The Red (Tide) Menace

A toxic red tide has blanketed the equivalent of more than 1.3 million soccer fields of sea off eastern China, threatening marine and human life. The tide is caused by plankton reproducing itself in large quantities due to nutrients provided in part by sewage and industrial waste.

—Reuters

It is not just China’s lakes, rivers, and streams that are being choked by a flood of pollutants. China’s ocean waters are also suffering mightily from waves upon waves of toxic and organic pollutants and a growing epidemic of red tides. The problem is particularly acute in the relatively shallow Bohai Sea off northern China. This is one of the world’s busiest waterways, and it is characterized by a very minimal tidal exchange, which makes it particularly susceptible to pollution. According to Elizabeth C. Economy, “China releases about 2.8 billion tons of contaminated water into the Bo Hai annually, and the content of heavy metal in the mud at the bottom of it is now 2000 times as high as China’s own official safety standard.”

More broadly, China’s particularly virulent red tides are being ignited by the wholesale dumping of sewage, agricultural, and industrial pollution into ocean waters. These red tides are merely an oceangoing version of the eutrophication process now strangling China’s fresh water resources.

China’s red tides are destroying fish stocks and devastating other marine life that China and other countries in the region depend upon for food. What is perhaps most worrisome is the rapidly increasing frequency and intensity of China’s red tide episodes. Indeed, China has seen an astonishing forty-fold increase in the incidence of red tides in just the past few years.