Tag Archives: fishing

Yes on 1631. Protect fishing towns, fight pollution, cut fuel bills

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By Mike Cassinelli

Last fall I advocated steps to improve a proposed statewide initiative to cut carbon pollution—making it work better for rural, resource-dependent communities like Ilwaco. Now I’m proud to report that we got the improvements we needed. I’m supporting Initiative 1631.

As a charter fishing operator, and former mayor of Ilwaco, I know we have a lot at stake. Fishing communities like ours can’t afford to be left behind by a policy to protect healthy resources and build stronger, cleaner local economies.  We need a policy that cuts pollution while keeping our fuel costs under control and growing jobs here at home. That’s what we got with Initiative 1631, contrary to the scare stories from the oil industry.

What’s at stake for us? Let’s start on the docks. Our fisheries are being eroded by ocean acidification and climate impacts: overheated waters killing salmon, toxic algae closing crab and shellfish harvests, plankton dissolving before fish can eat them. Here in Ilwaco, fishing is the backbone of our economy. As the old saying says: “No fish, no fishermen.”

Now look at the tab we already pay for climate damage. As taxpayers and bill payers, we are on the hook for out-of-control costs caused by climate-related disasters. Wildfires alone cost Washington state $1 billion since 2014, thanks to hotter summers and droughts along with poor fuel management practices. NOAA tells us climate-related disasters have cost Americans $1.5 trillion since 1980.

That’s about $10,000 for every taxpaying American‚ and it rises every year. Most of us in Ilwaco don’t have an extra $10,000 to fix preventable damage.

If voters pass Initiative 1631 on November 6, we’re protecting our wallets, not just our fisheries. Even if you don’t eat fish, you still buy fuel. In fact, the average household in Washington spends more than $5,000 a year on fuel, mostly for our vehicles. This initiative will help us invest in fuel efficiency and clean energy so we can buy less gas, oil, and coal.

Let’s be frank. The oil industry has spent $30 million to scare and confuse citizens about this initiative because they know it will help us buy less fuel.

They claim the money from the carbon fee will be wasted. That’s bunk and they know it. If they weren’t convinced it would work, they wouldn’t be spending the largest sum in Washington history to blitz our TVs, Facebook feeds and mailboxes with misleading claims.

How do they know we’ll buy less fuel? That’s what happened in other states that adopted similar policies.

Just like I-1631 would do, nine states on the East Coast already put a price on carbon emissions and invest most of the proceeds to increase fuel efficiency and clean energy supplies. Those folks avoided buying $1.37 billion worth of imported fossil fuels over the last three years. They added 14,500 jobs building a cleaner economy. And since they started in 2009, the states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cut their targeted emissions by more than 50 percent.

This initiative will benefit rural, resource-dependent people. It took some arm-twisting, and a lot of the credit goes to our friends in Washington tribes. They negotiated with the initiative authors, insisting on improvements in the plan, and they embraced most of the key provisions I suggested. The resulting initiative language isn’t light reading, but it protects our hard-earned dollars, our working lands, and our productive waters.

Among the improvements we won:

Deep emission cuts. The initiative now is designed to achieve Washington’s emission targets. We pushed to focus carbon-revenue investments so they deliver. We depend on healthy marine resources, so we need a credible policy to protect them. This policy will enable Washington citizens to do our part, working with dozens of states and nations that are already doing theirs.

Protecting rural communities.  The initiative provides money to deal with wildfires, floods, ocean acidification, and other carbon-pollution impacts. Farmers, foresters, and estuary restoration teams can get paid to sequester carbon in soil, trees, and wetlands. And at least 35% of the investments are reserved for vulnerable, low-income communities (like Ilwaco) where the impacts and risks are greatest.

