Rotting Seaweed Toxic Fumes Alert In France

British holidaymakers have been warned to avoid beaches in northern France because of toxic fumes from rotting seaweed. Skip related content
Related photos / videos Rotting Seaweed Toxic Fumes Alert In France Enlarge photo One stretch of beach at Saint-Michel-en-Greve in Brittany has already been shut after a horse rider lost consciousness and his horse died.

In another case, a council worker paid to clear beaches of the noxious plants was taken to hospital in a coma.

Gilles Youenou, of the French Institute for Sea Research and Exploitation, said: "We would advise people to avoid the beaches in this area as the seaweed can give off hydrogen sulphide fumes.

"This is all a result of a problem with agriculture. Nitrates have got into the water and polluted it.

"A crust forms over stacks of rotting seaweed and when this crust is broken, fumes get out. It can be particularly lethal to dogs and other animals."
More at source. - uk.news.yahoo.com...

Well ya learn something every day.

Didn't know about this, ran a search, uk.search.yahoo.com... and found it's a common enough occurance.

Rotting seaweed creates Hydrogen Sulphide gas and when large piles of seaweed forms a crust in the sun and atmosphere, the gas builds up and the crusts split causing clouds of the gas which can put people in coma's and kill animals which are more sensitive to the gas.

]For European members in France and England etc, this is worth noting about it happening in Saint-Michel-en-Greve in Brittany etc currently.

And to everybody who lives near or goes to beaches, if you didn't know about this yet either, it's worth being conscious of when going to the coasts where seaweeds build up in the summer temp's causing it to crust and quickly decompose and the resultant clouds of gas which can be fatal. From the Yahoo search, areas affected can be extrapolated from past reports etc.


Paxus.

reply to post by DeltaPan


It doesn't happen with all sea weed flows that come ashore you missed this part:

This is all a result of a problem with agriculture. Nitrates have got into the water and polluted it.

I lived on a ranch that had the wells contaminated with nitrates, it isn't pretty if someone drinks the water. We had to go and buy all bottled water till they could find an area it hadn't affected. This due to the fact that A. I was pregnant and B. if you drink water contaminated with even small amounts of nitrates it can make you violently ill. The worst part of it is a disease that causes you to not be able to keep vitamin K (I believe been awhile) in your system.
The most common form of nitrate contamination and poisoning is from cow feces blending with the water supply, seems to be the case here too.

Well pointed out.

I didn't miss that though and is why i said affected areas could be extrapolated from past problems in the Yahoo seach i also linked withas well as other searches with more localised keywords with the assumption one would look closer if somewhere they live by or intend visiting or holidaying to is seen to have been affected, to see whether it's a current warranting caution personally and especially with animals or has been dealt with and so safe.

I just sampled a couple of paragraphs of the news item and linked, i didn't omit that, i just assume linked stories are visited by those interested to see the entire story for themselves and would have read that as well.

Indeed you are correct though, Nitrates are in the toxicity equation.

Not good if somebody drinks Nitrate fertiliser/plant food, either, which happens occasionally on allotments and back garden sheds when premixed without label or high N ready mixed food products, rare but i know it's happened, i've been a gardener by career since 1989 so know a bit about Nitrates myself just never knew about this seaweed thing before, life is a learning curve, as i always say.


Paxus.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by DeltaPan]

Why do i get the feeling that we all are going to eventually die off from our own waste products, seems to be where we are headed. as a political note...maybe cleaning up the enviorment is good for the wealthy and corporate people too.

reply to post by jimmyx


Well i rather think the Bush regime, corporations and others who live in isolation of reality through positions of power where people around them present reality for them to believe had/have a few too many Rapturists and that type of thinking for a long time has manifested as a use Terra up and wear her out because the worlds going to end as prophesied anyway state of mind, created an auto-nihilist/destructive psyche with a delusion of divinity of purpose because they believe in god which has been very dangerous to the establishment, as much as our environment and climate.

But i think a few people may have started to wake up recently when they've realised the nature of the bible and how it is an over translated and canonised, cherry picked version of the entirety of what was the whole and the Rapture ain't happening, what is written ain't necessarily so and some prophecy is self fullfilling but we can control how our future develops to a great extent so it doesn't have to end as is written, especially not going to end by any devine means because metaphysically this planet has a great number of pagans etc who want this planet to prevail and be healthy who know a lot about 'metaphysics' as well as Buddhists etc as much as every sane minded person.

Pennies do eventually drop even with the thickest of people.

So we do live in hope sanity shall prevail the madness.

Try not to feel too depressed though, i feel the future may be adverse but not too bad.

Paxus.


[edit on 6-8-2009 by DeltaPan]

Hope the mods don't mind this endorsement.

But the Union of Concerned Scientists can use every bit of support they can get, for the good of America and the rest of the world.

Things like Nitrate pollution is what they are about compelling governemnts not just U.S. to do the right things for the environment, compelling affirmative action to sort environmental problems out.

They do some very good work, UCS.

www.ucsusa.org... utmk=226008858

[edit on 6-8-2009 by DeltaPan]

reply to post by xoxo stacie


...

The most common form of nitrate contamination and poisoning is from cow feces blending with the water supply, seems to be the case here too.

Mmm tasty.. it really is amazing the levels of pollution that agriculture gives off. Even something as seemingly harmless as a massive heard of cows, can cause untold damage to the environment..


Crusty toxic seaweed in France that kills puppies.. I think I've seen it all.

Hmm rather interesting since for the last week and a half here in my country of New Zealand we've been having this on the news.

Animal Deaths

They havent figured out what it is yet here, considering we've had large numbers of birds and fish washing up dead in those areas as well. I used to live a few minutes walk from one of the beachs thats having the problem in New Zealand and we'd get some real thick seaweed washing up on some winter days after storms, but never did it kill animals, kinda scary considering as a kid id play in the stuff.

Might be the same cause as this French problem. Although not sure where nitrates would be coming from in the area (there are large farms at the most northern bay) to cause such similar issues.

Whats scarey is how fast it kills, some of the dogs that died here supposedly died almost immediately. Seems the french problem is almost as quick.

Edit:- Hmm however the fumes wouldn't or shouldn't kill fish which is what makes whats happening here in NZ different from the French problem now that i think about it. Some guy here found 1000 pilchards on one of the effected beachs, supposedly gathered em up and stuck him in his freezer... some people are kinda stupid in their opportunism.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by BigfootNZ]

reply to post by BigfootNZ


Hi.

Not good.

As i read the story i did notice though that this is still an unknown and the the dogs and the fish may not be related but if somebody is dumping Nitrates illegally upcoast it would affect marine life as well as the seaweed further down etc.

Don't know if you did but i'm emailing MAFBNZ to flag the French situation so they can eliminate or otherwise if they hadn't planned on looking in that direction.

NZ has a very big farming industry and uses one hell of a lot of Nitrates so this may be something similar, not a big stretch of the imagination by any means.

Well pointed out matey.

reply to post by DeltaPan


Emailed it over to your NZ biosecurity as well, if it's illegal dumping of industrial Nitrates whatever, it's within thier remit.



[edit on 7-8-2009 by DeltaPan]