CFOOD: WHAT IS THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF OUR FOOD?

January 20, 2016—The following is a commentary from Dr. Ray Hilborn, Professor of Aquatic and Fishery Science at the University of Washington, concerning the recently published article, “Eating Right Can Save the World”  by Tim Zimmerman in Outside Magazine.

“The endless cascade of nutritional information—about localism, vegetarianism, veganism, organic food, the environmental impact of eating meat, poultry, or fish, and more—makes the simple goal of a healthy, sustainable diet seem hopelessly complex. We talked to scientists, chefs, and farmers to get the ultimate rundown on how you should fuel up.”

Author Tim Zimmerman’s discussion of this topic focuses primarily on carbon footprint of different foods. When it comes to seafood, he cites Dalhousie University professor, Peter Tyedmers, who argues, “when it comes to nitrogen and phosphorous, greenhouse gases, and other global-scale phenomena, absolutely most seafood is much better than most terrestrial animal production.”

But seafood sustainability certifications like Monterray Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch do not calculate emissions into their ratings. For example, some pot-caught species that are considered a “Best Choice” or “Good Alternative” by Seafood Watch standards might actually have greater greenhouse gas emissions than beef because of the exhaustive extraction practicalities of this gear type.

Zimmerman recommends mussels, clams, forage fish that “aren’t caught by a trawler,” and Pollock from the, “reasonably managed” Alaskan Pollock fishery as the best choices for consumers looking to maximize Seafood Watch ratings and minimize carbon footprint. Aquaculture is more complicated because the more “sustainable” choices are typically from closed re-circulating systems that require more energy and water use than open net pens.

Comment by Ray Hilborn, University of Washington, @hilbornr

At last – a great article on the environmental impacts of our food choices. The material on fish is particularly good and relies on the acknowledged world expert Peter Tyedmers. In the past decade, environmental impacts of capture fisheries has been put under the microscope. A tour through high end grocery stores will show you labels about what fish are “sustainable,” but step over to the meat or vegetable counter and there is no sustainability labeling, just information such as “organic” or “GMO free.” The implication is that meat and vegetables are obviously sustainable, as farming has been practiced for thousands of years.

In his book, The Perfect Protein, Andy Sharpless, the CEO of the environmental non-profit, OCEANA points out that fish are caught without fertilizer, pesticides, antibiotics or freshwater. Combine that with the generally low carbon footprint of most fisheries compared to the protein alternatives, and you have “The Perfect Protein.”

Another issue that has had great publicity in fisheries is biodiversity impacts, often through by-catch of non-target species. Species like sharks, turtles, marine birds and mammals are caught in some kinds of fishing gear. While such by-catch can often be largely eliminated by good fishing practices, there is no denying that fishing impacts biodiversity. But again we see agriculture and livestock getting an almost clean bill of health. This ignores the fact that agriculture transforms land dramatically: in most farmed areas the native large animals are essentially gone. While it is hard to compare the oceans directly, they have seen far less loss of biodiversity than farmed areas.

Zimmerman and Outside Magazine provide an excellent and much needed perspective on most of these issues; lets hope that it is the start of a rational conversation on the environmental impacts of what we eat.

Ray Hilborn is a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Find him on twitter here:@hilbornr

Read the commentary at CFOOD

Read the original post: http://www.savingseafood.org/

2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say

Clockwise from top left: A family sleeping on the roof of a house in New Delhi last May; people navigating a flooded street in a canoe in Arnold, Mo., on Dec. 31; tourists in a haze-shrouded Singapore last September; the drought-stricken Molatedi Dam in South Africa in November. Credit Clockwise from top left; Tsering Topgyal/Associated Press, Jeff Roberson/Associated Press, Edgar Su/Reuters, Stuart Graham/Associated Press

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

In the contiguous United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed.

Scientists started predicting a global temperature record months ago, in part because an El Niño weather pattern, one of the largest in a century, is releasing an immense amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. But the bulk of the record-setting heat, they say, is a consequence of the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

“The whole system is warming up, relentlessly,” said Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

It will take a few more years to know for certain, but the back-to-back records of 2014 and 2015 may have put the world back onto a trajectory of rapid global warming, after a period of relatively slow warming dating to the last powerful El Niño, in 1998.

