Mysterious orange goo washing ashore in Alaska

A mysterious orange goo that washed ashore in an Alaska village last week and sparked pollution concerns turns out to be a mass of crustacean eggs or embryos, government scientists said on Monday.

Tests of a sample sent by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation produced the results, officials at a laboratory belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska Fisheries Service Center said.

"We now think these are some sort of small crustacean egg or embryo, with the lipid oil droplet in the middle causing the orange color," Jeep Rice, a lead scientist at the Juneau laboratory, said in a news release.
"So this is natural. It is not chemical pollution; it is not a man-made substance," Rice said.

Last week's appearance of the orange substance in the Alaska village of Kivalina initially baffled villagers and experts.

Increase in GM Crops, Resistant Weeds Lead to Dramatic Rise in Pesticide Use

The widespread use of genetically modified (GM) crops engineered to tolerate herbicides has led to a sharp increase in the use of agricultural chemicals in the U.S. This practice is creating herbicide-resistant "super weeds" and an increase in chemical residues in U.S. food, according to a new report released today by The Organic Center, the Union for Concerned Scientists, and the Center for Food Safety.

According to the report, entitled "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years," as more farmers have adopted variations of corn, soy beans, and cotton bred to tolerate weed killer in recent years, the use of herbicides has increased steadily, with herbicide use growing by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, according to the report. Forty-six percent of that increase occurred during 2007 and 2008.

Pesticide Pathway

When soil moisture levels increase, pesticide losses to the atmosphere through volatilization also rise. In one long-term field study, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists found that herbicide volatilization consistently resulted in herbicide losses that exceed losses from field runoff. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Timothy Gish and ARS micrometeorologist John Prueger led the investigation, which looked at the field dynamics of atrazine and metolachlor, two herbicides commonly used in corn production. Both herbicides are known to contaminate surface and ground water, which was primarily thought to occur through surface runoff.

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