Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 1, 2008
3. Watersheds –
State panel floats 'litter tax' to curb debris along coast
Salmon-tracking network challenges conventional wisdom
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State panel floats 'litter tax' to curb debris along coast
By Michael Gardner and Mike Lee
The panel, which advises the governor and lawmakers, also recommended imposing upfront charges on other packaging commonly left on beaches, such as snack-food bags and candy wrappers. This so-called litter tax also would extend to cigarettes because so many butts are extinguished in the sand.
“We're putting it out and teeing up the public conversation,” said Mike Chrisman, a member of the council and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Cabinet secretary on natural resource issues.
The proposals must be enacted by the Legislature, which has balked at tax increases and defeated a bill last year to tack a charge on plastic bags at the checkout counter.
There's also stiff resistance from powerful business interests warning of higher costs during the economic downturn. Makers of plastics said they are taking voluntary steps to cut waste.
Chrisman's voice is significant because he has a reputation for advocating cautious, business-friendly approaches. But he is convinced that stronger action is imperative to gradually reduce the use of plastic bags and polystyrene take-out containers.
“We have to deal with it,” he said.
Ocean litter threatens rare sea turtles, sea birds, sea otters and hundreds of other marine species. Many animals mistake litter for food and ingest the potentially deadly debris. Eighty percent of ocean litter comes from land sources, the ocean council said.
“Marine debris is plaguing our oceans,” said Kirsten James, water quality director for Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based advocacy group. “In
Trash gets trapped in places where ocean currents and winds converge. One of the most prominent problems is in the North Pacific gyre, where a “trash island” weighing roughly 3.5 million tons floats about 1,000 miles off
James said the ocean council's recommendations provide momentum for new state laws. The council, established by the California Ocean Protections Act of 2004, coordinates the activities of ocean-related state agencies and proposes legislative changes.
Lawmakers are expected to introduce measures for reducing ocean litter in coming weeks, but those bills may become tangled in the state's budget morass.
Meanwhile, conservationists are pushing local initiatives.
On Wednesday, the natural resources committee of the San Diego City Council will review a draft ordinance to prohibit major grocery stores and pharmacy chains from providing plastic carry-out bags. Bans or fees on bags have been adopted from
The measure before the natural resources committee is backed by the environmental group San Diego Coastkeeper, which organizes volunteers to comb beaches for trash.
“The No. 1 item that we see is plastic – bags, bottle caps . . . lids, straws and a lot of Styrofoam,” said Danielle Miller, manager of the marine debris campaign for Coastkeeper.
Miller hopes the City Council will approve the ban to start in July.
“I feel like if
The makers of plastic bags and polystyrene containers criticize the local and state campaigns, saying their products are unfairly targeted while many other forms of litter are ignored. Bans or taxes could cost jobs and pinch shoppers during grim economic times, they said.
“We're being singled out,” said Tim Shestek, director of state affairs for the American Chemistry Council. “The proposals are so onerous that we're spending time fighting them and not spending time on coming up with ideas that really make sense for the environment and the economy.”
Jonathan Choi, who represents Dart Container Corp., cited efforts to recycle take-out cups and trays without heavy-handed approaches. The city of
Dart, which employs about 740 workers in Corona and Lodi, supplies cities with free machines that crush the lightweight containers for cheaper transport to recyclers, who convert the waste into picture frames and building materials.
Choi said his company is open to reviewing other litter-reduction proposals, including small fees or collection programs, as long they don't hurt the plastics industry or its clients, such as mom-and-pop restaurants that rely on take-out orders.
Chrisman, the Schwarzenegger Cabinet member, said some of the ocean council's recommendations should be phased in so the plastics industry can adapt.
“The question is how do we transition to the next generation of packaging materials that are not as damaging to the environment,” he said. “That's what the conversation is about.”
The ocean council's proposals are not unprecedented.
Upfront fees for plastic bags are modeled after a successful program that charges for bottles and cans to encourage recycling and conservation. State law requires large retailers to accept plastic bags for recycling.
“Charging people to carry out a plastic bag will make them think twice,” said Pauline Martinson, executive director of the nonprofit I Love a Clean San Diego.
Martinson said the public would be more supportive of a fee than a ban.
“If it's not cost-prohibitive, the
Additionally, bags and take-out containers cost the state and local governments millions each year in clean-up work. Controlling litter at beaches is particularly problematic for tourist-dependent communities in
A report on the 2007 statewide coastal cleanup program said volunteers collected 64,355 pounds of plastic bags, or 13.5 percent of the litter found along or near beaches.
The ocean council also is taking aim at polystyrene containers, commonly used for take-out food and packing electronics. Californians use 165,000 tons of the material per year for take-out meals or drinks, “with no meaningful recycling,” the council said.
