美国国家公共电台 NPR Figure Out How To Cheaply Fix Algae Blooms And Win $10 Million

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Summertime brings algae¹ blooms to many parts of the country - those mats of bright green organisms that can blanket waterways. In places like Florida's Lake Okeechobee, the blooms hurt tourism. They kill fish. They threaten water supplies. But a solution may be on the horizon. From Miami, NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE²: Shells from freshwater mussels line the shores of Lake Okeechobee. This is one of the largest lakes in the U.S., in the center of the Florida peninsula. But it has a nagging³ problem. Nearly every year now, large algae blooms blanket the lake.

STEVE DAVIS: Oh, my gosh. Look how thick this blue-green mat is right here.

ALLEN: Steve Davis is a senior ecologist with the Everglades Foundation. Lake Okeechobee is the source of much of the water that flows south through the Everglades. At this lock connecting the lake with the St. Lucie River, everything is coated in green.

DAVIS: It's a pretty dense⁴ mat of - I would bet - Microcystis blue-green algae. Looks like a paint truck, you know, crashed and spilled green paint all over the surface.

ALLEN: The algae have a strong smell that can irritate eyes and throats. Even worse, it can be toxic⁵. Two years ago, algae flowing down the St. Lucie River forced the closure of beaches during the packed July Fourth holiday. From China to Kenya to Canada, phosphorus-rich runoff from farms, cities and suburbs have made algal blooms a perennial⁶ problem. The Everglades Foundation in South Florida decided⁷ to tackle it head-on.

MELODIE NAJA: We thought that this phosphorus is such a big challenge - the phosphorus problem - that it would deserve a $10 million prize.

ALLEN: It's called the Barley⁸ Water Prize, named for one of the Everglades Foundation's founders⁹. Chief scientist Melodie Naja says the goal was to develop an efficient, cost-effective technology to remove phosphorus from freshwater bodies.

NAJA: We want this technology to be affordable¹⁰, to be cheap, that all states, all developing and developed countries, could use it to clean their pollution.

ALLEN: Currently, removing phosphorus from polluted water takes time and a lot of real estate. In South Florida, large, shallow reservoirs covering nearly 60,000 acres are used to treat just a small portion of the water that flows out of Lake Okeechobee. The companies, universities and research groups taking part in the competition are testing technologies to remove the phosphorous from the entire lake, nearly a trillion gallons of water.

KOOS BAAS: Do you know - if you want to do Lake Okeechobee, like you just suggested, you can do it.

ALLEN: Koos Baas is a chemical engineer with Green Water Solution, a company based in South Florida and one of nine teams competing for the $10 million Barley Prize. His and the other teams recently wrapped up the third round of the competition in Canada. They're being tested on their ability to scrub phosphorus from freshwater. Baas' company's technology is already being used in Europe to remove phosphorus from water used in cooling systems. He's confident it can be scaled up for use in large water treatment plants where rivers and streams flow into the lake.

BAAS: You can actually put an installation on a dike¹¹. So before it enters Lake Okeechobee, you can grab it there and treat it there.

ALLEN: Loren Parra with the Everglades Foundation says the goal of the competition is to develop technologies that could be marketed around the world as a cheap solution to a growing problem. She says some of the teams are close.

LOREN PARRA: We've already seen really great progress in the nine teams that we have. So we're really excited, looking forward to Grand Challenge, and we're certainly hoping that one of these guys can change the world.

ALLEN: The winners of the current round will be announced in October. The final phase, the Grand Challenge with its $10 million prize, gets underway in 2020. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.

1 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 nagging   

adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责

参考例句：

• Stop nagging—I'll do it as soon as I can. 别唠叨了—我会尽快做的。
• I've got a nagging pain in my lower back. 我后背下方老是疼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

5 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

6 perennial   

adj.终年的；长久的

参考例句：

• I wonder at her perennial youthfulness.我对她青春常驻感到惊讶。
• There's a perennial shortage of teachers with science qualifications.有理科教学资格的老师一直都很短缺。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 barley   

n.大麦，大麦粒

参考例句：

• They looked out across the fields of waving barley.他们朝田里望去,只见大麦随风摇摆。
• He cropped several acres with barley.他种了几英亩大麦。

9 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

10 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

11 dike   

n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水

参考例句：

• They dug a dike along walls of the school.他们沿校墙挖沟。
• Fortunately,the flood did not break the dike.还好，这场大水没有把堤坝冲坏。