For a few decades now, retired surgeon Jon Reiswig has lived with a perplexing oddity: the water in front of his North Douglas home constantly bubbles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He\u2019s puzzled over it himself, and even has had had visiting academics look at it to solve the mystery. But after years of theorizing \u2014 could it be a terrestrial gas leak? A murmuring mollusk? \u2014 with no definitive answer, he did what any sensible Juneauite would do: he called the newspaper.<\/p>\n
In his initial email to the Empire, Reiswig wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live on North Douglas. There are several areas or patches in the water in front of our home that have the appearance of H2O boiling. Of course it is not, but it is quite vigorous, particularly as you kayak or canoe over it and hear it. The patches are large enough so that we can make them our from a distance such as the second floor of our house. There is no odor. This is present no matter the season and has been present for 40 + yrs. Fifteen or 20 yrs ago we had a guest staying who got very interested and attempted to capture the gas to figure out what it is. We had a B&B at the time and as I recall he was up from University of Ohio doing research at the university here. He was unable to determine the composition of the gas. I assume this is coming from organic material buried deeply, or possibly living organisms. However, it is continuous so something of fairly large volume is causing it. I did call NOAA locally but they were not aware of cause.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Photographer Michael Penn and I took a trip in January to Reiswig\u2019s home near Fish Creek. There, a narrow, grassy beach gives way to an intertidal flat, where groups of dime-sized bubbles softly break the surface in a constant stream. Reiswig is right, you can hear them.<\/p>\n The bubbles have too many sources to count from the surface, a short trip canoe trip revealed, and occur in circular patches about two yards in diameter. There are at least 10 of these patches, spaced apart by varying distances, about 50 feet out from shore at a high tide on a band of water about 200 feet long.<\/p>\n Whatever gas is being released doesn\u2019t smell, which might be key to finding out exactly what\u2019s going on here.<\/p>\n Reiswig and the Empire discussed a few initial theories. The bubbles all occur in an area that becomes uncovered during low tide. When uncovered, maybe the ground acts as a sponge somehow, soaking up air at low tide and releasing air when the pressure of high tide forces it out.<\/p>\n Another idea: It could be a group of clams or other mollusks, some of which release gases when underwater.<\/p>\n The first step to testing either of these theories is to email as many scientists as you can. We reached out to a couple dozen University of Alaska professors, who had some interesting ideas as to what\u2019s happening at Reiswig\u2019s home. We included photos, a map and descriptions of Reiswig\u2019s bubbling beach in our inquiries.<\/p>\n Michael Stekoll, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was one of the first people to respond.<\/p>\n \u201cHere is a possibility. His waste water from a septic tank is emptying in the near shore. This is good nutrients for green and blue-green algae (or any algae for that matter). In the daytime, the algae are producing oxygen and thus the bubbles,\u201d Stekoll responded.<\/p>\n Septic tanks, which many houses use on North Douglas, can overflow. The \u201cdrain field,\u201d for the Reiswig\u2019s septic tank, Stekoll said, would be in the intertidal zone. This happens to a lot of old homes, Stekoll added.<\/p>\n He suggested we look up our old friend the cyanobacteria, the culprit in another Curious by Nature column<\/a>, where we investigated a pink pond near Herbert Glacier Trail last fall. Cyanobacteria is a plant-like alga that uses photosynthesis and can give off gases. It\u2019s present in the area.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s hard to imagine Reiswig has had a septic tank overflow constantly for that long without him or septic tank operators noticing. Cyanobacteria also fluctuate with temperature, which doesn\u2019t fit well with Reiswig\u2019s testimony that his bubbles have been going constantly for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n