Management & Regulation

The federal government’s top ocean scientists are urging the Interior Department to drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling, citing threats to marine life and potentially devastating effects of oil spills in Arctic waters.

The recommendations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are informal and not binding. But if adopted, they would restrict development in some of the nation’s most resource-rich untapped offshore areas and mark a significant departure from the pro-drilling policies of the George W. Bush administration. They also give added — and official — weight to environmentalists’ concerns.

In a letter sent to Interior officials last month, NOAA recommended excluding large tracts of the Alaska coast, the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico from Interior’s draft offshore drilling plan for 2010 to 2015.

Read the complete story at The Los Angeles Times.

The wild and scenic Rogue River has become even wilder with the demolition of a dam that had hindered passage of salmon and steelhead to their spawning grounds for 88 years.

A flotilla of some 80 people in rafts, driftboats and kayaks celebrated the breaching of the Savage Rapids Dam on Saturday by floating through the remains of the concrete structure in southwest Oregon.

Among them was Jim Martin, rowing his own driftboat. His first job as a young fisheries biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was monitoring how many salmon and steelhead were killed each year by the irrigation dam.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Scientists work to explain why massive "dead zones" have been invading the Pacific Northwest’s near-shore waters since 2002.

Yet another ecological scourge may earn a place on the ever-lengthening list of problems potentially caused by climate change: the formation of some so-called "dead zones"—huge expanses of ocean that lose virtually all of their marine life at depth during the summer.

Possible connections between climate change and the relatively recent formation of dead zones in the Pacific Northwest’s coastal waters are currently being studied by a research team that is funded by the National Science Foundation and co-led by Jack Barth of Oregon State University (OSU) and Francis Chan of OSU. (Jane Lubchenco, who is currently on leave from OSU while serving as the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also previously co-led the team.)

Read the complete story at Red Orbit.

If there is a superstar at the Atlantic City Aquarium, it would be Grohman, a 200-pound loggerhead sea turtle. The 14 year-old reptile shares a 25,000-gallon tank with cownose rays, dogfishes and other Mid-Atlantic sea creatures, and has been highlighted in many discussions about sea turtles, the importance of protecting them, their habitats and the environment.

"He’s definitely one of the centerpieces," Christopher FitzSimmons, the Atlantic City Aquarium’s education assistant, said in an interview in late September. "And a lot of people don’t know you can find sea turtles in New Jersey."

Grohman’s wild counterparts, however, are not faring as well. Many loggerheads die when they are accidentally caught by commercial fisheries and three populations – including turtles in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean – are at a high risk of becoming extinct, according to the latest federal report commissioned by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The study, which was released in August, found all nine loggerhead turtle populations around the world could decline in the future. Several hundred loggerhead turtles per year are estimated to be caught by sea scallop trawlers between New York and North Carolina, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service study. Mid-Atlantic bottom trawlers killed about 616 sea turtles per year between 1996 and 2004, the study said.

Read the complete story at the Press of Atlantic City.

An Independent Adjudicator has confirmed an independent certifier’s original determination that the Pacific hake fishery meets the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard on all three Principles and should be certified.

The Independent Adjudicator, Michael Lodge, wrote: "Having heard arguments from all parties, supported by written submissions and supporting documentation, I find that the grounds for objection are not made out and there is no basis to remand the Determination to the certification body for further consideration…I confirm the Final Report and Determination issued by TAVEL Certification Inc. on 19 May 2009."

Read the complete story at FIS World News.

Federal fisheries managers have agreed to consider designating critical habitat for endangered leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific ocean off Oregon and California.

NOAA Fisheries officials said Thursday, Oct 8, they will make a decision whether to go forward by Dec. 4 under terms of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by conservation groups.

The groups had sued the government for failing to follow through on their petition to designate critical habitat.

Pacific leatherbacks migrate each year from nesting areas in Indonesia to feed on jellyfish in the California current between Lincoln City, Ore., and Point Conception, Calif.

Conservation groups have proposed designating that broad swath of ocean as critical habitat to encompass feeding areas as well as migration routes, said Ben Enticknap of the group Oceana.

Read the complete story from AP at Google.

Joshua Reichert, the managing director of the Pew Environment Group, writes in the Los Angeles Times that commercial overfishing has slashed the population of this ocean giant off the U.S by more than 82%. He states that the population that spawns in U.S. waters "has declined by 82% since the 1970s, as commercial fishing fleets have responded to plunging catches by simply fishing more intensively, as if the supply were inexhaustible."  And he argues that the Obama administration should list it as endangered to give the species a chance to recover.

 

 

The Obama administration has indicated that when it comes to international agreements, it’s giving high priority to arms control, human rights, law enforcement, investment and maritime law. With respect to the environment, it has listed climate change, plant genetic resources and persistent organic pollutants, among other issues.

Tuna fish haven’t been mentioned.

Unfortunately, that omission reveals a sea of trouble, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a rare chance to correct if it acts quickly, and if NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco follows her best scientific instincts.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna isn’t the tuna your children eat for lunch. As one of the fastest swimming and most valuable of all fish in our oceans, it doesn’t come in a can but rather appears on the menus of only the priciest restaurants. And it’s in dire straits. The population that spawns in U.S. waters has declined by 82% since the 1970s, as commercial fishing fleets have responded to plunging catches by simply fishing more intensively, as if the supply were inexhaustible.

Read the complete story at The Los Angeles Times.

Climate change is likely responsible for the formation of a large dead zone that has formed off the coast of Oregon and Washington for the past eight years, researchers from Oregon State University said today.

Dead zones are ocean expanses that lose most of their marine life during the summer due to a lack of oxygen, called hypoxia. The Pacific Northwest dead zones, which have appeared every summer since 2002, are located in one of the nation’s most important fisheries.

Jack Barth, a professor of oceanography at OSU, says, "I wouldn’t be surprised if coastal dead zones appear every summer from now on because oceanic and atmospheric conditions are now primed for their regular, repeated formation."

Connections between climate change and the recent formation of dead zones in Pacific Northwest coastal waters are being studied by a research team that is funded by the National Science Foundation and co-led by Barth and Francis Chan of Oregon State University. Jane Lubchenco, now on leave from the university while serving as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, previously co-led the team.

Read the complete story at Environment News Service.