News

Environmentalists hope to turn the tide against use of sea walls

1/2/12

The longtime practice of dumping huge rocks and chunks of concrete along the coastline to stop erosion is coming under fire from those who favor letting the shoreline retreat naturally. San Francisco's efforts to protect Ocean Beach is the latest battleground.

For years, San Francisco's Ocean Beach has been under assault by such powerful surf that a fierce winter storm can scour away 25 feet of bluff in just days.

The startling pace of the erosion near the San Francisco Zoo has compelled the city to spend $5 million to shore up the crumbling bluffs. The strategy has been simple: drop huge rocks and mounds of sand to protect the nearby Great Highway and the sewer pipes underneath from being destroyed by the crashing waves.

But as the enormous rocks have piled up, adding to a jumble of concrete — chunks of curb and bits and pieces of gutters — from parking lots that have tumbled onto the shore, so too have the demands that the city get rid of it all and let the coastline retreat naturally.

Now, San Francisco finds itself under fire from environmentalists, who call the rock and rubble unsightly and harmful to the beach, and the California Coastal Commission, which regulates development along the state's 1,100-mile coastline but has refused to sign off on the fortifications, some of which have sat on the shore for 15 years without its permission.

The standoff at Ocean Beach is the face of the fight in California over the proliferation of sea walls and tossed-together barriers, steps that environmentalists and others say are obliterating the state's beaches and will never stand up against the advancing ocean.

The dispute over how to respond to the receding shoreline south of the Golden Gate Bridge is similar to others playing out at wave-battered bluffs and beaches up and down the coast, where temporary sea walls have a way of becoming permanent fixtures.

On crumbling bluff tops from Pacifica in Northern California to Encinitas in San Diego County, homes are protected by large rock sea walls and sandbags that were allowed under emergency permits but have never been formally approved. In Cayucos, a beach town in San Luis Obispo County, some oceanfront homes are protected by nearly 30-year-old sea walls that received nothing more than verbal authorization. Other coastal highways in the state are protected by sea walls that were supposed to be temporary.

The 1,000 feet of rock sea walls at the center of the dispute in San Francisco were not supposed to be permanent either. Some were built with emergency permits and some without any permission from the Coastal Commission.

In July, the panel rejected San Francisco's bid for after-the-fact approval for the barriers and get permission to build several hundred feet of new, buried sea wall. The commission said the city needed to come up with a better plan, such as moving back from the shore or building a vertical structure mimicking a natural bluff.

San Francisco shot back, suing the Coastal Commission in September in an effort to void its decision.

Twice, the waves have been brutal enough to pose a threat to underground infrastructure, city officials said. The El Niño-stoked storms of December 2009 and January 2010, for instance, devoured more than 40 feet of bluff, undermined the Great Highway and sent its southbound lanes sliding into the surf.

San Francisco's reliance on crude sea walls isn't out of the ordinary in California, where property owners for decades have erected fortifications when waves threaten homes, roads and underground sewer lines.

The result: More than 10% of the state's coastline — and about one-third of Southern California — is protected with man-made barriers.

Although sea walls effectively protect property in the short term, they can intensify the effect of waves and alter surf patterns, leaving beaches stripped of sand until they narrow or even vanish altogether.

Environmental and surfing groups strongly oppose the barriers, and coastal regulators have increasingly asked property owners to find other ways to cope with the ocean.

There are some signs San Francisco is moving in that direction.

Last month the Coastal Commission granted the city an emergency permit to drop large sandbags on a length of the beach in preparation for this winter's storms, a softer approach on the city's part that even drew praise from a member of the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an opponent of sea walls.

A master plan being drafted for the beach calls for moving the most pinched stretch of the Great Highway several hundred feet inland and narrowing the road in other places.

Dead Minke whale found near Bolinas

12/30/11

The body of a young Minke whale washed ashore in the Point Reyes National Seashore this week, officials with the Marine Mammal Center said.

The dead whale turned up near Alamere Falls, north of Bolinas. Researchers from the mammal center and Academy of Sciences in San Francisco had hoped to spend Thursday taking samples from the whale, but high tides prevented access. The cause of death was not known.

The whale was believed to be a female and while an exact length was not known, it was described by onlookers as a juvenile.
"It wasn't in the best shape," said Jim Oswald, spokesman for the mammal center. "There is some question if this was an entanglement issue," he said, referring to a possible tangle with old fishing line.

Point Reyes National Seashore officials said Minke whales are seen off the coast from time to time.
"It's not like they are super rare, but then you don't see them too often either," said John Dell'Osso, chief of interpretation and resource education at the seashore.

Minke whales are considered to have a stable population throughout the world. They can grow up to 35 feet in length, weigh 10 tons and live up to 50 years old. They are often seen at the surface breaching and creating sounds including "clicks" and "boings," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.

To learn more about Minke whales, go to the American Cetacean Society's Minke whale factsheet.

Making the Case for the Value of Environmental Rules

11/4/11

In recent months, some in Congress have been waging a whole-scale war against the Environmental Protection Agency. By now it has reached comical dimensions, with three separate bills aimed at preventing a so-called EPA “dust rule” that has never even existed.

The spectacle would indeed be funny, if it wasn’t deadly serious. Republicans in Congress and in the GOP presidential debates are seeking to defund an already cash-strapped EPA under the pretense of caring about the federal deficit and are trying to hamper the agency by arguing that its rules hurt the economy.

Quite to the contrary. We have 40 years of data to show that a cleaner environment goes hand in hand with solid economic growth.

