Restore Our Damaged Oceans, Commission Urged
Seascape
SEATTLE, Washington, June 13, 2002 (ENS) - We have long thought of the
oceans' bounty as limitless, and of the oceans' capacity to absorb
waste as infinite. We were wrong. Today, the oceans are in serious
trouble," Denis Hayes told the U.S. Commission on Oceans during its
Northwest regional meeting today in Seattle.
Hayes, a founder of Earth Day who is president of the Bullitt
Foundation, summed up his testimony at a press conference saying, "In
a nutshell, we have been taking far too many good things out of the
ocean, and we have been putting too many bad things into it."
The 16 member commission, authorized by Congress and appointed by
President George W. Bush, began a nine month series of regional
hearings in January. Their report to the President and Congress is due
in the spring of 2003.
In the 36 years since the bulk of our federal oceans policies were
created, our nation, the world and our oceans have changed
drastically, said Admiral James Watkins, U.S. Navy (retired), chair of
the commission. Our coastal populations have exploded resulting in a
boom in coastal development and economies, oceans based international
trade has risen dramatically, and oceans laws and regulations have
become a bureaucratic nightmare.
Today at Seattle's Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center, Northwest marine
protection groups People For Puget Sound and the Surfrider Foundation
called on the commission to develop a policy designed to restore and
protect ocean resources.
Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People For Puget Sound testified
to the commission as part of a panel on the ocean's living resources.
In Puget Sound and across the country, we've dug our marine ecosystem
into a hole, she said. Dramatic public attention to the rescue of
'Springer,' the orphaned orca whale, is a symbolic reminder of the
many problems our degraded marine ecosystems face, but it also shows
how much Northwest people care about the quality of our marine
environments."
Spokespeople for the two groups detailed the damaged condition of the
Northwests marine ecosystems - rapidly declining orca populations,
depleted fisheries, coastal habitat loss, toxic threats to water
quality, and endangered salmon.
The groups called for water pollution prevention, monitoring, and
cleanup measures. They urged support for marine protected areas where
ecosystems can recover and thrive, as well as habitat protection
measures and funding for marine ecosystem restoration.
By the year 2025, about 75 percent of Americans will live in coastal
areas. Over 40 percent of new commercial and residential development
is in coastal areas.
Coastal tourism, with an ever increasing 180 million visitors
annually, now accounts for 85 percent of tourism related revenues.
Ninety-five percent of U.S. international trade goods is shipped on
the ocean. By 2010, U.S. foreign trade is projected to more than
double todays value, reaching $5 trillion in constant dollars, and
adding to the stress on U.S. port facilities.
Nationwide, commercial and recreational fisheries support more than
1.3 million jobs.
In the Pacific Northwest, commercial shellfish growers, tribal
fisheries, recreation and tourism related industries, food processing,
ship and boat building and repair, water transportation, and real
estate developers are affected by the quality of marine health.
Technology companies located in the Pacific Northwest have depended on
the high quality of life based on healthy coastal environments to
attract a qualified workforce from all over the world, the
conservationists point out.
The commission has scheduled a public comment period is scheduled for
Friday. Christopher Evans, executive director of the Surfrider
Foundation, intends to give his testimony to the commissioners then.
Safe, accessible enjoyment of our beaches, oceans and waves is an
integral part of living in the Northwest, Evans said today. But
ensuring the longevity of these already diminished marine
opportunities is going to take a lot more than current rules dictate.
A new approach to a managing our impact on the ocean is required and
the starting point must be restoring damaged marine ecosystems.
Mandated by Oceans Act of 2000, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy is
charged with reviewing the effects of federal ocean related laws and
programs.
The commission is required to establish findings and make
recommendations for reducing duplication, improving efficiency,
enhancing cooperation and modifying the structure of federal agencies
involved in the worlds oceans.
The commission is holding meetings in nine major coastal regions. They
visited Tampa Bay, Florida in February; New Orleans, Louisiana in
March; Los Angeles, California in April, and Hawaii in May. They will
hold hearings in Anchorage, Alaska in July; Boston, Massachusetts in
August; and Chicago, Illinois in September.
In Hawaii in May, they were told that if a fraction of the federal
money directed to the space program was spent on ocean technologies,
new sources of energy and pharmaceuticals would result.
Dr. John Wiltshire, associate director of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's Undersea Research Laboratory at the
University of Hawaii, said the funds are not flowing because "the
space community has captured the public interest in a way that the
oceans community has not."
Last year, Dr. Wiltshire's laboratory discovered a dozen new species
of deep sea organisms and new deep sea interactions in the Northwest
Hawaiian islands and on Loihi Seamount, the next emerging Hawaiian
island, which the lab monitors. "Some of these may have the potential
for new and potent drugs. All of this is done with 20 year old
technology," he said.
The ocean community needs new exploration systems to exploit these
opportunities to develop wave power, offshore wind power, tidal and
current generating capacity. "In addition, there are many potential
new marine technologies for food, mineral and fresh water production,"
he said.
In San Pedro, California in April, Michael Jasny, who is a marine
mammal specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the
commission that new regulatory structures and enforcement mechanisms
are needed to reduce pervasive impacts on marine mammals.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act may protect against whaling and
hunting, and on reducing the incidental take of marine mammals by
fisheries through by-catch and entanglements, but it does not, Jasny
pointed out, protect marine mammals from biocontamination from organic
chemicals, heavy metals, and other toxicants; acoustic pollution
generated by shipping, military operations, oil and gas production,
and other activities; and exhaustion or redistribution of prey species
due to climate change, ozone depletion, and overfishing."
At the commission's Gulf Regional Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana in
March, Steve Kolian of Eco Rigs submitted a paper asking for a
regulatory framework to redeploy retired oil and gas platforms into
sustainable fishery platforms. "At least 100 of them will be removed
every year for the next 40 years and only eight percent are currently
redeployed as artificial reefs," he said, and offered video footage of
endangered sea turtles, corals and fish populations residing on
platforms.
In St. Petersburg, Florida in February, hydroecologist and third
generation Floridian Dr. Sydney Bacchus submitted written comments
warning of the destruction caused to the region's ocean and coastal
resources by human alterations of ground water.
"In Florida, and parts of the Caribbean," he wrote, "these alterations
take the form of groundwater mining and aquifer injection of wastes,
including minimally treated sewage effluent. The groundwater mining
and aquifer injection of wastes are of epic proportion - hundreds of
millions of gallons daily - occurring at single locations, with
effluent injections concentrated along Florida's fragile coastline."
At the commission's opening meeting in Charleston, South Carolina,
Dennis Allen, president of the Estuarine Research Federation and a
marine science professor at the University of South Carolina, raised a
point confirmed by many others at later hearings - the need for a
broad or ecosystem based approach to setting policy for coastal
systems.
"Many of the fundamental environmental problems associated with
coastal systems, including nutrient overenrichment, eutrophication,
reductions in freshwater inflow, and pollution by contaminants, occur
over large spatial scales," he said. "All too often, coastal
watersheds, rivers, estuaries, and the ocean are treated as discrete
units rather than as inter-related elements along a continuum that
extends from the land to the sea. Our fisheries and other living
resources rely on suitable conditions throughout the continuum."
The U.S. Commission on Oceans is online at:
http://www.oceancommission.gov
Commissioner biographies are online at:
http://www.oceancommission.gov/commission/commissionbios.html
The Pacific Northwest marine protectionists' ocean restoration policy
is available at: http://www.pugetsound.org/oceanpolicy/
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights Reserved.
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