News

Fish and Game charge submitted against Footprint Recycling for January spill

4/28/20 The Humboldt County District Attorney's Office has submitted a pollution charge against Footprint Recycling of Arcata for an alleged biodiesel spill in January. Deputy District Attorney Christa McKimmy said she submitted the charge last week alleging that Footprint released a substance harmful to fish, bird and plant life into a place where it can pass into waters of the state.

On March 25, the California Department of Fish and Game submitted a report to the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office regarding the alleged January spill at Footprint's West End Road facility in Arcata, where about 1,000 gallons of biodiesel fuel overflowed from an above-ground tank.

The spill started when an automatic timer failed during the night of Jan. 14, said president and owner Andrew Cooper. The fuel reached the facility's drainage ditch, which is an unnamed tributary of the north fork of Janes Creek, but did not leave the property before it was cleaned up.

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EPA may try to use Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide

4/4/10 The Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether to use the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are turning the oceans acidic at a rate that's alarmed some scientists.

Since the dawn of the industrial age, acid levels in the oceans have increased 30 percent. Currently, the oceans are absorbing 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day.

Among other things, scientists worry that the increase in acidity could interrupt the delicate marine food chain, which ranges from microscopic plankton to whales.

The situation is especially acute along the West Coast...The water in the deep Pacific Ocean is already more acidic than shallower water is because it's absorbed the carbon dioxide that's produced as animals and plants decompose. Some of the deep water in the Pacific hasn't been to the surface for 1,000 or more years.

By the end of the century, that deep water is expected to be 150 percent more acidic than it is now, and as it's brought to the surface by upwelling, it's exposed to even more carbon dioxide. Read Full Artilcle

Big Oil & Tire to pay $1.1 million in tank fines

4/6/10 Big Oil & Tire Co. has been hit with a $1.1 million judgment for failure to maintain and test underground fuel tanks at 76 stations from McKinleyville to Fortuna, the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office has reported.

Part of a joint action with the DA, the California Attorney General's Office, the State Water Resources Control Board and the California District Attorney's Association, the order came out of Humboldt County Superior Court last week.

The judgment requires Big Oil & Tire to make repairs to the tanks needed to comply with state and federal law, install and maintain spill and overfill prevention equipment and to submit to inspections. Big Oil & Tire must also cooperate with future investigations in the event of any additional violations, according to the decree. Read Full Article

Q and A with Jane Lubchenco

April 2010 The marine ecologist and administrator of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration discusses restoring the bounty of the world's oceans in this month's Smithsonian Magazine.

United Kingdom Designates World’s Largest Marine Reserve

4/2/10 The British government on Thursday announced the creation of the world's largest marine reserve, designating a group of 55 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean off-limits to industrial fishing and other extractive activities.

The Chagos Islands are home to roughly half of the Indian Ocean's healthy coral reefs, along with several imperiled sea turtle species and 175,000 pairs of breeding seabirds. The new preserve covers 210,000 square miles -- an area larger than California and more than twice the size of Britain -- and will shelter at least 76 species classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Rivaling the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef in ecological diversity, the Chagos Islands and their surrounding waters can serve as a global reference site for scientific research in crucial areas such as ocean acidification, coral reef resilience, sea level rise, fish stock decline, and climate change.

Just two-tenths of 1 percent of the world's oceans are protected, compared with 6 to 11 percent of the world's land mass; the Chagos Islands addition will increase it to roughly three-tenths of 1 percent. The new protected area will surpass the Papahânaumokuâkea Marine National Monument in the waters of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, set aside by President George W. Bush in 2006, as the biggest marine reserve.

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