Fuel efficiency in vehicles and vessels. Some climate activists want everyone to “go electric,” but that’s still impractical in many places. We prevailed here by observing that there is still no Tesla to catch our fish, and we still need diesel to haul logs, crops and seafood. But we can burn a lot less fuel with simple efficiency retrofits that this initiative could help fund. A Hytech Power system boosts diesel efficiency, saving 20% or more. A GenTech generator saves 80% of the fuel needed to produce power for refrigeration and equipment on a working boat. A Fitch fuel catalyst boosts gas or diesel efficiency by about 2-7%.

Accountability. The initiative creates a carbon fee, not a tax. That means the money can’t be diverted to unrelated pet projects. By law, fee revenue must be used for the purpose it was raised to address. The investments are already allocated: to reduce pollution (70%), to support climate adaptation and resilience in our forests and waters (25%), and to help people cope with wildfires, floods, and other impacts of climate change (5%). A slice of the pollution-reduction money is reserved to help fossil fuel workers transition to other jobs.

Keep costs low. Investing carbon revenues in efficiency and clean energy helps keep the cost down by reducing fuel consumption, saving us money. Since their price-and-invest system started in 2009, ratepayers in the RGGI states have saved $1.56 billion on fuel they no longer need.

It isn’t every day we get a chance to tackle tough environmental problems while growing jobs and saving money. Initiative 1631 is the real deal. Let’s get this done.

Mike Cassinelli owns and operates Beacon Charters, and is the former mayor of Ilwaco, Washington.

Our Deadened, Carbon-Soaked Seas

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The New York Times, October 15th, 2015,

By Richard W. Spinrad and Ian Boyd

Ocean and coastal waters around the world are beginning to tell a disturbing story. The seas, like a sponge,

nytimes oa picare absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so much so that the chemical balance of our oceans and coastal waters is changing and a growing threat to marine ecosystems. Over the past 200 years, the world’s seas have absorbed more than 150 billion metric tons of carbon from human activities. Currently, that’s a worldwide average of 15 pounds per person a week, enough to fill a coal train long enough to encircle the equator 13 times every year.

We can’t see this massive amount of carbon dioxide that’s going into the ocean, but it dissolves in seawater as carbonic acid, changing the water’s chemistry at a rate faster than seen for millions of years. Known as ocean acidification, this process makes it difficult for shellfish, corals and other marine organisms to grow, reproduce and build their shells and skeletons.

About 10 years ago, ocean acidification nearly collapsed the annual $117 million West Coast shellfish industry, which supports more than 3,000 jobs. Ocean currents pushed acidified water into coastal areas, making it difficult for baby oysters to use their limited energy to build protective shells. In effect, the crop was nearly destroyed.

Human health, too, is a major concern. In the laboratory, many harmful algal species produce more toxins and bloom faster in acidified waters. A similar response in the wild could harm people eating contaminated shellfish and sicken, even kill, fish and marine mammals such as sea lions.

Increasing acidity is hitting our waters along with other stressors. The ocean is warming; in many places the oxygen critical to marine life is decreasing; pollution from plastics and other materials is pervasive; and in general we overexploit the resources of the ocean. Each stressor is a problem, but all of them affecting the oceans at one time is cause for great concern. For both the developing and developed world, the implications for food security, economies at all levels, and vital goods and services are immense.

This year, the first nationwide study showing the vulnerability of the $1 billion U.S. shellfish industry to ocean acidification revealed a considerable list of at-risk areas. In addition to the Pacific Northwest, these areas include Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay, Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and areas off Maine and Massachusetts. Already at risk are Alaska’s fisheries, which account for nearly 60 percent of the United States commercial fish catch and support more than 100,000 jobs.

Ocean acidification is weakening coral structures in the Caribbean and in cold-water coral reefs found in the deep waters off Scotland and Norway. In the past three decades, the number of living corals covering the Great Barrier Reef has been cut in half, reducing critical habitat for fish and the resilience of the entire reef system. Dramatic change is also apparent in the Arctic, where the frigid waters can hold so much carbon dioxide that nearby shelled creatures can dissolve in the corrosive conditions, affecting food sources for indigenous people, fish, birds and marine mammals. Clear pictures of the magnitude of changes in such remote ocean regions are sparse. To better understand these and other hotspots, more regions must be studied.

