USVI-On-Line

Chemicals In Sunscreen Are Harming Coral Reefs, Says New Study
From NPR.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... -new-study

pmk

Here is another article from the Washington Post. Our coral is stressed enough already with warming ocean temps, runoff from construction, etc. Please use reef safe sunscreens.

The article doesn't address spray on sunscreen which is another disaster. Most of it gets on the sand, into the lungs of the people downwind and very little actually on the person using it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ener ... ral-reefs/

addition info I found in another article

Ironically a sunscreen product that goes by the name of Reef Safe contains 4 percent oxybenzone, a description on the online retailer Amazon indicates.

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors, better known as PADI, lists 10 sunscreens on its website it considered safe. They are Aubrey Organics Natural Sunscreen Sensitive Skin/Children, SPF 30+, Badger Sunscreen Cream, Unscented SPF 30, UV Natural Sport Lip Sunscreen SPF 30+, Badger Broad Spectrum Sport Facestick SPF 35, ECO logical All Natural Sunscreen SPF 30+, Elemental Herbs Sport Sunscreen SPF 30+, Green Screen D Organic Sunscreen Original, SPF 35, BurnOut Ocean Tested Physical Sunscreen SPF 30, Raw Elements USA Eco Formula SPF 30 and All Terrain KidSport SPF 30.

Excellent research here, I'm an Instructor, the sunscreens listed all work well...

Yep!! here we go folks!! Sunscreen....The hidden killer.....Thanks to "science"(fiction) one "scientist" has has determined through a well documented(not)study why there is coral dying in the park (world) SUNSCREEN..the killer was right under(attatched to) our water shoes the whole time! Now is the time for calm(and a grant) to study and cure this !!

davidvabeach-- I am not sure i understand your comment?

loria wrote:davidvabeach-- I am not sure i understand your comment?

Me thinkith he doesn't believe the study.

yeah, after looking a little deeper, I'd take this report with a large grain of salt. Basically it's easy to kill coral.

david@vabeach yes it is easy to kill coral -- but there are numbers scientific studies that show the harmful effects of sunscreen ingredients on coral and that these ingredients appear to persist in the environment -- and so perhaps limiting coral exposure to these harmful ingredients is a prudent thing to do

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26487337
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24677278
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24352829
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24139648
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19119106

and these are just a handful of many other studies out there....

yes..there are many ways to stress out coral in a lab..I have read many of the reports. I still believe that we can agree that careless and uninformed people walking on the coral with their rubber water shoes etc..is WAY more harmfull to the corals in st. john than sunscreen is to the great barrier reef that is also becoming stressed.