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7/7/11

Gray whales survived many cycles of global cooling and warming over the past few million years, likely by exploiting a more varied diet than they do today, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Smithsonian Institution paleontologists.

The researchers, who analyzed California gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) responses to climate change over the past 120,000 years, also found evidence to support the idea that the population of gray whales along the Pacific Coast before the arrival of humans was two to four times today’s population, which stands at about 22,000. The whale is considered a conservation success story because protections instituted as early as the 1930s have allowed populations to rebound from fewer than 1,000 individuals in the early 20th century, after less than 75 years of systematic whaling.

“There almost certainly were higher gray whale populations in the past,” said evolutionary biologist David Lindberg, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology who coauthored the paper with his former student, Nicholas D. Pyenson, now curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The paper appeared in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE.

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By: Paul Quinlan

June 23, 2011

U.S. EPA warned of the potential dire consequences of legislation being fast-tracked through the House that would give states final say on rules concerning water, wetlands and mountaintop-removal mining.

In a four-page legal analysis (pdf), EPA said the measure (H.R. 2018 (pdf)) sponsored by House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and ranking member Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) "would overturn almost 40 years of federal legislation by preventing EPA from protecting public health and water quality."

GOP House leaders expect to bring the bill to a floor vote this summer.

EPA said the Mica-Rahall bill would "significantly undermine" the agency's role of overseeing states' establishment and enforcement of water pollution limits and permits. It said the measure would hinder EPA's ability to intervene on behalf of downstream states harmed by pollution coming from a state upstream. And it said the bill would prevent EPA from protecting local communities from ill-conceived mountaintop-removal and similar projects allowed to go forward under Army Corps of Engineers-issued permits.

"This would fundamentally disrupt the balance established by the original [Clean Water Act] in 1972 -- a law that carefully constructed complementary roles for EPA, the Corps, and states," the analysis said.

That is the opposite of what proponents argue the bill would do. They say it would shore up what they see as the erosion of state authority under the Clean Water Act and restore a state-federal partnership on enforcement of the law.

At its core, the bill would prevent EPA from reversing or overruling previously issued approval of state water quality limits, permitting authority, or permits to dredge and fill waterways or wetlands.

Defenders of the agency say that power is necessary to keep up with new scientific understanding of pollution and health effects and to ensure that states, seen by many as more vulnerable to local influence and political pressure, are enforcing rules on their books to protect local and interstate waters.

Proponents of the bill counter that the Obama administration's EPA has abused that authority by overruling states, reversing decisions made under previous administrations and creating widespread regulatory uncertainty that has hindered job-creation and economic recovery.

Rahall and Mica have both bristled over EPA's recent actions affecting their home states, including the decision to subject mountaintop-removal mining applications to tougher review and to replace vague, state-established water pollution limits in Florida with tougher, numeric standards.

"Our coal miners are scared about their jobs, and they have received no comforting actions or signals," Rahall said yesterday before the committee approved the bill in a nearly party-line vote. "I hoped under this administration we would reach common ground. Unfortunately, that has not been the case."

In the analysis, EPA defends its power to veto permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, calling it "the action of last resort." Under the Mica-Rahall bill, the state would have to concur with the EPA veto.

Supporters rejected EPA's warnings, saying that states have a vested interest in protecting their waters and that EPA's arguments are "insulting to states, governors and state legislatures."

"It's not 1972 anymore -- we've come a long way since then," said Justin Harclerode, spokesman for committee Republicans. "These arguments only work if you believe that the states have no interest in protecting the health and safety of their citizens or the quality of their waters. ... Nothing in the bill overturns, prevents or eliminates any of EPA's traditional authorities or roles -- the bill simply restores the historic balance between the EPA and states under the Clean Water Act."

EPA provided the analysis to Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act. Bishop railed against committee leaders' efforts to fast-track the bill and offered an amendment yesterday that would preserve EPA's authority over individual states. The amendment failed along party lines.

"This go-it-alone approach flies in the face of science, common sense and decades of experience implementing the Clean Water Act," Bishop said.

Groups weigh in

The bill has prompted an outpouring of support and opposition from various corners of the debate on federal regulatory authority over water.

Environmental groups panned the committee vote to approve the bill.

"This bill is a recipe for increased pollution, dirtier waters and more mountaintop removal mining," said Jon Devine, senior attorney in the water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Its supporters seem intent on taking us back to the 'good old days' when rivers like the Cuyahoga caught fire and Lake Erie was declared dead."

