Just like health safety inspections for food, we rely on water quality monitoring and reporting to ensure that the water we swim, surf and play in is safe. The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to cut all federal funding for beach water quality monitoring in 2013, putting over 90 million Americans at risk of getting sick from polluted water across the United States! Here in California, this funding supports vital state and county health agency testing for polluted water at California beaches. Without this funding, many beaches will go untested, leaving the public at risk from getting sick. The livelihoods of many local businesses that benefit from the more than $12 billion spent by beach visitors each year in California are also at risk. With California beaches closed a total of 5,756 days (number of beach closings plus number of days) in 2010, now is not the time to stop beach monitoring. Please ask Senator Feinstein to restore the money for beach water testing in the federal budget.

3/20/12

The National Oceanic and Atmos­pheric Administration’s Fisheries Ser­vice is requesting public input on for­mulating policy regarding eelgrass, an essential fish habitat across California and in Humboldt Bay.

According to NOAA, eelgrass is one of the state’s most important components for ecosystems in bays, estuaries and near-shore coastal areas.

“It’s a cornerstone species,” Northern California Habitat Manager Steve Edmonds said. “A lot of the basis for estuaries and ecosystems is based on the eelgrass community.”

Eelgrass exists throughout the world and is considered to be one of the most productive habitats available to adult and larval stages of fish, and it also plays a major role in erosion control and recy­cling of nutrients, according to NOAA.

Hum­boldt Bay has one of the largest stands of eelgrass within California. Humboldt Bay contains roughly 45 percent of Cal­ifornia’s eelgrass habitat.

Eelgrass habitat supports commercial and protected fish species. The draft policy will also serve as guidance to NOAA Fisheries Service’s Southwest Region for recommendations concern­ing eelgrass impacts and management through essential fish habitat consulta­tions as required under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Man­agement Act, and through the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act and National Environmental Policy Act reviews throughout California.

Electronic copies of the draft plan are available online at www. swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/hcd/index.htm. 

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3/17/12

Recent sightings of a gray whale and her infant calf swimming near Alcatraz and Sausalito in San Francisco Bay illuminated a likely repercussion of melting polar ice, scientists said.

Gray whales normally mate in the tropical lagoons of Baja California in the winter, migrate north to chilly polar waters to feed on shrimp-like prey that blanket ocean floors in the spring and summer, and return to Mexico the following winter to give birth in the lagoons, where the young are protected from sharks and orcas that hunt in the open ocean.

But the relatively small size of the calf that followed its wayward mother into the Bay — about that of a newborn, which is 15 feet — indicated that its mother calved as she migrated south along the coastline — just as others of her kind are heading north for the summer feeding grounds.

“We’re seeing more and more calves born before they get all the way down to Mexico,” said Wayne Perryman, leader of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s cetacean health and life history program at the agency’s office in La Jolla.

Researchers have been cataloguing changes in the population’s feeding and migration patterns. Some changes are thought to be the result of climate change, while others are linked to the recovery of the species from overhunting.

Perryman said gray whales, including pregnant cows, are leaving polar waters later than was the case 15 to 20 years ago, and he is testing reasons for the shift.

As ice sheets retreat northward, the whales might be taking longer to reach their food before they turn south again. Or perhaps they cannot find enough food in time to keep to traditional schedules.

“Gray whales are feeding farther and farther north,” Perryman said. “Their primary feeding grounds have shifted.”

Delayed migrations and open-ocean calving are not the only changes detected in the population, which has recovered to a population of more than 20,000 since hunting of the whales was outlawed in the 1940s.

Some gray whales have begun feeding off the northern Californian coastline, pursuing different prey than is found in polar waters, according to James Harvey, interim director of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

Meanwhile, the population appears to be relearning direct migration routes that were forgotten when many of the giant mammals were slaughtered by whalers.

The whales have learned to go west around the Channel Islands off Southern California, instead of hugging the coast, and new research led by Harvey shows that they have resumed direct routes between the Point Reyes and San Francisco peninsulas, bypassing the mouth of the Bay.