Politicians attempting to claim that greenhouse gases are not a problem seized on that slow period to argue that “global warming stopped in 1998,” with these claims and similar statements reappearing recently on the Republican presidential campaign trail.

Statistical analysis suggested all along that the claims were false, and that the slowdown was, at most, a minor blip in an inexorable trend, perhaps caused by a temporary increase in the absorption of heat by the Pacific Ocean.

“Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate?” said Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan. “The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.”

The Hottest Year on Record

Globally, 2015 was the warmest year in recorded history.

Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, calculated that if the global climate were not warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be remote, about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years. Given the reality that the planet is warming, the odds become far higher, about one chance in 10, according to Dr. Mann’s calculations.

Two American government agencies — NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — compile separate analyses of the global temperature, based upon thousands of measurements from weather stations, ships and ocean buoys scattered around the world. Meteorological agencies in Britain and Japan do so, as well. The agencies follow slightly different methods to cope with problems in the data, but obtain similar results.

The American agencies released figures on Wednesday showing that 2015 was the warmest year in a global record that began, in their data, in 1880. British scientists released figures showing 2015 as the warmest in a record dating to 1850. The Japan Meteorological Agency had already released preliminary results showing 2015 as the warmest year in a record beginning in 1891.

On Jan. 7, NOAA reported that 2015 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2012, for the lower 48 United States. That land mass covers less than 2 percent of the surface of the Earth, so it is not unusual to have a slight divergence between United States temperatures and those of the planet as a whole.

The end of the year was especially remarkable in the United States, with virtually every state east of the Mississippi River having a record warm December, often accompanied by heavy rains.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and an intensification of rainstorms was one of the fundamental predictions made by climate scientists decades ago as a consequence of human emissions. That prediction has come to pass, with the rains growing more intense across every region of the United States, but especially so in the East.

The term global warming is generally taken to refer to the temperature trend at the surface of the planet, and those are the figures reported by the agencies on Wednesday.

Some additional measurements, of shorter duration, are available for the ocean depths and the atmosphere above the surface, both generally showing an inexorable long-term warming trend.

Most satellite measurements of the lower and middle layers of the atmosphere show 2015 to have been the third- or fourth-warmest year in a 37-year record, and scientists said it was slightly surprising that the huge El Niño had not produced a greater warming there. They added that this could yet happen in 2016.

When temperatures are averaged at a global scale, the differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree. In the NOAA data set, 2015 was 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2014, the largest jump ever over a previous record. NASA calculated a slightly smaller figure, but still described it as an unusual one-year increase.

The intense warmth of 2015 contributed to a heat wave in India last spring that turns out to have been the second-worst in that country’s history, killing an estimated 2,500 people. The long-term global warming trend has exacted a severe toll from extreme heat, with eight of the world’s 10 deadliest heat waves occurring since 1997.

Only rough estimates of heat deaths are available, but according to figures from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, in Brussels, the toll over the past two decades is approaching 140,000 people, with most of those deaths occurring during a European heat wave in 2003 and a Russian heat wave in 2010.

The strong El Niño has continued into 2016, raising the possibility that this year will, yet again, set a global temperature record. The El Niño pattern is also disturbing the circulation of the atmosphere, contributing to worldwide weather extremes that include a drought in southern Africa, threatening the food supply of millions.

Read the original post: http://www.nytimes.com/

El Niño is here, so where’s SoCal’s non-stop rain?

So far in terms of rainfall, this winter’s El Niño weather pattern has been more of a gecko than a Godzilla.

Southern California, which usually sees the bulk of the state’s El Niño-related storms, only experienced a few wet days in the first half of January. Overall, precipitation in Los Angeles and the rest of California is several inches behind where it was at this time during the last big El Niño in 1998.

(Recent rainfall totals for California as of January 15th (in black) compared with rainfall from the five strongest El Niño systems on record. Image: California-Nevada Climate Applications Program / NOAA.)

Still, scientists are telling us this El Niño is one of the strongest ever recorded. So what gives?

Well, first off, it’s still early in the game, said Anthony Barnston, Chief Forecaster for Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

“California typically shows its greatest responses to El Niño during January-March, rather than the earlier part of the winter,” he noted.