Read more here

New England Takes on Ocean Pollution State By State

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By Patrick Whittle, Associated Press, March 30, 2015

Portland, Maine — A group of state legislators in New England want to form a multi-state pact to counter increasing ocean acidity along the East Coast, a problem they believe will endanger multi-million dollar fishing industries if left unchecked.

The legislators’ effort faces numerous hurdles: They are in the early stages of fostering cooperation between many layers of government, hope to push for potentially expensive research and mitigation projects, and want to use state laws to tackle a problem scientists say is the product of global environmental trends.

But the legislators believe they can gain a bigger voice at the federal and international levels by banding together, said Mick Devin, a Maine representative who has advocated for ocean research in his home state. The states can also push for research to determine the impact that local factors such as nutrient loading and fertilizer runoff have on ocean acidification and advocate for new controls, he said.

“We don’t have a magic bullet to reverse the effects of ocean acidification and stop the world from pumping out so much carbon dioxide,” Devin said. “But there are things we can do locally.”

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration says the growing acidity of worldwide oceans is tied to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, and they attribute the growth to fossil fuel burning and land use changes. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increased from 280 parts per million to over 394 parts per million over the past 250 years, according to NOAA.

Carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, and when it mixes with seawater it reduces the availability of carbonate ions, scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said. Those ions are critical for marine life such as shellfish, coral and plankton to grow their shells.

The changing ocean chemistry can have “potentially devastating ramifications for all ocean life,” including key commercial species, according to NOAA.

The New England states are following a model set by Maine, which commissioned a panel to spend months studying scientific research about ocean acidification and its potential impacts on coastal industries. Legislators in Rhode Island and Massachusetts are working on bills to create similar panels. A similar bill was shot down in committee in the New Hampshire legislature but will likely be back in 2016, said Rep. David Borden, who sponsored the bill.

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Sea Change – Supply challenges and climate changes are forcing the U.S. seafood industry to adapt

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March 2015, By Sherry Daye Scott, QSR Magazine

California-based fast casual Slapfish, which serves a range of premium seafood items—including a Bowl of Shrimp either chilled or fried—partners with Aquarium of the Pacific to develop and maintain a sustainable sourcing plan.

California-based fast casual Slapfish, which serves a range of premium seafood items—including a Bowl of Shrimp either chilled or fried—partners with Aquarium of the Pacific to develop and maintain a sustainable sourcing plan.

Though U.S. consumption is well below other proteins today, seafood will likely be an increasingly important part of the American diet in the years to come. The country’s population is predicted to grow by 89 million between 2010 and 2050 to 401 million people. More people require more food—and land limitations mean the beef, pork, and poultry industries can only produce so much volume.

Increased domestic consumption will have a direct impact on restaurant operators who serve finfish and shellfish. On one hand, more Americans eating seafood means the potential for increased sales. On the other, it also means the potential for higher wholesale prices. And while space limitations largely don’t affect the seafood industry, it has its own challenges to contend with, especially in the U.S.

For starters, more than 90 percent of the seafood the U.S. consumes is imported from countries with their own growing demand for protein. China, the global seafood producer and processor leader, is experiencing a rise in its middle class. China used to be a net exporter of seafood, but now it’s a net importer. The same is true of other seafood-producing countries in Asia and South America.

“If I am a buyer of seafood,” says Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association (MAA), “global demand is going to make it harder for me to source.”

In addition, climate changes are forcing suppliers to reevaluate their sourcing practices and invest in new practices, like aquaculture. These challenges have all levels of seafood stakeholders looking at new ways to approach the present—and future—state of the seafood industry.

