Tag: oceans

Interview: Cape Wind Controversy

  • The proposed Cape Wind Project in Nantucket Sound is upsetting to some of the resort area residents (Source: Les Salty, at Wikimedia Commons)

The first offshore wind power
project expected to go online
is in Nantucket Sound near the
Cape Cod, Massachusetts resort
area. Some of the residents
of the region are rich and powerful.
They don’t want 130 wind turbines
ruining their view. Lester Graham
talked with the CEO of the Cape
Wind project, Jim Gordon, about why
the wind farm couldn’t be installed
over the horizon and out of sight:

Transcript

The first offshore wind power
project expected to go online
is in Nantucket Sound near the
Cape Cod, Massachusetts resort
area. Some of the residents
of the region are rich and powerful.
They don’t want 130 wind turbines
ruining their view. Lester Graham
talked with the CEO of the Cape
Wind project, Jim Gordon, about why
the wind farm couldn’t be installed
over the horizon and out of sight:

Jim Gordon: Well, first of all, hopefully, in the next ten, fifteen, or twenty years we’ll be able to bring wind turbines further off-shore, and they’ll be commercially and technically viable. But, right now, if you look at the off-shore wind farms in Europe that are commercially and technically viable, those projects are being built in near-shore, shallow waters, lower wave regimes. So, it’s really what’s driving the selection of the Cape Wind site is that it has some of the best wind resources on the East Coast, it’s outside of the shipping channels, ferry lines, and air flight paths, it has a reasonable proximity to bring the transmission line to the shore, and it has shallow depths and a low wave height. And, with all of this, it’s 13 miles from Nantucket, 9 miles from Edgar Town on Martha’s Vineyard, and 6 miles from Hyannis. So, if one were to go to the nearest beach and look out on the horizon, it would have to be a very clear day for you to make out tiny specks on the horizon. People want this project built, because they recognize that our energy security, climate change, sustainable economic development, the clean energy jobs that go with a project like this are important. And, we have to live with trade-offs if we’re going to transition to a more sustainable energy future.

Lester Graham: I wonder what you think of the Kennedy’s, who have been so active on the environmental front, fighting your proposal.

Gordon: You know, I have a lot of respect for Senator Kennedy, and our hope is the more he reads about Cape Wind, and the more he looks at and his staff looks at the final environmental impact statement from the federal government that was extremely positive, as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I mean, I’m hoping that the more Senator Kennedy thinks about this project, and looks at how it’s going to address the urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges facing Massachusetts and the region. You know, I’m hoping that he’ll come around and support the project.

Graham: How do you think what happens with your project will effect other off-shore proposals?

Gordon: I think that this project is going to set an important precedent. If a project like Cape Wind – which has run this exhaustive regulatory gauntlet, and has shown that the public is in favor of it, and that it’s passed muster – if this project is not approved, I think that it’s going to set a terrible precedent. I think that other developers that are looking at moving away from coal or some of the fossil fuels to tap our abundant off-shore wind resources, I think that they’ll have some real second thoughts about investing the enormous amount of time and resources that it takes to get one of these projects in the water.

Graham: Jim Gordon is the President of Cape Wind, the off-shore wind project proposed to be built there in Nantucket. Thanks for your time.

Gordon: Thank you, Lester.

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All Eyes on the Cape Wind Project

  • The Cape Wind Project proposes to build 130 wind turbines miles off the coast in the Atlantic Ocean (Source: Kmadison at Wikimedia Commons)

Offshore wind farm developers are closely
watching a proposed project in Nantucket
Sound. Lester Graham reports the Cape
Wind offshore wind energy project could be
the first in the nation to be approved:

Transcript

Offshore wind farm developers are closely
watching a proposed project in Nantucket
Sound. Lester Graham reports the Cape
Wind offshore wind energy project could be
the first in the nation to be approved:

For nine years, Cape Wind has been working its way through the permitting process.

