With the northern area of Biscayne Bay temporarily starved of oxygen, environmentalists and governments raced to use massive pumps this weekend to recirculate some of the sea water and pump it with air.
Modifying a technique typically used in ponds and canals, a county fire boat spent Friday and Saturday pumping bay water into its hoses and the spraying it in high into the air in the shallows near North Bay Village. With the water mixing with air, oxygen levels should be higher once the liquid returns to the bay.
“In principle, taking low-oxygen water from the water column and spraying into there should greatly increase the oxygen molecules that bind” to the seawater, said Todd Crowl, executive director of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University.
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