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Seafood Producer’s Guide to Reducing Emissions, v1.1

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Global Ocean Health is often asked what seafood producers can do to reduce their carbon emissions. While the emissions produced by the entire worldwide fishing industry are just a fraction of a fraction of a percent of global greenhouse gas production, if we want to stand as stewards of the ocean, it’s better to, “Walk the walk, not just talk the talk.” If seafood producers act as drivers for change, then being able to show you’ve made the effort to cut your own emissions footprint makes your stance more credible. Tackling ocean acidification involves not only driving better education, research, and policy, but also doing your bit to reduce emissions.

For the first time, accurate energy audits have been conducted on small commercial fishing vessels in Alaska, as part of a program initiated by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF) and Sea Grant. “People in Alaska are familiar with home energy audits and this is basically a similar concept but on a fishing vessel. It becomes more complicated because there are more systems and different types of activities when you’re operating in different fisheries, things like that,” says Julie Decker, Director of AFDF.

The results from the 12 boats in phase one of the study were incorporated into an Energy Analysis Tool to help fishermen understand their vessel’s energy use and what equipment and operational changes could improve usage. In phase two, AFDF plans to launch a simpler version of the survey available via smartphone or over the web and is looking for more vessels to volunteer to participate. “You can see how much your hydraulics are using, or the main engine is drawing when you’re running around from fishery to fishery or how much your DC and AC systems are drawing, whether it’s for refrigeration, or what not,” says Decker. Go to their website to learn more about their energy audits, and read the story on AFDF’s search for volunteer vessels.

The list of possible actions in our guide is by no means complete, and we’d like to hear from you to help us improve it. Have you or your business done something that successfully reduced your carbon output, or encouraged others to do so? How did it turn out as a return on investment? Many companies find they end up saving money when they institute cuts in energy or fuel usage. We’d love to hear your stories, whether concerning your car, home, vessel, or company. And if you have questions for us, feel free to email info@globaloceanhealth. Thanks for reading, and happy fishing.

A few examples:

• Reduce vessel weight – weight control reduces the amount of power necessary to achieve a certain speed

• Maintain the bottom – in order to reduce drag, keep the bottom of the boat as smooth as possibly by removing marine growth and any other unnecessary elements

• Check the exhaust – exhaust from a well-maintained diesel engine is almost invisible

• Check the prop – bent blades, dings, or eroded edges cause the boat to consume more fuel

• Plan the route and timing – taking advantage of tides, currents, and predicted winds can easily save a lot of fuel

• Use a fuel meter on boats, and adjust the throttle to find the “sweet spot” in RPM where fuel consumption drops but speed is sufficient to meet the tides and delivery schedules (see graph below). Installing a simple device like a FloScan meter can help skippers optimize fuel use and vessel speed

• If you run an auxiliary diesel genset or two on your boat, consider a high-efficiency hydraulic generator from GenTech Global- Used with a good fuel meter, this system uses a proprietary software controller to run a generator directly off the main engine (no matter the rpm of the main), replacing a diesel genset, and cutting the cost of generating onboard electrical power in half—or better. The system is particularly valuable for some working vessels that need power for pumps, refrigeration, and other onboard systems

• Consider a Fitch fuel catalyst on your vessel engine. This simple device enhances fuel combustion; reduces emissions, injector fouling, and fuel consumption

• If you ship seafood, avoid airfreight wherever possible- Ship by water if you can, by rail or road otherwise. Airfreight dominates embedded emissions in most products that are shipped by air; it dwarfs everything else

picture of fuel efficiency• Slow down – This graph (extracted from a fuel efficiency audit) shows that increasing speeds greatly increases the power necessary and therefore the amount of fuel consumed. Decreasing your speed by just 1 knots could reduce your fuel cost by as much as 50%

• Got food waste or seafood processing waste? Compost it, or make fuel out of it. If it goes to the landfill, this waste frequently will form methane in the anoxic conditions below ground. Methane has ~21 times the insulating, warming power of CO2. A well-aerated compost pile converts the carbon into new soil material, where it becomes a useful nutrient instead of forming methane. You can also set up a simple biogas digester in a barrel and use it to generate fuel. If you burn it instead of venting it, biogas can replace commercially purchased fuel, shifting some of your energy demand to a carbon-neutral status. Instructions to do this are readily available on YouTube

• Ask your employees- Let your employees know that lowering energy costs and carbon emissions is important to your company. They may have a different perspective that could save you money and make your business greener.

