News

New research from NOAA sounding alarm bells about climate change

5/1/14

In a troubling new discovery, scientists studying ocean waters off California, Oregon and Washington have found the first evidence that increasing acidity in the ocean is dissolving the shells of a key species of tiny sea creature at the base of the food chain.

The animals, a type of free-floating marine snail known as pteropods, are an important food source for salmon, herring, mackerel and other fish in the Pacific Ocean. Those fish are eaten not only by millions of people every year, but also by a wide variety of other sea crea­tures, from whales to dolphins to sea lions. Humboldt State University Oceanog­raphy Department Head Jeffrey Abell has conducted several studies on ocean acidification off the coast of Trinidad, most recently in 2010. Abell said that deeper ocean waters are usually more acidic due to bacteria digesting dead organism matter, called detritus, which floats to the ocean floors.

This digestion releases carbon dioxide, which reacts with water and causes the ocean to increase in acidity. Abell said Humboldt County’s shoreline is more prone to upwelling events in the late spring, which brings this deep, more acidic water to the surface.

“We don’t see a consistent exposure to acidic waters,” he said. “What we see is in the order of a few times to a dozen times a year during which the organisms, like pteropods, will be exposed to this corrosive water.”

Abell said Trinidad experienced about five of these events in 2007 — lasting no longer than a few days — but that number tripled to 15 episodes in 2010 that sometimes lasted over a week.

If the trend continues, climate change scien­tists say, it will imperil the ocean environment.

“These are alarm bells,”said Nina Bednarsek, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle who helped lead the research. “This study makes us understand that we have made an impact on the ocean environment to the extent where we can actually see the shells dissolving right now.”

Scientists from NOAA and Oregon State University found that in waters near the West Coast shoreline, 53 percent of the tiny floating snails had shells that were severely dissolving — double the estimate from 200 years ago.

Until now, the impact on marine species from increasing ocean acidity because of cli­mate change has been something that was tested in tanks in labs, but which was not con­sidered an immediate concern like forest fires and droughts.

The new study, published in the Proceed­ings of the Royal Society B, a scientific journal based in England, changes that.

“The pteropods are like the canary in the coal mine. If this is affecting them, it is affect­ing everything in the ocean at some level,” said one of the nation’s top marine biologists, Steve Palumbi, director of Stanford Universi­ty’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove.

The vast majority of the world’s scientists — including those at NOAA, NASA, the National Academy of Sciences and the World Meteorological Organization — say the Earth’s temperature is rising because of humans burning fossil fuels like oil and coal. That burning pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and traps heat, similar to a green­house. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere have increased 25 per­cent since 1960 and are now at the highest levels in at least 800,000 years, according to measurements of air bubbles taken in ancient ice and other methods.

Many of the impacts are already being felt. Since the 1880s, when modern temperature records were first taken, the 10 hottest years have all occurred since 1998. Polar ice has melt­ed, forest fires are burning in the West with increasing frequency, and the ocean has risen 8 inches since 1900 at the Golden Gate Bridge.

But what many people do not realize is that nearly a third of carbon dioxide emitted by humans is dissolved in the oceans. Some of that forms carbonic acid, which makes the ocean more corrosive.

Over the past 200 years, the ocean’s acidity has risen by roughly 30 percent. At the pres­ent rate, it is on track to rise by 70 percent by 2050 from preindustrial levels.

More acidic water can harm oysters, clams, corals and other species that have calcium carbonate shells. Generally speaking, increas­ing the acidity by 50 percent from current lev­els is enough to kill some marine species, tests in labs have shown.

Coastal Seafoods manager Greg Dale said Humboldt County’s oyster industry has actual­ly thrived over the last two years, but rising ocean acidity is“something we watch carefully.”

“If this keeps going, and it means shutting ocean productivity, that’s when things get scary,” Dale said. “The ocean changes every year, but if you change the (acidity), you will lose a great deal.”

Abell said the current ocean acidification levels are not enough to harm the shells of oysters or abalone, which are made of calcite, but are enough to dissolve the shells of pteropods, which are made of aragonite.

“Pteropods are the most sensitive of this process; they’ll be kind of like an early warn­ing system,” Abell said.“The present school of thought is that 50 years from now is when we’ll have to worry about the more sturdy shellfish, such as abalone.”

The new research on the marine snails does not show that increasingly acidic water is killing all of them, particularly older snails. But it is causing their shells to dissolve, which can make them more vulnerable to disease, slow their ability to evade predators and reduce their reproductive rates, the researchers said.

Some of the corrosive water near the shore could be a result of other types of pollution, such as runoff from fertilizer and sewage, said Stanford’s Palumbi, who was not involved in the NOAA research. But because the study found rates of the snails’ shells dissolving in deep water, far from the shore, human-caused carbon dioxide is the prime suspect, he added.

If people reduce emissions of fossil fuels, cutting carbon dioxide levels in the decades ahead, the damage to the oceans can still be limited, he said.

“But if we keep on the emissions profile we have now, by 2100 the oceans will be so harmed it’s hard to imagine them coming back from that in anything less than thou­sands of years,” Palumbi said.