But some residents in the Massachusetts resort areas around Nantucket Sound have fought against it including Senator Edward Kennedy.

The 130 wind turbines would be miles off the coast, but some residents say it would ruin the view from their coastal houses.

Jim Gordon is the CEO of Cape Wind.

“If this project is not approved, I think it’s going to set a terrible precedent. I think that other developers, I think they’ll have some real second thoughts about investing the enormous amount of time and resources that it takes to get one of these projects in the water.”

Developers are considering offshore wind energy turbines along the mid-Atlantic coast, the Great Lakes and the Gulf Coast, close to the populated areas that need additional power.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Close Contact Endangers Dolphins

  • More people are feeding dolphins and getting too close to them in their boats. (Photo courtesy of Mote Marine Laboratory)

Television dolphins like Flipper
and the performing dolphins at
Sea World can trick people into
thinking it’s okay to feed and
swim with wild dolphins. But
Rebecca Williams reports dolphin
researchers say our behavior can
hurt and even kill dolphins:

Transcript

Television dolphins like Flipper
and the performing dolphins at
Sea World can trick people into
thinking it’s okay to feed and
swim with wild dolphins. But
Rebecca Williams reports dolphin
researchers say our behavior can
hurt and even kill dolphins:

(sound of a shorebird crying out)

Fort Myers beach is packed with tourists. I meet a guy named Justin who’s here in Florida from Cleveland. He’s already gotten close to wild dolphins.

“We were out here swimming and dolphins got within a foot of us. It was amazing. I’ve never seen that.”

In this case, he wasn’t doing anything wrong – because the dolphins came up to him. But swimming with wild dolphins can actually be considered harassment if you approach them or touch them.

That’s bad for the dolphins because it can change their behavior. It can disturb their feeding and resting behavior. And it can separate dolphins from their babies.

So it’s illegal to swim with or harass dolphins. You can get fined and even end up with some jail time. And that’s just the beginning of the dolphins’ problems.

Dolphin encounters are getting more common in Florida and Hawaii and a lot of other places. There’ve been more tourists and more boaters in the water… and more commercial operations that promise you’ll get a chance to feed or swim with dolphins.

As cool as it might be for us, it’s actually terrible for dolphins. When people feed them they can get addicted to human handouts.

Cartoon Dolphin PSA: “For me it started with one hit of sardines, oh sardines… that’s where I learned to beg. It was easy to score free fish… with this dolphin smile? Yeah it’s illegal but no one cares…”

That’s a cartoon dolphin in rehab with a bear, a raccoon and a seagull. All those other animals we’ve gotten into some bad habits with.

It’s a message put out by the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.

(sound of dolphin playing in tank at the Marine Lab)

Randall Wells is the head of dolphin research at the lab. He’s spent almost four decades studying dolphins.

He says, in recent years, there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of dolphins getting into trouble with people. More people feeding them and getting too close to dolphins in their boats.

“And we’ve seen an increase in mortality from these kinds of interactions – from people luring animals in towards boats, in towards fishing gear. Dolphins have begun to take bait from lines getting tackle including hooks and lures in their bodies and killing them or seriously injuring them.”

He says, if you feed a dolphin, it’ll often start begging for food from people. And that dolphin will teach its babies or other dolphins to beg.

Sometimes they’ll even eat things that aren’t food. One dead dolphin had a plastic snake in its stomach.

If dolphins get closer to boats, they can get snared in fishing line. It can slice through their flippers. Once, Randall Wells rescued a dolphin that had a Speedo on its head. And because it couldn’t shake it off, the suit was cutting into the dolphin’s flesh.

Wells and his team have been doing a lot of outreach to stop people from getting too close to dolphins. And he says most of the time, it works.

“But there’s still a half percent of people that, by their own admission, insist on interacting with these animals – feeding them and approaching them in ways that are illegal, just because they can and they’ve never seen the negative consequences of doing that.”

If you want to go on one of those dolphin viewing tours, there are some ways to make sure the tour operator’s not adding to the problem.