The recommendation is to ban polystyrene containers used to take food out for picnics, office lunches or dinners at home.
Other types of litter are targeted for fees, including cigarettes, junk-food wrappers, straws and take-out containers not made from polystyrene.
Such steps would greatly expand the movement toward requiring producers to accept more responsibility for waste.
“It's an idea whose time has come,” Chrisman said. #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081201/news_1n1oceans.html
Salmon-tracking network challenges conventional wisdom
Sacramento
By LES BLUMENTHAL
McClatchy Newspapers
Their remarkable three-month, 1,500-mile journey of survival to the Gulf of Alaska was tracked by an underwater acoustic listening network that has wired the West Coast from just north of
A salmon's life in the ocean has always been one of nature's best kept mysteries.
However, scientists using the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking network have made some startling discoveries that challenge long-held beliefs about salmon survival and raise new cautions about how global warming may affect salmon and other marine species.
"I hope it will be a revolution in the way we do marine science," said David Welch, the president of Kintama Research Corp. in
The transmitters, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated, smaller and cheaper, have been implanted in a dozen species, including coho, sockeye and chinook salmon, along with green sturgeon, white sturgeon, sixgill shark, salmon shark, market squid, cutthroat trout, steelhead, dolly varden and black rockfish. Eventually, scientists think they'll be able to implant the transmitters in marine animals as big as whales and as small as herring.
Signals from the transmitters are picked up by nearly 300 receivers on the ocean floor as the fish swim by. The information is eventually retrieved from the listening devices by scientists who routinely visit the eight lines of acoustic receivers by ship. The receivers don't transmit the data by satellite.
Listening lines are off
Two major Northwest rivers, the
"This is a revolution in being able to study marine animals that travel vast distances," said Fred Goetz, a fish biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who's been studying
Goetz said an effort is under way to permanently establish an acoustic listening line in Puget Sound near
Scientists are convinced the marine environment is changing because of global warming. However, no one yet understands how the changes are linked to such weather patterns as El Nino, La Nina and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a shift in the weather that occurs every 20 to 30 years in the northern oceans.
Tracking marine life could help document these shifts and the effects they are having on the oceans.
"Now we are getting virtually real-time information," said Jim Bolger, the executive director of the tracking network. "We are answering questions we couldn't before."
Among the findings:
-Previously, it was thought that the highest mortality rates for salmon were in the freshwater streams and rivers as they headed to the saltwater ocean. But using the acoustic tracking system, researchers found that within the first few weeks of entering the ocean, 40 percent of the salmon died. Meanwhile, billions of dollars have been spent to increase in-river survival rates of salmon through projects such as habitat improvements in spawning areas and the modification of hydroelectric dams.
-A study by Welch, which has touched off a major scientific debate, found dams may have less of an impact on salmon survival rates than previously thought. The study found juvenile salmon from the Columbia River, with its string of massive hydroelectric dams, survived their downstream migration equally or better than those migrating downstream in the dam-free
-It's long been thought green sturgeon from the
"We are taking a black box which is the ocean and trying to shed some light on it," said Jonathan Thar, the network's research coordinator.
The tracking system has also helped researchers confirm the incredible speeds at which juvenile salmon can travel, said Cedar Chittenden, a doctoral student at the
Juvenile coho salmon, about 5 inches in length, can travel almost 20 miles a day in the ocean and nearly 40 miles in rivers, or about 200,000 body lengths a day, she said. An average-sized person swimming at the same rate would cover nearly 220 miles a day in the ocean and almost 435 miles in a river, Chittenden said.
Using the tracking system, Chittenden said, researchers also found that wild juvenile salmon take less time to enter the ocean than hatchery fish, perhaps because the hatchery fish tend to be heavier and slower. And wild fish adapt faster to saltwater than hatchery ones.
The tracking system may also help scientists determine whether salmon runs, because of rising ocean temperatures, may be relocating further north. Chittenden said there is some evidence thermal blocks, or areas of warm water, have hindered salmon as they seek to return to their home rivers to spawn, and instead the fish may head to different rivers.
"We can actually track individual fish," she said. "We couldn't do these things without POST," the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking network.
The network, which has cost about $7 million, is run by a nonprofit organization hosted by the Vancouver Aquarium and funded by various foundations. It is also one of 14 field projects under the Census for Marine Life, a group of scientists and researchers from more than 60 universities and colleges around the world who are spending 10 years cataloging every marine species.
Eventually, the Census for Marine Life hopes to establish a global Ocean Tracking Network, or OTN, that would cover 14 areas in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic oceans, along with the
Efforts to establish such networks are already under way in eastern
http://www.sacbee.com/702/story/1437265.html
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