environmental
Protection Agency, stressed that while the organism can be devastating,
it is also limited. "Pfiesteria" is something of a "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" organism, she said.
Most of the time it is benign. "But every now and then
something triggers this toxic effect and turns it into a killer,"
she said.
"Pfiesteria" is a "dinoflagellate" -- a tiny microbe with a whip-like tail -- which usually lives in shore waters in low numbers, eating bacteria and algae or resting dormant as cysts on the bottom. From time to time, the population explodes and the organism begins secreting a toxin.