Stacey Horstman helps run a program called Dolphin Smart. It certifies dolphin tours as responsible.

Right now there are only four businesses in Key West and one in Alabama that’ve gotten certified. But, she says, if you’re in a place without Dolphin Smart tours, you can still ask questions.

“Just to make sure that feeding is not being promoted in any way, that they’re promoting responsible viewing from a distance.”

That means staying at least 50 yards away from dolphins.

She says any ad that shows people swimming with dolphins or handing them fish is usually a sign of an irresponsible business. So those are ones to stay away from.

Dolphins might look cute and friendly, but Horstman says they are wild animals and they need their space.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Captive Otters Adopt Orphaned Pups

  • Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for the pups to never see or hear a human. To get up close to the pup, Ann had to put on a Darth Vader costume of sorts. (Photo by Angela Hains)

For animals in most zoos and
aquariums, the door from freedom
to captivity only swings one way.
But at the Monterey Bay Aquarium,
sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to
survive in the ocean. Ann Dornfeld
has the story:

Transcript

For animals in most zoos and aquariums, the door from
freedom to captivity only swings one way. But at the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to survive in the ocean. Ann
Dornfeld has the story:

Rosa has her baby in a headlock. That’s actually how
southern sea otters hold their young.

“The pup is essentially unconscious – it’s very much
asleep, and Rosa is holding it as a female would in the
wild: she’s got it sort of teed off to her side with a paw
around its neck.”

Andy Johnson is the director of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation
program.

By the end of the19th century, sea otters had been hunted
to extinction in some parts of the Pacific.

Lilian Carswell is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She says these days, pollution and disease are sea otters’
biggest threats. And she says a lot of other species
depend on otters’ survival.

“Sea otters are important for a number of reasons. One is
that they’re a top predator in the nearshore marine
ecosystem and they play an important role in structuring
what that ecosystem looks like.”

Hungry sea otters keep sea urchin populations in check.
When urchins overpopulate an area, they can mow down
entire kelp forests that provide food and shelter for
hundreds of species.

So to help conserve the otter population, Andy Johnson
and his team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium pair orphaned
pups from the wild with the female exhibit otters. The goal
is for the surrogate mother to not only care for the pup, but
also to teach it all the skills it will need to be released back
into the wild at about six months old.

A volunteer has just tossed some food into the pool where
Rosa and the orphaned pup are swimming. Rosa grabs
the live crab as the pup watches.

“Rosa’s quite skilled with those, so she’ll pretty much take
that apart in a few minutes. We’ll have to watch the pup
and see if the pup approaches the crab without getting
pinched. I have to admit it’s quite amusing to see these
young animals confronting these crabs ’cause these crabs
are pretty formidable on their own.”

Rosa ends up breaking off a leg for her adopted pup, who
decides the shell is too much work. Before long, though,
the pup will learn some of the same impressive skills that
adult sea otters have – like how to use tools to open clams
and sea urchins.

Before the surrogate program began, workers and
volunteers used to hand-rear these pups. They’d even
take the pups swimming in Monterey Bay to acclimate
them to their future home.

But that made the released otters expect food from
boaters and other people they encountered in the bay.

Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for
the pups to never see or hear a human. We’ve been
watching the sea otters interact from a TV monitor near
the pool. To get up close to the pup, I have to put on a
Darth Vader costume of sorts – starting with a huge black
nylon poncho.

(sound of the poncho)

Ann: “This is a welding mask?”

Andy Johnson: “A very cheap welding mask.”

Rosa isn’t fooled. As I approach the pool, she shoots over
to see whether I have food.

(sound of the otter sniffing around)

Rosa was a rescued pup. She was hand-reared before the
surrogate program began. After she was released into
Monterey Bay, she had to be recaptured because she was
jumping on kayaks and divers.

“We found that with the sea otters, putting them with an
adult female in a fairly shallow pool for six months far
outweighs whatever we were doing trying to raise these
pups.”