In a 2010 analysis of rules passed in the prior decade, the non-partisan Office of Management and Budget calculated benefits-to-cost ratios across various government agencies. The EPA came out on top with the highest ratios by far, with benefits from its regulations exceeding costs by an average of more than 10 to 1. If you care about well-functioning, free markets, the EPA would be the last federal agency you’d want to cut.

As any economist worth his or her professional crest will tell you, regulation solves problems that markets ignore. For example, they ensure that the costs of those who pollute show up on their own books, rather than increase the costs for others — either those left with cleanup costs or the healthcare expenses of those who live downwind or downstream.

Those who create costs pay for them — that simple idea is the logic behind the Clean Air Act and most other environmental regulations. It forces markets to reckon with the true costs of doing business, to be more efficient, and to innovate. And it does so at a great benefit to society, even boosting GDP in the long run by making us all healthier and more productive.

But is now the right time to strengthen environmental rules? No major piece of U.S. environmental legislation has been passed when the unemployment rate was above 7.5 percent. (U.S. unemployment currently stands at 9.0 percent.) Environmental protection, after all, costs money that we don’t currently have, or so the story goes. Wrong again: smart environmental regulation creates long-term policy certainty and mobilizes capital in the short term.

Leave it to the CEO of one of the largest U.S. utilities to set the record straight. Michael Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power, said during an investors’ conference call last month that EPA’s proposed tighter mercury and toxics standards would be anything but a job killer: “Once you put capital money to work, jobs are created.” Someone needs to install the scrubbers and modernize the existing energy fleet.

As Josh Bivens from the Economic Policy Institute put it in a recent congressional hearing on the same EPA toxics rules: “In short, calls to delay implementation of the rule based on vague appeals to wider economic weakness have the case entirely backward — there is no better time than now, from a job-creation perspective, to move forward with these rules.”

“Green growth” isn’t just a catch phrase. It’s the only way to reconcile our relentless pursuit for material wealth on a finite planet with an atmosphere at the boiling point. The fact is that sound environmental regulations — whether they address dirty air or an overheating planet — can create jobs and be a boost, rather than a burden, for the economy.

Klamath whale likely died from a fungal skin infection

12/29/11

”MaMa,” the gray whale that delighted throngs of motorists and tourists at the Klamath River over the summer, died of a fungal skin infection, scientists said Wednesday.

The news came amid reports that a gray whale washed ashore in Bandon, Ore., on Sunday could be her calf. Oregon state officials said that turned out to be incorrect.

Calum Stevenson, an ocean shore natural resource specialist for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department who helped bury the deceased whale on Wednesday, said it was definitely not a juvenile.

”It turned out to be an adult,” Stevenson said. “It was 39 feet long.”

A television group with the King Broadcasting Company in Portland, Ore., reported that a 20-foot-long juvenile gray whale had washed ashore and that biologists were trying to figure out if it could be the calf of “MaMa.”

Stevenson said the whale was found on the beach on Christmas day and that it had likely been deceased and out at sea for about a week. He said workers had to move the whale about one-quarter mile south of its location in order to bury it Wednesday.

”We dragged it and then dug a 15-foot-deep hole and buried it in the sand,” Stevenson said.

Humboldt State University marine biology professor Dawn Goley said a 39-foot whale is pretty much a full-grown adult and that it's highly unlikely such a large whale would be MaMa's calf.

MaMa entered the river with her calf

on June 24, swimming as far inland as the U.S. Highway 101 bridge. Three weeks after entering the river, her calf swam back to the ocean. MaMa stayed and eventually died on Aug. 16.

Before MaMa was buried on the Klamath riverbank by the Yurok Tribe, biologists did a necropsy -- an animal autopsy -- to determine the whale's cause of death. Goley said the recently received results of tissue samples from MaMa showed she had a secondary infection caused by the integrity of her skin being compromised.

”Cellularly, there were sort of breaks in the skin that could allow pathogens to get in,” Goley said.

Sarah Wilkin, stranding coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, said it was likely MaMa's skin infection that killed her. Wilkin said the whale had some sort of fungal infection.

”It is definitely from being in fresh water,” Wilkin said. “It weakened the skin and allowed for a way for the fungus to get in.”

Read Original Article

Newly Flooded Arcata Baylands Open to Humboldt Bay

12/21/11

The Arcata Baylands project recently passed a crucial milestone when its network of estuary channels was recently opened to Humboldt Bay.

The Baylands project helps establish a connectivity of habitat encompassing over 1,300 acres of local, state and federally-protected lands adjacent to the northern edge of Humboldt Bay.

Project work included enhancement of more than nine acres of seasonal wetlands located near Old Arcata Road and Union Street (by the CHP) and Old Arcata Road north of Jacoby Creek School (the newest one), restoring tidal activity to former tidal channels, and fencing and planting native trees and shrubs along Jacoby, Beith and Campbell creeks to improve habitat in and along these streams.

Community volunteers and Jacoby Creek students worked with the City to plant more than 1,300 trees and shrubs along Jacoby Creek.

The work in this area is part of a much larger conservation effort that includes upper watershed protection, and collaboration with the Jacoby Creek Land Trust, Humboldt Fish Action Council, California Conservation Corps, Humboldt State University, Redwood Science Lab and hundreds of community volunteers.

This work began over 10 years ago and involves more than 13 grant cycles funded by the Wildlife Conservation Board, California Department of Fish and Game, Natural Resource Conservation Service, USFWS Partners.