Industry groups, such as the Associated Equipment Distributors, which represents heavy equipment dealers, supported the bill. "EPA is standing in the way of a broad range of economic activity that involves 'turning dirt,'" the group wrote in a letter to Mica and Rahall. "That is hampering job creation and recovery in an industry hit hard by the recession."

The National Water Resources Association (NWRA), which represents many Western agricultural irrigation districts and has advocated for states' rights over water, also applauded the bill. "The current EPA has continued to show little deference to states' rights," Executive Vice President Thomas Donnelly wrote in a letter to Mica.

A group of West Virginia chambers of commerce sent EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a letter asking for swift consideration of mining permits, an issue the legislation seeks to address. The National Mining Association said the bill would "provide much needed certainty for jobs and the Appalachian economy."

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6/1/11

Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia have embarked on what environmental officials say is the largest project in the U.S. to reduce stormwater pollution through eco-friendly measures, such as porous asphalt and rooftop gardens.

The state and city, the country's fifth largest with 1.5 million people, signed a "Green City, Clean Waters" plan Wednesday, kicking off a 25-year, $2 billion effort to modify infrastructure to reduce the amount of rainwater tainted with road oil, litter and raw sewage flowing into rivers and streams.

Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and national environmental groups said the initiative should serve as a blueprint for cities and towns nationwide. The changes are expected to reduce by 5 billion to 8 billion gallons the amount of sewer overflow going into the city's waterways each year, including the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. That represents an 80 percent to 90 percent reduction.

"Philadelphia is setting the national model for how to clean up troubled waterways, and how to do it right," said Lawrence Levine of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of several environmental advocacy groups that helped the city develop the plan.

Funding over the lifetime of the project will come from a combination of city water fees, state and federal grants and loans, as well as support from private investors and foundations. The Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia water departments are spearheading the project, which also includes roadside plantings and thousands of new trees.

The Philadelphia Water Department estimates the improvements would add $8 to a typical resident's monthly water bill over the next two decades. But Levine said the "Green City" plan is less expensive than other infrastructure expansions the city considered.

"Philadelphia's visionary approach ... is great for the environment, and for the economy," said Brian Glass of PennFuture, an environmental group. "It will save Philadelphians real money, while making the city of brotherly love a more vibrant place to live, work and play."

Sixty percent of Philadelphia has what is called a "combined sewer system," which allows runoff from streets and wastewater from bathrooms and kitchens to flow through the same pipes. The drainage system can handle that in dry weather, properly sending wastewater to water treatment plants and storm water to streams, but during rains it overflows and sends storm water laced with motor oil, trash, and human waste pouring into surrounding waterways and raising bacteria levels.

More than a decade ago, officials ruled out separating storm water and sanitary lines as was done in newer parts of the city because that would mean reconfiguring 1,600 miles of pipes at enormous expense. Other traditional options—a huge expansion of the city's three sewage plants or construction of gigantic underground tanks to hold overflows—were less efficient and prohibitively expensive.

The city then began working with state officials and environmental consultants on a major departure from the conventional approaches. They crafted a plan to install green roofs on city buildings, plant trees and other vegetation along sidewalks, and repave streets, basketball courts and parking lots with porous asphalt and concrete that let rainwater flow through.

Water Department Commissioner Howard Neukrug said the goal is to improve the health of the city's creeks and rivers and "achieve a host of tangible environmental, social and economic benefits" from cleaner air, improved quality of life and the creation of jobs. The initial steps include a six-month citywide assessment to determine which neighborhoods to target first.

"We are thrilled and grateful that DEP has recognized the incredible environmental and public value of this plan, (which) makes significant progress toward Philadelphia becoming the greenest city in the country," Mayor Michael Nutter said.

The city has already begun to roll out some elements of the initiative. Last month, it paved a small Philadelphia street with porous asphalt, which looks like traditional impervious blacktop but has tiny spaces so storm water can drain through the surface into a bed of stones below, then seep into the soil underneath, instead of rushing into storm drains and sewers and creating potholes in winter.

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6/15/11

Residents and out-of-town visitors will consume more than 100,000 oysters today at the 21st annual Oyster Festival held on the Arcata Plaza, a fitting celebration for a region that has become a leader in oyster production for the state.

According to Tony Smithers, executive director of the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the festival has been recognized as the seventh-best food festival in the United States.

As festival-goers bite into freshly grilled Pacific oysters slathered in barbecue sauce or slurp back Kumamoto oyster shooters doused in lime, they may want to stop and consider where all of those oysters came from.

