Algal scrubbers may save Baltimore’s polluted harbor! US-based ecological restoration firm Biohabitats\u00a0has set up an algal scrubber at the Fells Point in Baltimore harbor.\u00a0The gutter, 350 feet long by one foot wide, uses\u00a0native algae\u00a0to strip nutrients, suspended sediment and carbon from\u00a0water and inject oxygen into it before returning it to the harbor. The algae feed on the nutrients in the water pumped down the channel.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the Algal Ecotechnology Center at the University of Maryland, under the leadership of the center’s director Peter Kangas, have also been working on algae scrubbers and they are now testing the scrubbers\u00a0in the Susquehanna River, on the Eastern Shore and in Virginia. In a previous effort the scrubber developed by\u00a0Kangas\u00a0and his team was found\u00a0to remove 640 pounds of nitrogen and 90 pounds of phosphorus from the water. kangas\u00a0wants to scale up this pilot project soon to something large enough to have real impact on water quality.<\/p>\n