“The more shortcuts you can take, the shorter the time you’re migrating and the less energy you’re using,” Harvey said.

Harvey said the wayward mother in the bay, meanwhile, was probably hugging the coast to protect her infant from predators when she accidentally followed the shoreline into San Francisco Bay.

“If you’re a female with a calf,” Harvey said, “the best thing to do is swim really close to the coastline.”

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Sonar testing occurring off Washington coast

3/18/12

U.S. Navy representatives are holding a public meeting in Eureka on Thursday to gather public comment a Northwest training and test­ing project that would engage in sonar testing off the coast of Washington.

The original project — the subject of a suit filed by public interest law firm Earthjustice — only focused on training and drew concern from local residents because it included waters off the North Coast. The expanded project now includes the testing of various equipment and vessels.

Liane Nakahara, a public affairs specialist with the Navy, said scientific experts will be present Thursday to discuss concerns and infor­mation with residents. The meeting is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building, 1 Marina Way.

The Navy’s Northwest Training Range Complex has been in use since World War II. It is about 122,000 nautical square miles, stretching from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington to approximately the northern border of Men­docino County.

Nakahara said the sonar testing, which advocates said will harm marine mammals, will occur off the coast of Washington. All training in the southern part of the range occurs out beyond 12 nautical miles.

“You won’t see that out in California,” she said. “If any­thing, the ships will be transit­ing down past your area to San Diego or elsewhere.” The Navy is currently holding public meetings up and down the West Coast to gather input for a draft environmental impact statement and expects to release the draft in fall 2013. The comment period closes on April 27.

The environmental analy­sis looks at both training and testing. The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a permit for the training proj­ect in 2010, but the Navy is re-doing its environmental analysis of the project before the 2015 expiration date in preparation of a renewal, Nakahara said, adding that the Navy decided to include analysis for the testing activi­ties to reduce costs.

According to the Navy, ship-mounted mid-frequen­cy sonar would be used for a maximum of 108 hours a year. The Navy is not permit­ted to kill any marine mam­mals, but 13 incidences of injury to whales are expected each year. According to the Navy, 99 percent of the effects of sonar would dis­turb whales’ behavior. To mitigate the harm caused by sonar, the Navy establishes lookouts who watch for signs of whales.

When Navy lookouts spot whales within 1,000 yards of a ship using sonar, the sonar is required to be powered down, and if whales come within 200 yards, it must be immediately turned off.

The sonar testing is a key component of the Earthjus­tice lawsuit, which was filed against the fisheries service for issuing the Navy’s 2010 permit.

According to Earthjustice, marine mammals have been stranded or stopped feeding after being exposed to mid­frequency sonar.

Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda — who is repre­senting the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Coun­cil, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the San Juans, Natural Resources Defense Council, and People For Puget Sound — said placing lookouts on ship decks with binoculars is not enough. He said mammals do not always surface, even if they are in the area.

“Our case is aimed at the fisheries service for failing to take some — what we think are very reasonable and com­mon sense — mitigations measures to ensure that their activities don’t harm whales and other marine mam­mals,” Mashuda said.

A National Marine Fish­eries Service spokesman said the agency does not com­ment on ongoing lawsuits.

Mashuda said the service should have added restric­tions to when the Navy can conduct their activities based on known mammal migration schedules or where marine sanctuaries are located.

According to Mashuda, the suit’s next day in court is scheduled for May 15 before U.S. Magistrate Nandor Vadas in Eureka.

Comments on the training and testing project’s environ­mental impact statement can be made online at www. nwtteis.com, or sent to Naval Facilities Engineering Com­mand, Northwest, ATTN: Mrs. Kimberly Kler — NWTT Project Manager, 1101 Tautog Circle, Sil­verdale, WA 98315-1100.

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For more info: Earthjustice and Others Challenge NMFS Regulation of Navy Sonar Activity