Sea otter populations are recovering at a slow pace in
California. But this program is contributing to the
population.

Johnson says the apparent survival rate of the re-released
pups is now about as good as that of newly-weaned pups
in the wild. Some have even successfully raised their own
pups, using skills they picked up from an exhibit otter at
the aquarium.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Native Americans Lose Land to Climate Change

  • Choctaw Chief Albert Naquin has watched his tribe's island - the Isle de Jean Charles - go from four miles across to a quarter mile across. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Over the next century, rising
sea levels will change coastlines
all over the world. But the impact
might be most dramatic in South
Louisiana. A study out last month
predicts the state will lose up to
5000 square miles in the next
century – a chunk of land the size
of Connecticut. If the report’s
authors are right, that means a
lot of people in Louisiana are
going to have to relocate – become
climate refugees. Samara Freemark has the story of one of
the first communities to be displaced:

Transcript

Over the next century, rising sea levels will change coastlines all over the world. But the impact might be most dramatic in South Louisiana. A study out last month predicts the state will lose up to 5000 square miles in the next century – a chunk of land the size of Connecticut. If the report’s authors are right, that means a lot of people in Louisiana are going to have to relocate – become climate refugees. Samara Freemark has the story of one of the first communities to be displaced:

It was sometime in the mid-1970s that Albert Naquin first realized that Isle de Jean Charles was sinking. Naquin had grown up on the island. He’s the chief of a group of Choctaws who have lived there since the 19th century – and when he was a kid, it was a pretty good community: it had stores, a couple of churches, horse pastures and fields. But those are all gone now.

“Salt water kept coming in, faster and faster, and now it’s basically just beach.”

Isle de Jean Charles is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.

The list of reasons why is long. There’s subsidence- that’s the natural phenomenon where delta regions kind of settle down on themselves. There are the dams that block the sediment that used to wash down and build the land back up. There are oil company canals that slice through the wetlands, hurricanes that tear up the island’s coastline, and, of course, there’s rising sea levels.

All together they explain why Isle de Jean Charles used to be about 4 miles across and now has shrunk to a quarter mile.

“Now, we see the disaster that is Isle de Jean.”

We’re in Naquin’s pickup truck, and he’s driving me out to the island.

“See this little house moved across the way, this house. These 1, 2, 3 are deserted.”

Naquin himself moved off the island awhile ago. But for years he was happy to support families who chose to stay. In fact, when the US government came to him in 2002 and offered to pay to help people move off the island, he resisted.

“So, I said, ‘what they gonna do, tell us they’re gonna move us there and then next thing send us a bill for the house?’ You know, so I said, ‘no, that’s just a modern day Trail of Tears. We’re not moving.’”

But lately Naquin has just gotten tired. Tired of evacuating people before storms, tired of helping them rebuild after, tired of watching the sea nibble away at the island.

And so he decided – enough. For the past year he’s been on a mission to convince the 25 families still living on the island to abandon it.

“They’re not going to save the island. It’s going to be gone. Either we move now or we move later, ‘cause we will move.”

But not everyone is ready to leave.

(sound of greeting and talking)

Naquin pulls over to talk to Dominique Dardar.

Dardar’s house was leveled by Hurricane Gustav last summer. He’s rebuilding it with pieces of other houses he’s found blowing around the island- bits of roof and siding. Dardar says he’s not moving.

“I ain’t never gonna move. I’m gonna stay over here. That’s my territory.”

Across the street Wenselas Billiot lives in a house raised 13 feet in the air.

Billiot is Naquin’s brother in law. He’s in his 80s and has lived on the island his whole life. I ask him what he’ll do if the island shrinks any more.

“That’s going to be rough. But, as long as I can stay, I’ll stay. I was born and raised on the island. As long as I can stay here I’m going to stay.”

Albert Naquin hasn’t given up. He thinks if he can get everyone to agree, the government will help the tribe get a big piece of land where they can all relocate as a group. He’s already thinking of names for the new town.

