Debris highlights many ongoing marine issues


7/8/12


Grant Scott-Goforth 

Well before the predicted arrival of debris, a dock wrenched from Japan’s coast during last year’s tsunami washed up on an Oregon beach last month, highlight­ing the need for a coordinated response by local and state agencies.



While officials say there’s a slim chance tsunami debris arriving on local shores will reach the disaster level, there are environmental and safety concerns about the flotsam expected to wash up on North Coast beaches over the next several years. As scien­tists scramble to predict the impact that an estimated 1.5 million tons of debris could have on the North Coast, the state is encouraging public education, and other groups are planning cleanup efforts.



Assemblyman Wesley Ches­bro, D-Arcata, said the state is in the process of assessing the problem to determine what level of response is needed. He said the Assembly is con­sidering holding a hearing with involved agencies.



“At that point, we could decide if there’s legislation needed,” Chesbro said. “We have lots of questions and not many answers.” The California Emergency Management Agency, or CalEMA, has taken efforts to educate the public, coordinat­ing with multiple agencies in California, Oregon, Washing­ton and British Columbia to track the tsunami debris. The agencies have collaborated on a website, found online at disasterdebris.wordpress.com. CalEMA information officer Lori Newquist said that the agency is utilizing social media as much as they can to share information for little cost.



Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber announced last week that his state would be setting up a hotline, saying it’s an easy way for residents and vis­itors to report Japanese tsunami debris. The hotline can be reached by calling 211 within the state of Oregon. It will be staffed during business hours, and will take record­ed messages at other times.

Washington state announced its own hotline this week.

Oregon has said it will work with California, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii to request money from the federal government to help with their efforts. If the debris had washed up all at once, it would unquestionably qualify for federal disaster funds, Kitzhaber said. But since it’s emerging in pieces, the states will have to work harder, he said.

There are also concerns about invasive species hitching a ride across the Pacific Ocean by clinging to items like the dock that washed ashore in Oregon.

Humboldt State University profes­sor Sean Craig, who works in the university’s marine lab, said large debris could house numerous organisms that carry enough larva or spores to reproduce in local waters.

Craig said a Japanese alga — simi­lar to the kind that appear in miso soup — could potentially edge out native kelp populations. The reper­cussions go beyond marine plants to fish and other sea life.

“There are multiple examples of invasive species that have cost peo­ple millions and millions of dollars,” Craig said.

Invasive species have long been a concern for marine biologists, and some regulations and precautions are taken, including special paints for boat hulls that repel organisms.

Items like the floating dock and debris pulled into the ocean from the mainland were never expected to be ocean bound, and don’t have those protective measures.

The disposal of general debris will likely fall to the public sector, with some government agencies and nonprofits expecting an increase in organized beach cleanup efforts.

Ocean Conservancy North Coast program coordinator Jennifer Sav­age said her organization will be focused on cleanups and education. “As far as cleanups, there’s not a comprehensive plan in place yet,” Savage said. “There’s a lot of effort underway.”

The Ocean Conservancy has been monitoring marine debris in coop­eration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and hopes that tracking and dealing with marine debris will help the response when natural disasters occur.

Savage said she has already been receiving calls about debris — items which are most likely not from the tsunami — highlighting an already ongoing problem.

“In general, ocean trash is prevent­able,” Savage said.

Read More

Volunteers fence trees near Strawberry Creek to deter rodents

7/8/12

The chances of spotting coho salmon, steelhead and other fish at the lower end of Strawberry Creek near Orick has increased thanks to the efforts of volunteers.

But after planting thousands of trees to curtail the growth of invasive reed canarygrass, a group of beavers has thrown a monkey wrench into the proceedings, creating a bit of a dilemma.

”About three months ago, they took down a couple hundred to 300 trees in two nights,” said Bob Pagliuco, a habitat restoration specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service. “So we banded together to come up with a solution.”

Some people wanted to remove or relocate the beavers, Pagliuco said. Others wanted to kill them. But beavers are important to the ecosystem and to coho salmon, Pagliuco said, so they came up with another solution.

About 30 volunteers descended upon Strawberry Creek on Saturday for the AmeriCorps' volunteer day to help fence off the trees, which include willows, alders, spruce and redwoods. The volunteers come from the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project, the California Conservation Corps and the non-profit group Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetlands Restoration Association.

The volunteers will also apply a latex-sand paint to the trees to try to dissuade the beavers from eating them, said of the Watershed Stewards Project. Carlin said he and his partner, Matt Bray, helped organize Saturday's restoration project as an individual service project.

”We're trying to keep mindful of the importance of beaver in the ecosystem, especially with coho salmon,” Carlin said. “We jumped on (the project) to serve as an example that you don't need a depredation permit; you don't need to relocate the beaver -- they can cohabitate here. We're just trying to see if this will be successful, and then we can apply it to other projects.”

