In particular, they found that runoff from the 2016 Tax Day flood and the 2017 Hurricane Harvey flood carried human waste into the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The marine protected area is festooned with sponges and corals. It is also home to various creatures, including whale sharks and manta rays.
Adrienne Correa, a marine biologist who was part of the research team, said they’ve always thought the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary was safe from terrestrial runoff. She added that it was a jolt to realize that even offshore ecosystems can be significantly affected as well.
Correa and her colleagues published their findings in April in the journal
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“We were pretty shocked,” said marine biologist Adrienne Correa, co-author of the study in Frontiers in Marine Science. “One thing we always thought the Flower Garden Banks were safe from was terrestrial runoff and nutrient pollution. It’s a jolt to realize that in these extreme events, it’s not just the salt marsh or the seagrass that we need to worry about. Offshore ecosystems can be affected too.”
The Flower Garden Banks sit atop several salt domes near the edge of the continental shelf about 100 miles from the Texas and Louisiana coast. Rising several hundred feet from the seafloor, the domes are topped with corals, algae, sponges and fish. Each bank, or dome-topped ecosystem, is separated by miles of open ocean. The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, which was recently expanded, protects 17 banks.
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