“We could say, Island Number Two, or Isle de Jean Charles New Beginning, or something like that. But I think we just name it Isle de Jean Charles 2. I think that has a good sound to it.”

In short, Naquin is trying to figure out how to keep the idea of Isle de Jean Charles alive, even when the island itself no longer exists.

It’s a challenge many Louisiana communities could soon face.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Cleaning Up U.S. Ports

  • The Matson Line Container ship is unloaded at the Port of Oakland. It takes up to 48 hours and hundreds of trucks to unload the world's large container ships. Everything except the white cranes runs on diesel (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

U.S. ports are among the biggest sources of air pollution in the cities they are in. Some
ports are making progress in cleaning up their emissions. But Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports, critics say the pace is slow:

Transcript

U.S. ports are among the biggest sources of air pollution in the cities they are in. Some
ports are making progress in cleaning up their emissions. But Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports, critics say the pace is slow:

The Matson Line cargo ship is laden with hundreds of shipping
containers and looks like a floating building, rather than a ship. It’s in
from a recent trek across the Pacific Ocean and it’s docked here at
the Port of Oakland.

It’s being unloaded one container at a time by a row of cranes
towering over the ship.

“And they’re either loading them on to a truck chassis to go directly out of the port, or
they’re going to store it in the yard, sort it out, put it on a rail car or send it out on the
regional freeways.”

That’s Richard Sincoff. He directs the environmental projects at the
Port of Oakland.

He says it can take crews 24 to 48 hours to fully unload just one ship,
and all that the activity creates a lot of the air pollution surrounding
West Oakland.

The trucks moving containers around the port run on diesel, and
recently, the port banned all pre 1994 trucks from shuttling shipping
containers.

Delphine Prevost, who manages truck programs at the port says goal
is to ensure the thousands trucks serving the port emit low levels of
diesel pollution.

“These are engine models we are talking about, and generally the older, the more
pollution it is. Just like anything else, trucks get cleaner as technology for truck engines
get cleaner.”

Since most of the truck drivers are independent contractors and can’t
always afford a brand new truck, the port has set up a grant program
to help them cover the costs.

Los Angeles has done this, too, and it is the biggest port in the
country. Since last fall, it’s removed forty-five hundred dirty trucks
from its operations.

David Abby says the region’s seen a nearly 35% improvement to the
local air quality and a reduction of 500 tones of nitrous oxide or NOX.

“And to put that into prospective, that 500 tons of NOX is like taking 1300 cars off the
road for a year.”

But truck exhaust represents only about 4% of all diesel emissions in
America’s ports. It’s ships that emit the most. They burn dirty bunker
fuel on their way in to the port. Then they’re docked, they keep
burning it for electricity.

James Cannon is with Energy Futures – an environmental advocacy
group. He says these big ships are just like a power plant on land.
But, because they are in the water, the US Clean Air Act doesn’t
apply.

“Because the power plant is just a few feet off the berth on the ship, it’s totally
unregulated and this has led to emissions that are literally thousands of times higher
than if it were just a few feet away.”

Cannon says ports are exploring ways to cut these emissions, but the
pace is slow. He says the most ideal solution is to allow the ships to
plug into the electrical grid while at berth. A few ships docking in the
Port of Long Beach can do this now.

These California ports are greening their operations, because state
law is pushing them. Cannon says America’s seven other ports have
much farther to go.

He says they should take advantage of the lower shipping activity
during this recession – and spend money to green up their
operations.

“Rather than endlessly expanding their container ports or endlessly expanding volume
they now have a chance to restructure their ports and put them on a cleaner basis.”

US EPA has pledged to regulate air within 230 miles of US Coasts by
2012.