In short, there is still plenty of time for a good soaking.

That’s welcome news since much of the state is still below where it typically would be for an average water year.

Nate Mantua with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there may be another factor worth considering.

Sure, this El Niño is strong when it comes to some key indicators like record warm surface temperatures in a swath of the Pacific associated with the weather pattern.

But Mantua noted that it is weaker in other climate signals, like the strength of the trade winds or the temperature of the ocean below the surface.

“It has a lot of the same characteristics as big El Niños of the past, but it also has some differences that may end up leading to different outcomes for what it does to weather in California and along the whole pacific coast,” he explained.

For example, he says the Pacific Northwest is getting a lot of heavy rain this winter, which isn’t typical for strong El Niño years.

So, expect surprises from this climate pattern.

(This map shows the amount of rain in CA for this water year which starts on October 1st and ends on September 30th. Yellow and orange areas are below average precipitation and blues and purples are above average. Image via NOAA.)

Recent observations of the El Niño signal have noted that it seems to be weakening, as is often the case by this point in the winter.

That shouldn’t stop it from sending storms our way through the spring, though, Mantua said.

By summer, it’s likely the El Niño pattern will have completely disappeared, and scientists will start watching the signals again to see if it will return or if the world will see a neutral or La Niña pattern instead.

Read the original post: http://www.scpr.org/

Baby Fish May Get Lost in Silent Oceans as CO2 Rises

Future oceans will be much quieter places, making it harder for young marine animals that navigate using sound to find their way back home, new research has found.

Under acidification levels predicted for the end of the century, fish larvae will cease to respond to the auditory cues that present-day species use to orient themselves, scientists reported in the journal Biology Letters.

While ocean acidification is known to affect a wide range of marine organisms and processes such as smell, until now its effect on marine soundscapes and impact on the larvae of marine animals was unknown.

The ocean is filled with sounds that carry information about location and habitat quality, study co-author Sir Ivan Nagelkerken said.

“Along with chemical and other cues, because of sound’s ability to travel long distances underwater, it is used as a navigational beacon by marine animals, particularly larvae,” Dr Nagelkerken said.

“More than 95 per cent of marine animals have a dispersive larval stage, where larvae drift with the currents for anywhere from a few days to a year, before returning to settle in their adult habitat near where they were spawned.”

To understand how acidification affects these marine animals, the team led by PhD student Tullio Rossi travelled to a naturally occurring carbon dioxide vent near White Island in New Zealand, where ocean acidification levels are similar to those predicted for the end of the century under business-as-usual conditions.

“This natural laboratory gave us a peek into the future,” Dr Nagelkerken said.

“We recorded the soundscape around the vent, then compared the loudness and composition of sounds with control sites a few hundred metres away.”

The area around the vent was much quieter, the team found.

“There could be a number of explanations for the decrease in sound,” Dr Nagelkerken said.

“For example, as acidification increases, kelp forests may be replaced by turf algae. This results in changing abundance of the animals that produce sounds, such as snapping shrimp whose ubiquitous crackle forms the backdrop to present-day ocean soundscapes.”

To understand how acidification affects marine animals’ auditory preferences, the researchers studied the impact of increased carbon dioxide levels on settlement-stage mulloway (Argyrosomus japonicas), a common temperate fish species.

They found that the 25- to 28-day-old larvae that had been exposed to higher carbon dioxide concentrations deliberately avoided present-day acoustic habitat cues recorded near White Island, while fish reared in present-day carbon dioxide levels responded positively.

Neither group of fish responded to the “future” soundscape recorded around the vent, despite the hearing of the normal fish being unimpaired.

Ocean acidification is known to increase the size of otoliths — fish ear bones — used for hearing, orientation and balance.

It has been hypothesised that bigger ear bones would increase the hearing range of larval fish, but the hearing in fish reared in future carbon dioxide levels was negatively impacted by ocean acidification, even though they had larger ear bones.

Dr Nagelkerken said the findings suggested that in the future, affected species would have to use other, potentially less reliable cues to help them navigate, even though other senses such as vision and smell are also negatively impacted by ocean acidification.

“Finding a home is the key to population sustainability,” Dr Nagelkerken said.