• Don’t run more electrical than you need. Make certain that both on-shore and on-vessel you are not creating needless electrical draw. Turn computers completely off when not in use, as well as chargers, lights, printers – whatever the device, ensuring that small details are taken care of can make a real difference to your bottom line

• Consider adding a wind-powered charger or solar panels

• Keep good records- You only know whether you’re making an improvement (or making things worse) if you have good numbers on vessel performance, both before and after changes. At every fuel-up you should record fuel replaced, operating hours (from your hour meter or engine hour logbook), and if possible, distance traveled. Other observations such as changes in coolant and exhaust temperatures, oil temperatures and pressures, and speed over the ground (as indicated by GPS or LORAN readings) should be logged

• Do the math- Fuel is only one of the costs of your operation. You can’t manage what you don’t measure! Capital expenditure (the price of new equipment) and the value of your time and that of your crew are also costs. The cost of a solution, such as buying a new engine or even a new vessel, may be greater than the savings that could be realized. As fish prices, fuel costs, regulations, and other factors change, it is important to recalculate the trade-offs

• At home, work, or on-vessel – unplug, unplug, unplug. It’s convenient to keep that cell phone charger plugged in, and no harm done, right? Wrong. It continues to draw power even when no device is charging. Many electronics draw power even when turned off  – especially cable boxes; but also DVD/BluRay players, stereos, gaming consoles, etc. And don’t walk away with your computer on – screensavers or “sleep mode” are not the same as off. All these little things add up, and besides making a difference collectively, you might even see a drop in your monthly electricity costs.

RESOURCES:
Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association Fuel Efficiency Initiative
Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program

Gulf of Maine Uniquely Susceptible to Ocean Acidification

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The Working Waterfont, May 21, 2014. By Heather Deese and Susie Arnold

A recent study led by Aleck Wang, a chemical oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has identified the Gulf of Maine as outstanding in an unfortunate way—more susceptible to pressures of ocean acidification than any other region along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico.

oysters, maine.Ocean acidification may not be a familiar term for many, but it is a critically important aspect of ocean chemistry for all of us to understand.

Ocean acidification is the changing chemistry of seawater caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2). As CO2 is absorbed into seawater, the resulting reactions decrease the availability of carbonate ions, which are critical building blocks for forming the shells and skeletons of many marine organisms. The process also increases the number of hydrogen ions, which leads to lower pH and greater acidity. Toxic chemicals from storm water, industrial pollution and other runoff that flows into the ocean also can contribute to acidification of coastal waters.

Wang and his colleagues think the Gulf of Maine’s susceptibility may be due to a few different factors. Fresh and cold water holds more CO2, and the Gulf of Maine has a lot of colder and fresher water coming in from the Labrador Current, in addition to a large proportion of fresh water from rivers. Also, the semi-enclosed shape of the Gulf tends to hold this more acidic water.

Around the same time this study came out, researchers in Alaska published disturbing results on the impacts of ocean acidification on Red King Crab and Tanner crabs. Their laboratory studies showed decreased survival and growth in low pH water in both species and 100 percent mortality of Red King Crab larvae after 95 days in acidification scenarios predicted for the end of this century.

A few months later, a scallop aquaculture operation in British Colombia appeared to become the latest commercial victim of ocean acidification with a massive die-off.

Oyster aquaculturists on the West Coast have been responding to die-offs for nearly ten years and within the last several years their onsite pH monitoring has confirmed the link to acidification. Upwelling conditions in the Pacific Northwest, which bring cold water to the surface, tend to have lower pH than surface water. The pH of this water has decreased further in recent decades due to increasing atmospheric CO2 and pollutants that run from the land into the ocean.