“We are in a century of choice,” he said.“We can choose the way we want it to go.”

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4/30/14

Humboldt Bay will soon have its own dredge, allowing the harbor district to maintain local marinas on a regular basis. The vessel will also save taxpayers millions of dollars in dredging costs, if all goes as planned.

The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District (HBHRCD) Commissioners voted unanimously, with Commissioner Mike Wilson absent, at its April 24 meeting to purchase the 70-foot vessel for $950,000. The district may spend an additional $450,000 making improvements to the dredge.

The entire cost of the cutter-head dredge is being paid for by Pacific Gas & Electric. As part of the decommissioning of its Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant, PG&E gave the district $2 million to buy the vessel and dredge Fisherman’s Channel, located adjacent to the power plant in King Salmon. The channel was used as a source of cooling water for the now-defunct reactor. The nuclear power plant was closed down in 1976 and is now the site of the Humboldt Bay Power Plant, which is fueled mostly by natural gas.

After the district trains its staff to operate the dredge, figures out where to dump the spoils and obtains the necessary environmental permits, dredging may begin in late 2015. To protect salmon, dredging can only take place during the winter months.

HBHRCD Chief Executive Officer Jack Crider said the dredge will be used about four months out of the year. The rest of the time it will be dry docked in Fields Landing.

The first project will be the dredging of Fisherman’s Channel, which will give district staff time to learn the ins and outs of dredging.

Eventually, the dredge will be deployed at the Woodley Island Marina, Eureka Public Marina and all of the public and private docks around the bay.

The main channels, Crider explained, are maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which brings in its own dredge every year.

The harbor district, Crider said, should see substantial savings by doing its own dredging. The marinas will also be better maintained.

Traditionally, Crider said, the Woodley Island and Eureka marinas have been dredged every eight to 10 years. The last dredging in 2007 cost $3.2 million, he said. Part of that cost included $600,000 just to get the dredge moved to Humboldt Bay, along with all the associated equipment.

That brings the cost of dredging to about $400,000 a year. Crider said he expects that by the district doing the dredging itself, it will cut that cost by 50 to 60 percent or more.

Besides saving money, the district will also have better maintained facilities, Crider said. Bay sediment fills the marinas by about six inches a year, eventually rendering some slips unusable.

One of the most challenging details that the district needs to work out before it can dredge is where to dewater and dispose of the spoils.

The district is still studying its options. One possibility is to use the spoils to build up levees. Another option is to temporarily deposit the spoils in the navigation channel and allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to suck up the sludge when it brings in its massive dredge.

Another option, Crider said, is to pump the dredge materials to the harbor district’s ponds, located on 23 acres north of the Samoa Cookhouse. The sediment would drop out, then the seawater could be disposed of by either pumping it to the ocean, or using the old pulp mill’s ocean outfall line.

The dredge comes with 11,000 feet of piping. The dredge’s 750 hp motor, along with a separate 750 hp booster engine, can pump the sludge and water through pipes that are temporarily placed on the floor of the bay and connected to the dredge with a floating portion of pipe.

 The pipes can then dump the spoils at the chosen disposal site.

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4/3/14
Looks like the sewage has hit the proverbial fan on the long-delayed Martin Slough Interceptor project, a multi-million-dollar wastewater system upgrade co-financed by the City of Eureka and the Humboldt Community Services District.

Apex Directional Drilling, an Oregon-based company hired to install a pipeline under Pine Hill, near the Eureka Municipal Golf Course, just announced that it is abandoning the project. The company blames the city and the engineering firm it hired — SHN Consulting Engineers — for allegedly misrepresenting the type of soil it would find at the project site.

Expecting stable dirt, Apex instead found sand, according to a press release.

In a March 12 letter to the city, Apex outlined the troubles it had encountered. “We burned up mud motors, had multiple attempts to get back to the original bore profile … and basically tried every trick in the book,” the letter states. “Water and flow sand was all we got. The hole collapsed several times because it was only sand … .”

Apex claims that SHN Consulting Engineers “improperly designed the drill path” and violated “all accepted industry standards” in determining the soil profile at the site. And negotiations with the city have evidently failed. In a March 20 letter to the city, Apex accuses the city of defaulting on its project agreement.

The company says it is leaving drill steel equipment at the site in case the city wants to use another company to complete the project. Basically, Apex is claiming that Eureka officials forced the company’s hand.

This could spell big trouble for both the city and the Humboldt Community Services District. The Martin Slough Interceptor project has been planned for 35 years. It’s designed to alleviate stress and increase capacity by creating a more direct route to the wastewater treatment plant near the Elk River interchange.

We’ll update this story as we learn more. In the meantime, here’s the press release:

Due to an impasse with the city of Eureka, Apex Directional Drilling announced today its decision to cease work on the Martin Slough force main project, part of the overall effort to upgrade Eureka’s wastewater infrastructure.

The Oregon-based company was hired as the general contractor on a portion of the overall multiyear project, primarily to provide horizontal directional drilling services. Horizontal directional drilling, a method for installing utility pipe using underground horizontal drilling techniques and equipment, is an alternative to using traditional trenching methods.