The history of oyster harvesting in the bay has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Prior to European settlement, Native Americans harvested the region's native oyster, commonly referred to as the Olympia oyster. In the late 1850s, the Olympia oyster's natural population was devastated due to over- harvesting.

Settlers from the East Coast looking for gold set up commercial oyster fisheries that rapidly consumed the slow-growing Olympia oyster stock, according to a report by the Department of Fish and Game.

Humboldt Bay didn't come back onto the map as a major oyster producer until the 1950s, when Pacific oyster seed was first brought to Humboldt Bay. Shortly thereafter, Kumamoto oyster seed was introduced.

A few years back, Coast Seafoods -- the largest oyster farming company in Humboldt Bay with about 50 employees -- underwent a rigorous permitting process that completely restructured the way the company harvested oysters. The company went from dredging, or hydraulically harvesting oysters off of the bay bottom, to suspending its oysters above the bay bottom on long lines strung between poles or on racks in bags.

Coast Seafoods General Manager Greg Dale said his company farms both the Pacific oyster and the Kumamoto oyster -- around 60,000 gallons a season, with each gallon containing 100 to 200 oysters.

Nowadays, farming facilities like Coast Seafoods receive Pacific and Kumamoto oyster seed from hatcheries that specialize in remote setting.

At these hatcheries, oyster larvae are placed in tanks that contain shell, referred to as mother shell or clutch, and sea water. The larvae metamorphose, no longer able to float in the water's currents, and settle onto the clutch, where they will remain for the rest of their lives.

Between 20 and 40 larvae will set onto one mother shell, but usually only half of those will grow into market-sized oysters.

Once the spat is attached to the clutch, it is then transferred to the oyster farmer where the mother shell is placed into large, long bags and piled up in an intertidal nursery area of the bay to allow the spat to grow and harden.

After the spats have reached about 3 to 4 millimeters in size, they are brought back to the plant where the mother shell is strung at intervals onto long, yellow lines. Those lines, a methodology referred to as long line culture, are then strung between a series of notched PVC pipes that are stuck into the bottom of the bay. In this way, the growing oysters are held off the bottom of the bay and away from predators.

According to Dale, oyster farming is anything but easy.

”It's tough work,” Dale said. “Our guys are out here working every day.”

Coast Seafoods also uses the rack-and-bag method to grow oysters. This technique is the primary means of farming for Humboldt Bay Oyster Co., according to owner Todd Van Herpe.

Herpe's company, which will supply roughly 18,000 oysters to today's festival, uses the rack-and-bag method of oyster farming because it produces single oysters that are not clumped together.

Herpe, who has been involved in the oyster industry for 19 years and has owned Humboldt Bay Oyster Co. since 2002, said he farms individually grown oysters because they are thought to be more aesthetically pleasing than those that are grouped together.

Typically, individual oysters are sold on the half shell in restaurants or for barbecuing.

The rack-and-bag method uses clutchless seed that is produced at a hatchery when larvae are set on finely crushed -- instead of whole -- mother shell. Each piece of shell is the size of the larvae. Because the seed is much smaller than the spat that is grouped onto the mother shell used in long line farming, it is grown in racks lined with fine mesh to prevent it from dispersing into the ocean.

The length of the growing process varies by oyster, but is time intensive -- regardless of which farming method is employed.

The Pacific oyster takes about one to one and a half years to grow, while the Kumamoto can take two to three years.

For Herpe, farming oysters is like being on a big conveyor belt, because they require constant care all year round.

”The concept is to keep feeding the conveyor belt,” he said. “If we aren't constantly taking care of it, nothing will come out on the other end.”

Herpe adds, it's all worth it. Not only does he enjoy the work, but he also enjoys the positive environmental effects the oysters have on the bay.

”Oysters serve a beneficial ecological purpose by filtering water (as much as 50 gallons a day per oyster), battling eutrophication and providing structure to the bay,” Herpe said.

According to Dale, not only are the oysters good for the environment, they are also just plain good.

Dale believes that Humboldt Bay produces some of the better oysters in the United States. When it comes to the Kumamoto, it may even be safe to say that Humboldt Bay produces the best.

”The Kumamotos are highly prized -- they don't grow everywhere,” Dale said. “They have Goldilocks' syndrome. That means they don't like it too hot or too cold, and for whatever reason Humboldt Bay works for them.”

Other major oyster farmers in Humboldt Bay are North Bay Shellfish and Aqua Rodeo Farms. 

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