June 15th, the canal was clean as it can be. It is a dead end, 250 foot long canal that faces east at the mouth of Sampawams Creek which is just east of the Carlls River.
Tons of seaweed floats in with the random storm that brings east winds. Been here 4 years now, have seen piles of seaweed that we all know, brown long strings about 1/4″ wide. Stinky and slimy with lots of life in it.
Soon after, green globs started to form in the Canal, think it was after the heavy rains of June 14th, received .75 inches of rain in less than a hour. Think in the next day or so it appeared. Thought it was surface scum like the white brown stuff that shows up sometimes, see photo below from April 30th, earlier this year.
June 15th, 2024 the Swan family showed up for breakfast; mom, pop and 5 kids. You can’t see much water, but I can tell you it was clean. The Swans have not been back since, I think they do not like the stuff either.
But no, as the surface scum built up, it turned a neon green.
You looked at it and thought it was some sort of floating life, but when you grabbed it, you found thick long dense green vines growing down 2-3 feet, that literally suffocated my 70 Yamaha when I attempted to motor thru 3 clumps of it to get to the bay. Reverse was of no use, had to raise the motor and physically remove multiple wraps of the green grass/vine that had wrapped around the motor so many times that you could not see the motor.
If you let your imagination run wild, the motor looked like a mermaid’s head with long flowing green hair. Wish I took a picture, but was busy cleaning up. It looked like long green hair for the total lower unit, I could see no metal below the water line. Had to unwind the vine from the motor and then the prop.
Think this floating “Mermaid grass” had been here over a week now. It grew green bubbles on the top layer in the last couple of days as it starts to die off. When I pulled up giant clumps of it back a couple days ago it was all green, yesterday would say approaching 50% brown/black as I hope it started to die.
Have heard it is in a bunch of canals in Babylon Village. This new plant / vine / grass is more than likely able to flourish dues to all the nutrients in the water fed by the run off from rivers and creeks that flow to the bay and the storm drains that move the water from the streets to Great South Bay in Babylon. All the run off from our lawn fertilizers end up in the bay, helping stuff grow in the water along the shore line of Long Island.
This what I found in searches of the internet of what it might be – Filamentous Algae.
“It generally forms mat-like entanglements on the bottom or the surface of the water. This algae is typically long, stringy and slimy to the touch. Filamentous algae can be harmful to an aquatic system because they can overtake stagnant bodies of water with high levels of nutrients. Usually appears green but turns yellow and brown as it dies.”
The above copy is from a lake management site so it applies to freshwater. Maybe the growth came down the rivers from the freshwater ponds. Have to say that when I pulled the Algae up, it was not slimy, had minimal smell and no living creatures that I could see. Nothing like Great South Bay seaweed.
So, still digging, will update.