According to company officials, the soils at the job site were very different than had been represented by the city and its engineering firm.

Apex President Mike Lachner said, “We accepted this job based on the understanding and assurances that the soil was stable and would support a bore of the length and diameter specified. However, shortly after beginning the project we discovered that the area consisted primarily of sand. Anyone who’s dug a hole at the beach understands the difficulty of digging and supporting a hole or a tunnel, especially one that would need to be 42 inches in diameter, in sand. It is not stable and therefore prone to collapse.”

After utilizing a range of tactics, including adjusting the drilling path and switching to the lightest tooling possible, and despite advising the city and its engineering firm multiple times of the conditions and problems encountered along the way, Apex subsequently completed a pilot bore – the first of many steps in horizontal directional drilling. After completing the guide hole, the company informed the city the original plan would not work and proposed alternate plans to complete the project. The company also offered to absorb a significant portion of the cost overruns associated with the unanticipated soil conditions. When the city declined the offers, Apex made the decision to cease its work on the project.

“This was a very hard decision for us because we have never failed to complete a project,” Lachner said. “While the city’s actions remain unclear and somewhat puzzling, we have nevertheless chosen to leave our drill steel equipment on site in the pilot hole – at an approximate cost to us of $150,000 – in the event the city chooses to attempt to complete this project with another company. We deeply regret the inconvenience and unnecessary expense incurred by the Eureka community on this project, but, given the circumstances, we believe this was the only viable option for our company.”

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CBS Outdoor, coastal commission attorneys make case before judge


4/3/14



A Humboldt County Superior Court judge heard attorneys’ arguments Wednesday on whether the California Coastal Commission vio­lated a advertising company’s property rights by requiring billboard removal as part of a U.S. Highway 101 safety project between Eureka and Arcata.



Representing the Delaware-based outdoor advertising company CBS Outdoor Inc., attorney Arthur Coon argued that his client was given “no notice (and) no due process” when the commis­sion approved a condition in which Caltrans would remove as many billboards as feasible along the 6-mile corridor as part of the Eureka-Arcata Route 101 Corridor Improvement Project.



Coon’s main argument was that the company — which owns 20 billboards along the corridor — was never informed of any of the hearings or discussions leading up to the condition’s approval on Nov. 14.



“This is a property rights and due process issue,” Coon said.“(CBS) was not informed when the condition was first discussed at the commis­sion’s Sept. 13 hearing. It only learned a week prior to its actual adoption in the form of revised findings.”



The condition was one of four that Caltrans agreed to under a conditional concurrence with the commission in order to obtain approval for coastal development under the California Coastal Act. The $46 million project aims to improve safety along the corridor by closing median cross­ings at several locations and building a raised interchange at the Indianola Cutoff.



The coastal commission, represented by David Alderson of the State Attorney General’s Office, said the case is “not right,” as the company is making a facial challenge — a challenge in which a plaintiff argues that existing legislation or statutes are unconstitutional — when the condition has not been approved by Caltrans yet.



“The petitioner is challenging a matter that is currently being reviewed and processed by the coastal commission and Caltrans,” Alderson said. “So it is premature for this court to review the matter.”

Alderson made a second argu­ment that CBS Outdoor’s petition was not filed within the required 60-day time limit under state public resources code section 30801.

Coon said this was misleading.

“We’re being told we’re suing too early and too late,” Coon said.

Coon said that there was no consti­tutional basis between the condition’s directive to remove all the billboards rather than those causing visual impacts, and the purpose of the proj­ect. Arguing the condition only necessitates billboard removal to maximize the view of Humboldt Bay from the Indianola Cutoff, Coon said removing all billboards oversteps the purpose of the safety project.

“This is specifically a visual miti­gation condition,” Coon said. “This is a relatively small portion of the highway that is affected by the inter­change. Yet they’ve issued a sweep­ing directive to remove all billboards within the 6-mile corridor.”

Arguing that Caltrans has yet to determine whether billboard removal is even possible, Alderson said Coon’s arguments are non-applicable.

“The condition does not require the removal of any billboards what­soever,” Alderson said. “It merely requires Caltrans to come up with a plan to remove the billboards to the extent feasible. Caltrans has not determined that it is entirely feasible.”

In response, Coon said that CBS Outdoor should be notified of the meetings when Caltrans will deter­mine the feasibility of the condition as “we’re entitled to by law.”

Caltrans’ attorney Jeff Wilcox was present at the hearing through a court call, and confirmed that the agency withdrew its scheduled April 11 demurrer hearing to challenge CBS Outdoor’s claims.

When asked why the department withdrew the hearing, Caltrans District 1 spokesman Scott Burger said that “it is Caltrans policy not to comment on pending litigation.”

The Humboldt County Associa­tion of Governments is also being targeted by CBS Outdoor’s petition for writ of mandate as a “real party of interest” due to it being “respon­sible … for programming and approving the financing of the proj­ect, including the financing of actions necessary to implement the (commission’s) condition.”

Judge Bruce Watson scheduled a case management hearing for June 4.

“I’ll look at it and get you a decision,” Watson said.

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