If you want to keep biotech talent on Long Island over the long term, you have to think about how new companies might attract talented staff. You also have to think about where these people might find their next Long Island biotech job if their current company folds or is sold. Diane Fabel of the Stony Brook Center for Biotechnology describes an example of precisely this situation, when a major pharmaceutical company on Long Island was purchased by a larger company and for all practical purposes “disappeared” and “they shut down the Long Island location. All of this talent had to decide” whether they were going to move. “We was a community were not prepared to do anything, so they just dispersed” and ended up “working for companies not on Long Island, for the most part.”

Diane Fabel / Stony Brook Center for Biotechnology

Plants need nitrogen to grow, but a significant portion of the nitrogen in fertilizers is not absorbed by the soil or used by the growing plants. Rather, it washes away into waterways, rivers, and the ocean. This in turn has had devastating effects on marine life. In some areas, excessive nitrogen in the oceans has caused algae blooms that kill wildlife, make it dangerous for people to consume fish or shellfish or in some cases even swim in affected waters. This problem isn’t limited to poorer countries. Nitrogen pollution is a serious problem here on Long Island. In our case, the nitrogen comes primarily from septic tanks and cesspools, although nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers also plays a role. Nitrogen pollution in the waters around Long Island has hampered fishing, made it dangerous to eat seafood from some areas, and caused environmental changes that make coastal areas more prone to flooding.