Questions and answers about the Baltic Sea:

Information collected from internet by class 8d and translated by Johanna Mikkelä 8d

How does the Baltic sea feel?

It is impossible to give you an simple answer to such a question. It is like giving you an answer to how Sweden feels today.

What would happen if the Baltic dies?
The Baltic Sea won't die!
But if no one does anything maybe some species will disappear, for example the seaweed, codfish and the porpoise. But there are also species that will adore it, like green algae, herrings, clams and bacteria's.

The thing is that we people don’t want the Baltic Sea to be like that. We want to have back the ocean that we once had, like it used to be in the 40ties. You know, when the toilets, cars, fertilizers and poisons that destroy the environment and the industries still were very unusual.

Why is the Baltic Sea so sensitive?

Since the Baltic is brackish water (a mix between fresh and salt water) many animals and plants find it hard to live there. This is because there actually are no brackish water species.

The salt water is too salt for the fresh water species and the fresh water is not salty enough for the salt-water species.

There are only about 80 different major species in this sea (compared to the western Sea with over 1000 species), thus has plenty of space to expand. Less competition than in salt water oceans, but harder and stressed to live. So you can imagine that if it is as hard to live as it is, it doesn’t take much more before you totally collapse. That’s why the species are more sensitive for all kinds of poison in the Baltic Sea, comparing to the species in the Western Sea.

The Baltic Sea is also a very trapped sea. The water from the Atlantic can only find its way into the Baltic Sea by some narrow passages.

It takes on average 30 years before all the water has been changed. Then as well, the water is laminated in many layers just like a cake, because of the difference in salt content and temperature. These layers are hardly mixed with each other at all. All the vegetation that produces oxygen you can find in the top layer, because that’s where you will find the most light. In the lowest layer there are only animals that consume oxygen. If a lot of food reach them, witch will happen if you fertilize the water, there will many animals and bacteria and then there won't be enough oxygen for all of them so some animals will die or they will have to move.

What can we do to reduce the pollution?

Dangerous materials; we can forbid or replace with materials that are not so dangerous (e.g. PBC and weed killer), enclose different industrial processes (e.g. paper bleaching and photo developing), collect and recycle or treat products with dangerous substances in special ways (e.g. Ni/Ka batteries and mercury thermometers).

Nutritive substances; you can reduce the pollution by composting and recycling. Reduce the pollution from the traffic and agriculture. Improve the cleaning in the sewage treatment works, build sewage treatment works on the East Side (this is already in progress). Use the nutrition added by farming e.g. clams, big algae and some sort of fishes e.g. the pikeperch.

What will happen to the Baltic in the future?

The pollution in the Baltic is being reduced all the time. All because one comes up with better technology and other solutions. The legislation has also been sharpened as we realize the consequences of our actions. Most people are well aware that we must be very careful with our sensitive Sea.

But many things remain to be done if we want the Baltic Sea back as it was e.g. in the 40ties.

Were does all the pollution come from?

Answer no.1.

From air, land and water. The water that flows into the Baltic has passed an area with 85 million people. Most of them live in Poland. The pollution for every person including different materials is on average higher for us in Sweden than it is for those in Poland. So even if much of the poison and fertilizing substances come from the East Side, we can't only blame them. We are just lucky to be fewer people living in Sweden and Finland.

Answer no.2.

The things that destroy the environment in the Baltic come from all the countries around it and sometimes even from countries farther away. The pollution from the cars and from the chimney stalks can be transported a long way by the wind and later fall down as rain in the Baltic. The pollution from our toilets, washing machines, well everything being used at home ends up in the Baltic Sea. In Sweden and the other Nordic countries we have good sewage treatment works witch clean our sewage before it ends up in the Baltic, but in many other countries this is not the case.

The agriculture and forest industries are also polluting the environment. All the manure and everything that we spray on our fields go with the rainwater trough the ground to the nearest river or lake and then out into the sea. The same goes for our lawns and golf courses. All the factories around the Baltic have also drainage water that ends up in the Baltic. Some with good cleaning, others with less good cleaning. For the Baltic it is above all nitrogen and phosphorus from e.g. our toilets and from the farms that feed the sea and make some species increase in numbers on the expense of others. Environmental poisons e.g. metals are also a big problem for the Baltic. They come from all the things we produce and use but also from our refuse dumps were we put all things that we have used.

As you can see the Baltic Sea and all other oceans are the end stations for all the things people use.

What is being done to save the Baltic?

Researching, inventing, monitoring, informing, teaching, influencing and co-operating.

In every way and on all levels. Sometimes it feels like things are moving very slowly, but most of the time it is moving in the right direction.

Has the pollution increased or decreased?

We have improved the cleaning of our waste materials. But at the same time we have also become more people. The emission from e.g. cars is getting cleaner and cleaner but at the same the cars are getting more and more. So maybe in the end we may see an increase of the car exhausts.

And the fact is that what we dropped into the ocean for 20 or 30 years ago still is left in the water. It will take a long time before it is gone, and by then there will be left the things we let out today.

Witch of the species will suffer most from the pollution in the Baltic?

When it comes to the environmental poisons you can say that all the animals at the top of the nutrition chain suffer the most. A nutrition chain can start with small micro-organisms, animals and vegetation-plankton that are eaten by clams and crawfishes. Fishes are later eating these, then we, seals and birds eat the fish. In every step of the nutrition chain the environmental poisons increase, so it is always the top consumers (people, seals, birds and some kind of fishes) that are hit the worst. When it comes to the nutritive substances (nitrogen and phosphorus) other species can be hit to e.g. the seaweed because the other algae can bear the over feeding better and then they will survive the seaweed.

Why is there alga blooming and where does the algae come from?

An alga blooming is nothing unnatural. The spring and autumn blooming are even necessary for the Baltic. You can normally find the algae in small numbers in the water. An abundance of nutritive substances (nitrogen and phosphorus) increases the alga production and high sunlight, warm water and light winds are favorable for the algae and they start to multiply heavily. But it is only a fraction of all the algae that are poisonous. But it is usually these poisonous algae that you mean when you talk about alga blooming. Unpleasant blue green alga blooming is what you can see in the summer. They are also not unnatural, on the contrary, as far as we know it has always existed. Poisonous alga blooming have lately been an important issue in the media. Maybe there are reasons to worry, but not for your personal health but more for the condition of the Baltic and the life and livening of generations to come. One mustn't forget that alga blooming is something very natural. The question is if it has increased in the past years because of the increased pollution of the nutritive salts or if it is just a question of natural variations due to favorable weather.

Why mustn't you go for a swim when there is alga blooming?

The reason why you shouldn’t go swimming in heavy alga blooming is because it is hard to know if it is a poisonous alga that is blooming. If it is you risk getting eczema on your body and maybe you risk's to swallow some of the water that may be poisonous. It should be mentioned that often when there is alga blooming the water looks so disgusting that you don’t want to go in it. Some algae are only poisonous when you find them in large amounts. Some algae content a liver poison that can cause vomiting and diarrhea (if you swallow them). Other can cause eczema on your body. Pets that drink the water at the sea shore and small kids that are playing by the sea shore are taking the biggest risks. The only casualties reported have been pets.