A new law requiring all boaters to stay a minimum of 1,000 yards away from endangered southern resident orcas in Washington waters is now in effect.The law aims to protect southern resident orcas from noise caused by boat traffic, which could affect their likelihood of hunting prey such as Chinook salmon. Gov. Jay Inslee signed Senate Bill 5371 in 2023, and the law went into effect Jan. 1.The southern resident population continues to decline — the latest Center for Whale Research census tallied 73.Just last week, a new J pod calf born to mother orca Tahlequah died just days later. Tahlequah is now once again carrying the dead calf, according to researchers, as she did in 2018 in a 17-day, 1,000-mile tour that shocked the region and world.The 1,000-yard requirement had existed for commercial whale-watching boats for most of the year. But before this law, recreational boaters were required to stay only 400 yards from the orcas.Boaters who violate the expanded buffer requirement could receive a $500 fine.The state Department of Fish and Wildlife released a report in 2022 recommending the legislature increase the buffer for all boats to 1,000 yards.“The Department of Fish and Wildlife did a review of the latest science and found that the current 300 or 400 yards is not enough to minimize those impacts on their foraging,” Nora Nickum with the Seattle Aquarium, who helped draft the bill, said in 2023.The report summarized the existing research, including a study that revealed boats within 1,640 yards, “even those operating at just 1-2 knots,” affected the southern residents’ hunting success.Two-thirds of southern resident pregnancies end in loss because of a lack of food. Chinook salmon, their prey of choice, face human-made barriers, pollutants and hungry seals and sea lions.Keep Reading
A University of Washington citizen science program - which trains coastal residents to search local beaches and document dead birds - has contributed to a new study, led by federal scientists, documenting the devastating effect of warming waters on common murres in Alaska.In 2020, participants of the UW-led Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, or COASST, and other observers first identified the massive mortality event affecting common murres along the West Coast and Alaska.That study documented 62,000 carcasses, mostly in Alaska, in one year.In some places, beachings were more than 1,000 times normal rates.But the 2020 study did not estimate the total size of the die-off after the 2014-16 marine heat wave known as "the blob."In this new paper, published Dec. 12 in Science, a team led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analyzed years of colony-based surveys to estimate total mortality and later impacts.The analysis of 13 colonies surveyed between 2008 and 2022 finds that colony size in the Gulf of Alaska, east of the Alaska Peninsula, dropped by half after the marine heat wave.In colonies along the eastern Bering Sea, west of the peninsula, the decline was even steeper, at 75% loss.The study led by Heather Renner, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, estimates that 4 million Alaska common murres died in total, about half the total population.No recovery has yet been seen, the authors write."This study shows clear and surprisingly long-lasting impacts of a marine heat wave on a top marine predator species," said Julia Parrish, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences and of biology, who was a co-author on both the 2020 paper and the new study."Importantly, the effect of the heat wave wasn't via thermal stress on the birds, but rather shifts in the food web leaving murres suddenly and fatally without enough food."The "warm blob" was an unusually warm and long-lasting patch of surface water in the northeast Pacific Ocean from late 2014 through 2016, affecting weather and coastal marine ecosystems from California to Alaska.As ocean productivity decreased, it affected food supply for top predators including seabirds, marine mammals and commercially important fish.Based on the condition of the murre carcasses, authors of the 2020 study concluded that the most likely cause of the mass mortality event was starvation.Before this marine heat wave, about a quarter of the world's population, or about 8 million common murres, lived in Alaska.Authors estimate the population is now about half that size.While common murre populations have fluctuated before, the authors note the Alaska population has not recovered from this event like it did after previous, smaller die-offs.While the "warm blob" appears to have been the most intense marine heat wave yet, persistent, warm conditions are becoming more common under climate change.Keep Reading
The agency obtained research from 3M in 2003 revealing that sewage sludge, the raw material for the fertilizer, carried toxic “forever chemicals.”In early 2000, scientists at 3M, the chemicals giant, made a startling discovery: High levels of PFAS, the virtually indestructible “forever chemicals” used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and many other products were turning up in the nation’s sewage.The researchers were concerned. The data suggested that the toxic chemicals, made by 3M, were fast becoming ubiquitous in the environment. The company’s research had already linked exposure to birth defects, cancer and more.That sewage was being used as fertilizer on farmland nationwide, a practice encouraged by the Environmental Protection Agency. The presence of PFAS in the sewage meant those chemicals were being unwittingly spread on fields across the country.3M didn’t publish the research, but the company did share its findings with the E.P.A. at a 2003 meeting, according to 3M documents reviewed by the The New York Times. The research and the E.P.A.’s knowledge of it has not been previously reported.Today, the E.P.A. continues to promote sewage sludge as fertilizer and doesn’t require testing for PFAS, despite the fact that whistle-blowers, academics, state officials and the agency’s internal studies over the years have also raised contamination concerns.“These are highly complex mixtures of chemicals,” said David Lewis, a former E.P.A. microbiologist who in the late 1990s issued early warnings of the risks in spreading sludge on farmland. The soil “becomes essentially permanently contaminated,” he said in a recent interview from his home in Georgia.The concerns raised by Dr. Lewis and others went unheeded at the time.The country is starting to wake up to the consequences. PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, has been detected in sewage sludge, on land treated with sludge fertilizer across the country, and in milk and crops produced on contaminated soil. Only one state, Maine, has started to systematically test its farms for PFAS. Maine has also banned the use of sludge on its fields.Read More
The San Rafael Democrat said it was “the honor of my lifetime” to lead House Democrats on the panel, where he’s vowed to fight Trump’s rollback of President Biden’s environmental policies.Rep. Jared Huffman won an important victory Tuesday, earning support from fellow House Democrats to lead their caucus on the powerful panel where many of the most pitched environmental battles with the incoming Trump administration are expected to play out in Congress.The incoming president and his allies have made no secret of their determination to undo many of the advances on climate action and other environmental safeguards put in place under President Joe Biden.As Democrats’ newly named ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, which will remain under Republican control, Huffman is poised to use his position and extensive environmental chops to make that work difficult.“If we have a Trump administration, it’s all defense,” Huffman told The Press Democrat a week before the Nov. 5 election. “Defense of democracy and against all of the rotten policies they will try to advance.”Read More
The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, the Port of Long Beach and the State Lands Commission announced an offshore wind agreement.The nine-page agreement puts into ink a commitment to generally work together to develop offshore wind power and the associated port facilities in California. The agreement touts the need for responsible development and the positive attributes of renewable energy and reinvestments at the ports.“This is about giving people a voice, the ability for people to want to invest because they can see that it’s a project that the people believe in and that the people want. There’s no better signal to investors than that,” he said.The deal includes commitments like aligning development and permitting of the ports, community engagement and workforce development. At previous harbor district meetings, the port in Long Beach was sometimes seen closer to a competitor — a purportedly better-funded and more developed port that could compete with Humboldt Bay as a hub for offshore wind turbines.Read More
