Die-off has affected the health of kelp forests and sparked years of scientific detective work
For years, it has been one of the biggest mysteries in marine biology: What is killing the starfish?Since 2013, billions of sea stars, an elegant ocean species commonly known as starfish that are a key part of the environment along the coast of California and other states, have been dying. The animals have suffered from a disease that causes parts of them to shrivel and melt away.In some places 90% of the sea stars died from the gruesome ailment, which is known as “wasting disease.” It has affected more than 20 species of sea stars found in the northeast Pacific Ocean from Alaska to the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, including Monterey Bay, the Sonoma Coast and other parts of the California shoreline, including the most susceptible sunflower sea stars.On Monday researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington said they have found the culprit: A strain of bacteria called Vibrio pectenicida.The bacteria, a distant cousin of the bacteria that can cause cholera in humans, has been known to harm coral and shellfish. In four years of research, which the scientists published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, the researchers found it causes otherwise healthy sunflower sea stars to melt and die.“It’s just heartbreaking to watch them die,” said co-author Drew Harvell, a University of Washington affiliate professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and an adjunct faculty member at Stanford University’s Oceans Department. “Sunflower sea stars are enchanting creatures and they’re quite interactive. At feeding time, they will come toward you. If you throw clams to the stars, they can catch them. It’s so gratifying to finally have an answer.”
OPINION – If there is one thing the new Trump Administration has proven it’s that our precious democracy can go through great fluctuations depending on who resides in the White House. And thanks to President Trump’s deep reach into the current makeup of the US Supreme Court, sudden shifts in our regulatory environment are creating shockwaves on a wide range of topics that have left state leaders scrambling to retain our safety nets.For example, federal policy changes are forcing California leaders to get creative to protect our shared natural resources and public health. The Supreme Court’s now-infamous Sackett v. EPA decision dramatically reduced the reach of the Clean Water Act, leaving many formerly protected waterways and wetlands much harder to protect from pollution, especially in the West.Fortunately, we have leadership in California to ensure this seismic disruption in policy is muted by a response that could expedite how state law will capture the same protections that federal clean water permits once did. SB 601 (Allen), also known as The Right to Clean Water Act, attempts to piece back together the regulatory system established under the federal Clean Water Act over the past five decades. The Clean Water Act was intended to ensure the waters of the United States are “fishable, swimmable, and drinkable” for every American. But recent decisions by the US Supreme Court and related forthcoming regulatory changes made by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency have severely narrowed the reach of this landmark law. GIS maps developed by the NRDC estimate more than 600,000 miles of California’s streams and up to 96% of our wetlands could lose federal Clean Water Act protections based on changes due to Sackett and further impending moves under Trump’s EPA.That’s where SB 601 comes in. The bill aims to restore and streamline the permitting process that ensures water pollution is well monitored and controlled in California under the authority of California’s Porter-Cologne Act. With those protections now severely weakened, everything from our coastlines to our drinking water sources lack the protections we’ve all come to expect. SB 601 allows for the retention of a regulatory framework for managing water pollution in the state by expediting the replacement of the now-absent federal regulation with state authority.SB 601 would strengthen state enforcement options and make it possible to increase penalties on polluters so that state penalties can align with the type of enforcement that was previously possible under federal law. With environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act now narrowed for many types of projects, protecting clean water under SB 601 is even more essential.Keep Reading
Zoning change adds requirements for building in city’s wetlands and gulchesOn Tuesday, the Eureka City Council adopted an ordinance aimed at protecting greenways and gulches in city limits and approved amendments to the municipal code related to the greenways. The ordinance, long in the works, establishes a zone with extra permits and standards for projects on slopes near Eureka’s wetlands and waterways.The ordinance adds a newly formed gulch greenway zone, which stretches across much of southeast Eureka. The amendments adopted Tuesday tweak the code to add standards in relation to the greenways.City goals of the ordinance are to protect water quality for streams that flow to Humboldt Bay, and keep the gulches intact for wildlife corridors and habitat.The ordinance means Eureka’s greenways would have protections in city development rules for the first time — previously during a hearing on the ordinance, Eureka’s Development Services Director Cristin Kenyon said the existing inland zoning code didn’t have any special protections for these areas that host wetland streams and riparian habitat, allowing some development without triggering city approval.“Eureka gulches and greenways already support essential ecosystem services, which will become increasingly important with climate change, especially as they are the few remaining remnants of a vast network of wetlands, streams and sloughs that used to make up this area before it was urbanized,” said Sylvia van Royen during public comment, an analyst for Humboldt Waterkeeper who spoke in support of the ordinance.Read More
One of the state’s best investigators was on the hunt for golden mussels — a dangerous new invader in California’s waters, with a reputation for destruction.Wearing a collar and a tongue-lolling grin, Allee, a Belgian Malinois, sniffed along the glittering hull of a bass boat at an inspection station in Butte County.The dog’s handler, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Warden Mark Rose, pointed at the outboard motor and the dog delicately nosed the propellers. She stretched up on her hind legs to get a good whiff of the port side before Rose led her away. She yawned. Nothing here.The dog was searching for any hint of the thimble-sized mussels hidden in the nooks and crannies of boats headed to Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, or two smaller reservoirs nearby. Her human counterparts at the Department of Water Resources’ inspection station combed the boat’s interior for standing water that could harbor larvae.Mandatory boat inspections are among the few weapons in California’s arsenal for protecting its thousands of lakes and reservoirs from the invasion. The mussels’ prolific growth and voracious appetites can upend entire ecosystems, encrust underwater surfaces, choke off water supplies and damage dams and power plants.“We have been on high alert,” said Tanya Veldhuizen, special projects section manager in the California Department of Water Resources’ environmental assessment branch, which operates the state’s water delivery system. “It’s not just on our doorstep, it’s in our house.”Keep Reading
GE Vernova, the maker of a massive wind turbine blade that broke apart off Nantucket Island and washed up on beaches for months, has agreed to a $10.5 million settlement to pay local businesses for their economic losses, officials said Friday.Fiberglass fragments of the blade began washing ashore last summer during the peak of tourist season after pieces of the wind turbine at the Vineyard Wind project began falling into the Atlantic Ocean in July 2024. Crews in boats and on beaches, along with volunteers, collected truckloads of debris. The company said the debris was nontoxic fiberglass fragments and that the pieces were one square foot or smaller.GE Vernova, which agreed to the settlement, blamed a manufacturing problem at one of its factories in Canada and said there was no indication of a design flaw. It reinspected all blades made at the factory and removed other blades made there from the Vineyard Wind location.The settlement calls for establishing a fund along with a process to evaluate claims from businesses and distribute payments, Nantucket officials said.Vineyard is involved in offshore wind development off the coast of Humboldt County. Earlier this year, the company laid off workers both in the United States and internationally. Read More
