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Day two of David Pecker testimony wraps in NY Trump trial; Supreme Court hears arguments on Idaho's near-total abortion ban; ND sees a flurry of campaigning among Native candidates; and NH lags behind other states in restricting firearms at polling sites.

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The Senate moves forward with a foreign aid package. A North Carolina judge overturns an aged law penalizing released felons. And child protection groups call a Texas immigration policy traumatic for kids.

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Wyoming needs more educators who can teach kids trade skills, a proposal to open 40-thousand acres of an Ohio forest to fracking has environmental advocates alarmed and rural communities lure bicyclists with state-of-the-art bike trail systems.

New Report: Nitrogen Pollution “Killer Threat” to Seagrass

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014   

NEW YORK - A new, federally-funded report identifies nitrogen pollution as a killer threat to seagrass, which has been disappearing along the Long Island coast and throughout the region.

Marine scientist Chris Clapp, with the Nature Conservancy's Long Island chapter, says the federally-funded study found nitrogen pollution from sewage and fertilizer is killing off seagrass, which provides critical habitat for fin fish and shellfish. He says the underwater seagrass population off Long Island is down by as much as 90 percent since the 1930s, and calls that decline a critical indicator of the overall health of the region's water quality.

"It's the canary in the coal mine for our estuaries," says Clapp. "When you begin to lose that seagrass community and that habitat, it's really a signal something is wrong."

Governor Andrew Cuomo has been holding a series of water-quality hearings on Long Island, and Clapp says protecting and restoring the region's seagrass is crucial to protecting local water quality, adding seagrass plays a significant role in helping nurture Long Island's multimillion-dollar shellfish and scallop industries.

"You lose the habitat and scallops have nothing to cling onto, nowhere to hide, and their numbers already declined rapidly in the 80s," explains Clapp. "They've been rebounding the last few years, but a lot more needs to be done. "

Clapp says the bottom line is New York can't afford to lose any more seagrass.

"It's certainly much cheaper to save what you have than it is to restore something you've lost," says Clapp. "The challenges we have here on Long Island, with the population that we have, makes it really, really difficult to turn the clock back."

Removing old cesspools and upgrading local sewage treatment plants are two steps that can be taken to reduce nitrogen pollution killing local seagrass.



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