Rep. Mick Devin, D-Newcastle, who also is a marine biologist at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, has been concerned about the vulnerability of Maine’s marine ecosystems and fisheries-dependent communities to this unfolding threat. Last fall, he proposed LD 1602, which would establish a commission to study the effects of coastal and ocean acidification on species that are commercially harvested and grown along the Maine coast.

Thanks to support from diverse interest groups, including fishing and aquaculture industries, coastal community members, environmental groups, state agencies and others, the bill became law April 30.

Scientists still don’t know exactly how changing chemistry will impact the various life stages of most marine organisms, particularly a lot of commercially important species. For example, there is still very little known about the possible impacts on lobsters.

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What’s an Ocean Worth?

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If you like oysters, it is time to pay attention to what is happening in Oregon. And even if you don’t like them, but care about the global food web that allows oysters to grow, reproduce and thrive, what’s happening Oregon should give you pause.

Ocean acidification, a consequence of the oceans being overloaded with carbon dioxide from human fossil fuel use, has been shown by a group of researchers to hamper the development of larval oysters at a hatchery on the Oregon coast. After years of suspicion, this was the smoking gun demonstrating that acidification has real damaging effects on commercial fisheries and that they are happening not 100 years from now but as we speak.

Scientists have been long able to demonstrate in the lab and on paper why this would be so. In the absence of hard evidence from the field, however, they have been exceptionally careful to distinguish what they know from what they suspect. But now it is folly to assume that this problem is limited to one small stretch of Pacific Northwest coastline.

As an indictment of our failure to wean ourselves off oil and coal, this is more fuel for the fire. More importantly, this news will help people understand that there is a hard dollar cost to misusing the oceans. Indeed there is tremendous financial incentive to leaving at least parts of it alone.

My job is lucky enough to come with an office that looks over a lovely marine reserve in the Pacific Ocean whose boundaries recently expanded as part of a revision of California Marine Protected Areas. Of course, this expansion didn’t happen without controversy. There was a predictable hue and cry from sportfishers and commercial fishers who claimed they were being physically separated from their livelihood by a line drawn in the water.

But the facts don’t necessarily support that. Fishermen in Baja California, Mexico decided more than a decade ago to create a marine reserve and make themselves the enforcers of its boundaries. The region they protect is now one of the biologically richest places in Mexico and the subsistence fishermen in Cabo Pulmo no longer have to worry about feeding themselves. California now has a chance to replicate that experience.

Separately a group of researchers writing for the Stockholm Environment Institute put an especially fine point on the argument against exploiting the oceans unsustainably. They calculated a cost savings of more than $1 trillion per year by 2100 if a course of aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction is pursued versus our current negligence, often labeled “business-as-usual.” It is a brave attempt to derive a hard dollar figure using extremely nebulous variables. Nonetheless they make a good argument that their estimate is a conservative one.

It is frustratingly naïve to believe that the benefits of offshore oil exploration (or terrestrial, for that matter) automatically justify the costs. The same can be said for corporate farming that routes tons of fertilizer and pesticides to the oceans. And the same is true for largely uncontrolled disposal of pharmaceutical products and plastics. It is naïve because even the most educated experts do not yet even know the full costs. The oyster industry in Oregon affected by ocean acidification is worth about $278 million, a pittance in a world where a single oilrig can cost $5 billion. On the other hand, that industry is everything to the people who rely on that fishery and a source of great pleasure to the consumers it serves. As if that is not enough to make us think, here is a final thought: The acidification brought on by the past 150 years or so of fossil fuel use will require more than 1,000 years to reverse.

The ocean is large and opaque. It is an act of irresponsible faith to think that impenetrable blue mass is big enough to absorb all our sins without consequence. We need to finish the work of realistically assessing the ocean’s value, and cherish it accordingly.

Tony Haymet, PhD, is director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and formerly Chief of Marine & Atmospheric Research at CSIRO Australia.

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