New York pilot project shows seaweed "thrives and cleans" in polluted waters

Since 2011, Dr. Charles Yarish and colleagues have experimented with growing seaweed on long lines at the head of New York's Bronx River Estuary, along with ribbed mussels suspended from a raft. They have raised a summer crop of the native red seaweed, Gracilaria tikvahiae, that grew up to 16.5% a day in July and a winter crop of sugar kelp, Saccharina latissima, that grew up to 8 feet in six months. Yarish says he has been surprised by the profigious growth in an area with low salinity and an overload of "a suite of nutrients" from a nearby waste water treatment plant and non-point runoff from the land and river.