If the agency stays true to its word, all of the nation’s ports will have
to green their operations eventually. Whether it will be as much as
California’s ports have done remains to be seen.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

The End of the Line

  • The documentary, The End Of The Line, takes a look at the status of the world's oceans (Photo courtesy of End Of The Line)

Fish is a big part of our diet. We eat everything from fish sticks and fast food fish sandwiches to sushi and swordfish steaks. But Lester Graham reports a new documentary makes the case we’re overfishing the oceans:

Transcript

Fish is a big part of our diet. We eat everything from fish sticks and fast food fish sandwiches to sushi and swordfish steaks. But Lester Graham reports a new documentary makes the case we’re overfishing the oceans:

This new film is called The End of the Line.

“Everybody recognizes that there’s major problems with the world’s fisheries. And at one level it’s a question of ‘how bad is it?’”

That’s Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, one of the scientists in the documentary.

The film is a compelling argument that huge fishing trawlers are pushing the fish stocks to the edge.

The first sign of a problem was the cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland. It collapsed in the 1970s.

But it seemed, despite problems around the world, the total catch around the globe was going up every year. That is, until researchers realized just a few years ago, Communist officials in China were reporting inflated fish numbers to impress their superiors. The world catch was actually getting smaller.

Scientists were stunned, and worried.

“For the first time in human history, the future of the food the world gets from the sea was in doubt.”

“Send a shiver down my spine because that was the one thing a lot of people were holding on to: well, things may be bad, but at least we’re catching lots and we’re catching more every year, so, it can’t be that bad.”

Boris Worm at Dalhousie University is one of the researchers who confirmed the world catch is getting smaller.

He and others have been studying the fact that boats are catching fewer fish, even though the nets are larger and the long lines put out more hooks.

Claire Lewis produced The End of the Line documentary. She admits, this leaves people who see fish as a good source of low-fat protein in a spot.

“It’s very hard. As a parent, you have conflicting evidence. You want to give your children and you want to feed yourself healthy food. You know that’s what fish is. On the other hand, you cannot possible ignore what we’re doing to the oceans, to the ecosystem in the ocean in eating too many fish.”

“Today in every ocean of the world, high-tech industrial vessels are hunting down every known edible species of fish.”

Ray Hilborn: “The basic problem in most fisheries that are in troube is too many boats.”

Charles Clover: “Too much capacity chasing too few fish.”

That last speaker is Charles Clover. The film documentary is based on a book he wrote by the same title. Like the film’s producers, he wants people to be more aware of the plight of the world’s fisheries.

Producer Claire Lewis says there are examples where fishing is being controlled more carefully.

“The most graphic example, I think, in our film, is that fact that in Alaska – which is a very well managed fishery – they take 10% of the stock only. In the North Sea in the E.U., they take 50% of the stock. Now, it seems to me that’s a really, really big difference.”

Lewis says, if left to the big commercial fishing operations, they’ll just keep fishing until fish stocks collapse. And she believes stricter government regulations and better informed consumers are the only things that will stop them.

“I really do believe that it’s the individual consumers who are going to make a difference to this. I think it’s something we can all individually do.”

The film tries to get people to start thinking about what they can do: such as, asking about the fish before you buy it, letting politicians know a sustainable fishery is important, and it encourages people to get involved with groups such as Seafoodwatch.org.

The End of the Line is narrated by actor and environmental activist Ted Danson. It’s appearing in theaters across the nation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Jellyfish Taking Over Oceans?

  • A jellyfish under the Ross Sea ice, on October 14, 2005 (Photo by Henry Kaiser, courtesy of the National Science Foundation)

Some scientists are warning
that as overfishing and climate
change affect the world’s oceans,
jellyfish will take over the
ecosystem. That could mean that
eventually, if you cast a net
into the ocean all you’d haul
in would be jelly blobs. But
as Ann Dornfeld reports, such
warnings may be premature:

Transcript

Some scientists are warning
that as overfishing and climate
change affect the world’s oceans,
jellyfish will take over the
ecosystem. That could mean that
eventually, if you cast a net
into the ocean all you’d haul
in would be jelly blobs. But
as Ann Dornfeld reports, such
warnings may be premature:

The theory goes like this. Overfishing is removing the main jellyfish predators from the oceans. And warming oceans could be more hospitable to jellies.

