The two-stroke engines that power most jet skis run on a mixture of oil and gasoline. These machines burn from 8-12 gallons of gas per hour of operation. This event proposes to field as many as 750 jet skis, pumping thousands of gallons of raw fuel into the water. The fuel that is burned turns into air pollution. The percent increase during the eight days of racing seems substantial in relation to the daily baseline condition but, due to the temporary nature of the event, the increase is not significant over a longer term.
Any effect is insignificant if averaged over a long enough term.
That sentence actually makes me want to scream. In other words, the discharge due to the event would be comparable to adding an additional two weeks of existing summer time discharges and this addition would occur after what is expected to be the peak summertime usage period. Water quality impacts are not significant and no mitigation is required. Hydrocarbons in gas and oil released from two-stroke motors float on the surface of the water and settle within the shallow ecosystems. Scientists have determined that hydrocarbon pollution can bioaccumulate within the complex food web and pose a threat to the marine environment.