Hasbeen, you sound brainwashed by the greens. Is is the greens who have been chanting about damage caused by silt, while they say nothing about nutrient overload pollution.

Truth is silt settles quickly and therefore has local impact.

Dissolved nutrient bonded to fresh water can be transported vast distances.
Consequence of nutrient from Chile is impacting Solomon Islands and Australia.
Awaken to the trade winds.

Water at Munda is green. Visibilty was just two meters last week. Where would green silt come from?

The times have changed.
Around the corner from Munda is Noro where a fish cannery has nutrient rich effluent.
Nutrient is coming here even from Australia.
It depends on wind direction driving ocean surface currents seasonally.

The reef passage I referred to is over the top of the reef, for local canoes.
Whatever.
Coral is mostly dead as I stated.

The water has always been too turbid in the Munda area for coral to survive long term. I was through there before the cannery, & you could not see the bottom in 4Ft of water. The Yanks lost dozens of small craft landing supplies there as the reefs are never visible.

The rain is almost continual. In 76 I was there one day when it did not rain. The missionary at the time had been there for 13 months, & told me it was only the third day in that time, when it did not rain at least once in a 24 hour period since he arrived.

Repulse Bay, north from MacKay is similar. It has a low flat hinterland with lots of mangroves. It can not support coral, for the same reason, too much sediment in the water.

Hasbeen,

The turbidity you refer to occurs in the wet season, now however its the dry season, including off Mackay where coral of the Whitsunday Islands exists downstream from Mackay.
Soon it will be the wet season, there and also here.

Sediment is sediment on the bottom. Human sourced dissolved nutrient and solid suspend matter should not be present day after day all year in relevant waters. For example farm runoff follows rain not dry seasons or drought.
Here in Solomon Islands during January 2018 on occasional days there has been a brief thunderstorm with limited rain and virtually no runoff. Besides, the runoff is not green. And colour of turbidity in the lagoon is green, not red not white not black or otherwise muddy.

Do tell, Hasbeen, where you think the green colour, sediment as you call it, is coming from.

Its a handicap OLO does not provide for photos to be posted.

JF why not create a Dropbox account to store photos then link to them?

Luciferace,

Thank you for that suggestion.
However there is only microwave tower and satellite 2G internet here at S/E Rendova Island.

I suggest search; solomon star gizo water shortage january 2018.

It's been a dry time here, no runoff to cause wet season-type, loss of underwater visibility due to silt and sediment.

I suppose Ant has become silent because he tealizes biologists with fish discovery and identification experience do not savvy weather and ocean phenomena occurring this January.

Proper research involving integrity and relevant solutions is now critically vital.