Volunteers planted roughly 1,600 trees about a year ago as a way to stop the growth of the reed canarygrass, said Mitch Farro, projects manager for the Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetlands Restoration Association.

Canarygrass, which can grow in mats thick enough and strong enough to walk upon, depletes oxygen levels in watersheds, increases flooding and crowds out other plants, Farro said. It has caused problems up and down the West Coast as far away as Alaska, he said. The only way to deal with it is to create shade.

”If you lower the light down enough, it kind of goes away and isn't a problem,” Farro said.

The volunteers are currently working on privately-owned ranch land. Farro said the landowner realized that if the canarygrass can be thinned out, it reduces flooding in his field.

”It's a win-win,” he said.

But then the beavers began causing a problem. Pagliuco said even though the beavers have destroyed the trees either for food or to build a dam, they're very important.

”These dams they build back up water and create a pond environment,” he said. “What we've been finding in the winter and in summer, these pond environments are extremely productive. There's lots of fish growing in beaver ponds, and they're found to grow significantly faster than the fish growing higher up in the tributaries.”

Farro said the beavers have also created a problem with trees on a ranch near the Smith River. Volunteers planted trees there a few years earlier, and the beavers moved in there and completely destroyed them.

Once the trees near Strawberry Creek get big enough, the fences will come down, and the latex paint will be taken off, Farro said.

”There will be enough trees that if the beavers take a few, it's no big deal,” he said.

Read Original Article

Sierra Club California is pleased to announce the release of the 2011 California Coastal Commission Conservation Voting Chart. 

6/26/12
 
NEWPORT -- Nadine Fuller brushed sand away from the beak of the turtle and saw its eye blink.

But it was so still, so lifeless, she figured it had to be dead. "I thought ... maybe that was just a reflex," she said.

Fuller took some photos, then went back up to Moolack Shores Motel where she was a guest, to report her find. 

Motel manager Frank Brooks called the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Then someone saw the turtle lift its head, someone else thought they saw it move a flipper, and so the race was on to save the 135-pound green sea turtle.

Now more than a week later, caregivers at the Oregon Coast Aquarium are cautiously optimistic that this turtle far from its native warm waters may make a full recovery.

"He's doing pretty well," said Jim Burke, director of animal husbandry at the aquarium. "We still need to get him stabilized. But he's behaving OK. He's right on track as far as the rehabilitation plan is concerned."

When Jim Rice, coordinator of the stranding network, got the call, he knew there was a good chance the turtle wasn't dead, but rather "cold stunned," or hypothermic. While this is the first live sea turtle he's rescued off the Oregon coast in the seven years he's been here, he's seen plenty during his time at the New England Aquarium in Boston, where the staff rehabilitated sea turtles that washed up on Cape Cod.

"These animals will often appear dead when there is still some life left inside of them," he said.

Green sea turtles normally are found in waters 75 to 80 degrees and are the same turtles you could expect to see snorkeling in Hawaii, Rice said. This turtle was most likely from the tropical or subtropical Pacific Ocean.

No one knows why the turtle wound up in the 50-ish-degree water off Oregon's coast, but Burke speculated that it may have been in warm water that became surrounded by cold water, which mixes in and causes the previously warm water to chill. When that happens, the turtle goes into what is essentially a state of hibernation.

"They slow down, they get weak, they get dehydrated," Burke said. "They don't have the energy to retreat from these cold waters and get to the warm waters they left. They don't have the strength to reverse what time and temperatures have done. They become victims of the seas, wind, waves."

Of the dozen or so sea turtles that washed up on the Oregon coast in the past 15 years, only about half were alive, Burke said. Two sea turtles, a green and an Olive Ridley, washed up in 2010. Both were rescued and later sent to San Diego. They were released into the wild last summer.

By the time Rice got this green sea turtle to the aquarium -- about two hours after it was first discovered -- it was barely alive, with little sign of respiration, some muscle reflex and a core temperature in the 50s. Its eyes were swollen, one likely pecked at by a bird.

It's being treated with antibiotics and getting fluids via IC-- that is, through the intracoelomic or inner body cavity. It isn't eating on its own yet, but Burke is hopeful that will come soon enough.

"We are working with the permitting agencies," Burke said. "What will happen is they will identify a rehabilitation center in a warmer area. Most likely this animal will go to that area for feeding and observation. The goal would be to release it back to the wild, ideally later this summer."

And that's the news Fuller's waiting to hear.

"This is the best place in the world he could have come ashore with the aquarium people right there and the motel people knowing Jim Rice," Fuller said. "It just all fell together. When they were carrying him up the steps, he raised his head up and I knew he had a good fighting chance and I was just thrilled. It was a wonderful moment for me."

Read Original Article