A new report published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution says jellyfish are already taking over. Its authors point to recent big jellyfish blooms as evidence.

But not everyone’s convinced.

“I think there’s a set of people that are sensationalizing the jellyfish bloom issue.”

University of Washington researcher Claudia Mills has been studying jellies for 30 years.

“I do think that probably jellyfish blooms are on the increase. But the problem is, we have so little baseline data that it’s almost impossible to really, honestly know that.”

Mills says there’s hardly any historical data on jellyfish populations, and not even much recent data.

She says it could be that the future of the world’s oceans is gelatinous and tentacled… or the blooms could just be cyclical.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Saving Underwater Forests From a Prickly Pest

  • A few years ago, urchins had mowed this huge kelp forest down to just a few square feet (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

Most of the world’s forests are on dry land. But in a few special places on earth, forests grow underwater. They’re kelp forests. And they’re home to an astounding array of marine life. Trouble is, these underwater forests are vanishing. Ann Dornfeld reports on efforts to turn the tide:

Transcript

Most of the world’s forests are on dry land. But in a few special places on earth, forests grow underwater. They’re kelp forests. And they’re home to an astounding array of marine life. Trouble is, these underwater forests are vanishing. Ann Dornfeld reports on efforts to turn the tide:

A healthy kelp forest is so thick with fish and invertebrates that you’d swear you were looking at an aquarium exhibit.

They’re biodiversity hotspots – places that feed and protect an extraordinary number of species.

Brian Meux of Santa Monica Baykeeper standing on the deck of a boat in his wetsuit. He’s looking proudly at a thriving kelp forest along a rocky coastline near Los Angeles.

“This is our little jewel on this coast. Not only does the kelp forest have over 800 species dependent on it, but more than a quarter of all California marine species are dependent upon the kelp forest during some part of their life cycle.”

Since the 1960s, Southern California has lost 90% of its kelp forests. The culprit looks like a small purple pin cushion.

It’s a sea urchin!

Urchins love to eat kelp, and their populations have gone out of control. That’s because overfishing has removed most of the large fish and lobsters that eat urchins.

A few years ago, urchins had mowed this kelp forest down to just a few square feet. So Meux and a team of Baykeeper volunteers are trying to restore the balance.

They’re licensed by the state to do “urchin relocation.”

“what we do is go down, collect urchins by hand, get them on the boat and relocate them to areas where they will no longer harm the kelp forest.”

Sounds easy enough.

“Some of them you’ll want to just pull off the reef – they’ll look like they just can come off – I recommend using the tool. Urchin spines in your fingers… just not fun. ”

Or maybe not.

Either way, it’s time for the us to gear up and jump in.

(sound of diving in and scuba breathing)

Twenty-five feet underwater, the ocean surges so violently that the divers cling to rocks so they won’t be swept away.

It’s tricky to find a safe rock to grab because most of them are covered in urchins that have moved in on this young kelp forest.

But urchins aren’t the only migrants.

Huge purple sheephead and fire-orange Garibaldi fish swim by. A small octopus sits curled in a crevice. Pastel sea stars are everywhere.

Four years ago, this site was pretty much just rocks and urchins.

Two dives later, the divers are back on the boat.

Diver 1: “That was a workout!”

Diver 2: “That was a workout. I’m tired.”

After the team hauls up bag after bags of purple and red urchins, we try unsuccessfully to extract a spine from one volunteer’s finger.

Next, we move to deeper water a mile away. This will be the urchins’ new home.

The divers count the prickly balls as they throw them overboard.

Diver: “Purple!”

Each time a diver counts ten urchins of a particular color, they call it out.

Divers: “Purple! Purple.”

Similar kelp restoration efforts have revived kelp forests along other stretches of the California coast. But while those projects involved reseeding of the kelp forest, Meux says Baykeeper focuses on urchin relocation.

“We’ve found that mostly just get rid of the urchins and natural kelp spores will seed the reef and the return of kelp will ensue.”

Diver: “Purple!”

In all today, the team has relocated about 1500 urchins.

Between weekly trips like these and giant kelp’s ability to grow as fast as two feet a day, kelp restoration is a
heartening environmental success story.

In order for Southern California’s kelp forests to make a widespread comeback, Brian Meux says the state will need to limit the fishing that caused this problem in the first place.

And that issue’s as prickly as an urchin.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Sea Levels Threaten Coastal Towns (Part One)

  • The boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland. Before beach replenishment, you could get your feet wet standing underneath the boardwalk. Now, as you can see, the water is 200 feet away. (Photo by Tamara Keith)

It’s beach weather – and along the mid-Atlantic one of the most popular beaches is Ocean
City, Maryland. For years, engineers have been battling back the ocean to save the beach
and the town. And as Tamara Keith reports, that fight is only going to get tougher and
more expensive if predictions of sea level rise from climate change become a reality:

Transcript

It’s beach weather – and along the mid-Atlantic one of the most popular beaches is Ocean
City, Maryland. For years, engineers have been battling back the ocean to save the beach
and the town. And as Tamara Keith reports, that fight is only going to get tougher and
more expensive if predictions of sea level rise from climate change become a reality:

When the sea level rises, Ocean City feels it. It’s on the front lines – a barrier island on
the edge of the Atlantic.

(sounds of water)

Terry McGean is the city engineer for a town he describes as a working class resort.

“Our industry is tourism, and the real reason people come here is the beach.”

But in the 1980s, that beach was reduced to a narrow strip. Not so today, all thanks to a
massive, and expensive, beach replenishment project. In 1991 countless tons of sand
were brought in, dunes were built. But that wasn’t the end of it.

To keep up with erosion, McGean says the beach here at Ocean City has already been re-
nourished 4 times.

“Approximately every 4 years we’re doing a re-nourishment project. To give you an idea
of the scale, that’s 100,000 truck loads of material that we’ll put on here. Though it
doesn’t actually come on a truck? No. It’s pumped in a dredge from out in the ocean.”

It is a constant fight, because the waves keep coming, keep pulling the sand back out to
sea. Scientists say this is partially just normal erosion. But some of it at least can be
blamed on global climate change and sea level rise. Over time, they say, the share of the
problem caused by climate change will grow.

“If you hadn’t done the beach replenishment do you have any sense of what this would
look like right now. There probably would have been no public beach left in many of
these areas.”

So far fending off the sea has cost $90-million, split amongst local, state and federal tax
dollars. But engineers estimate some $240-million in storm damage has been prevented.

“Holding back the sea is an economic proposition. If you’re willing to spend the money,
the sand exists to elevate any given barrier island.”

Jim Titus is the project manager for sea level rise at the Environmental Protection
Agency. And he’s been sounding the alarm about climate change for years. And he says
policy makers and the public will eventually have to decide which beaches, which
communities are worth saving.

“The challenge for communities like Ocean City is to persuade everyone else that they
are one of those cities that are too important to give up. And then to get their residents to
cooperate in doing what it takes to do to gradually elevate the entire community with a
rising sea.”

But if you think in geologic time, like University of Maryland professor Michael Kearney
does, there isn’t a whole lot of hope for barrier islands like Ocean City.

“It’s essentially a pile of sand. There’s really nothing permanent about it.”

Kearney studies coastal processes.

“The long term prospect of any barrier surviving the projected rates of sea level rise, even
at the moderate rates – the so-called moderate rates, that the IPCC predicted is pretty
slim.”

Ocean City engineer Terry McGean just isn’t buying it. He thinks Ocean City can survive
sea level rise.

“I think that we can design towards it and we can probably build towards it and with
responsible actions we can live with it.”

As long as there’s enough sand and money to keep it going.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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