“Those that rely on sound as an orientation cue will be heavily impacted, limiting their ability to survive and contribute to the population.”

Article first appeared on ABC Science.

Read the Discovery post: http://news.discovery.com/

La Jolla considering new way to deal with sea lions

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) – La Jolla may have finally found a solution for dealing with the strong stench coming from the poop of sea lions.

On Tuesday night, the town council heard a new idea for keeping sea lions off the bluffs at La Jolla Cove.

Since ssea lion make their way up to the guardrail each night, the city hired a company to spray germ killing foam to get rid of the poop, but critics say it only lasts a week and the odor is back.

There are strict coastal regulations on how to take care of the sea lions and now there could be a solution.

The high surf has the sea lions on higher ground in the La Jolla Cove and residents and visitors can smell their poop is giving off strong stench.

“The smell here in La Jolla makes it very difficult for anyone of us who live here to put up with it and it makes it very difficult for tourists to come here. It hurts the business, it hurts the community and it hurts the individuals,” said La Jolla resident Barry Jadgoda.

After months of exploring options of what is legal, humane and efficient, the La Jolla Town Council Coastal Committee gave a first look at the marine mammal safety barriers.

“These are large cylinders that are inflatable and when the sea lions try to go over them they spin so the sea lions can’t get any leverage on them,” said La Jolla Town Council President Steve Haskins.

The safety barriers have been supported by the national oceanic atmospheric administration.

“When the sea lions attempt to pass over the spin, no matter how much they try to get traction, they can’t,” said Haskins.

The rollers will be placed on the east and west end of the cove to control where the sea lions do their business.

“I like this idea. I’m actually pleasantly surprised to have come down here to see it,” said Claude-Anthony Marengo, La Jolla Merchants Association President.

Still, how and who should scoop the poop has been raising a stink for several years.

“How do you interface with the city? How do you get them off their ass and how are we going to move forward on this because obviously we appreciate your leadership,” said Barry Jagoda.

The La Jolla Town Council is expected to approve the barrier plan on Thursday, share it with organizations, and hope the City Council will approve without going through the coastal commission approval.

Council President Lightner supports the plan, while a judge has rejected a complaint that it’s the city’s responsibility to scoop the poop, which is on appeal.

Read the original post: http://www.cbs8.com/

Dual Impact of Ocean Acidification and Low-Oxygen on West Coast Foretells Future for World Oceans

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2016 Seafoodnews.com

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [UW Today] By Michelle Ma – January 12, 2016

The Pacific Ocean along the West Coast serves as a model for how other areas of the ocean could respond in coming decades as the climate warms and emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide increases. This region — the coastal ocean stretching from British Columbia to Mexico — provides an early warning signal of what to expect as ocean acidification continues and as low-oxygen zones expand.

Now, a panel of scientists from California, Oregon and Washington has examined the dual impacts of ocean acidification and low-oxygen conditions, or hypoxia, on the physiology of fish and invertebrates. The study, published in the January edition of the journal BioScience, takes an in-depth look at how the effects of these stressors can impact organisms such as shellfish and their larvae, as well as organisms that have received less attention so far, including commercially valuable fish and squid.

The results show that ocean acidification and hypoxia combine with other factors, such as rising ocean temperatures, to create serious challenges for marine life. These multiple-stressor effects will likely only increase as ocean conditions worldwide begin resembling those off the West Coast, which naturally expose marine life to stronger low-oxygen and acidification stressors than most other regions of the seas.

“Our research recognizes that these climate change stressors will co-occur, essentially piling on top of one another,” said co-author Terrie Klinger, professor and director of the University of Washington’s School of Marine and Environmental Affairs.

“We know that along the West Coast temperature and acidity are increasing, and at the same time, hypoxia is spreading. Many organisms will be challenged to tolerate these simultaneous stressors, even though they might be able to tolerate individual stressors when they occur on their own.”

Oceans around the world are increasing in acidity as they absorb about a quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year. This changes the chemistry of the seawater and causes physiological stress to organisms, especially those with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, such as oysters, mussels and corals.

Hypoxia, on the other hand, is a condition in which ocean waters have very low oxygen levels. At the extreme, hypoxia can result in “dead zones” where mass die-offs of fish and shellfish occur. The waters along the West Coast sometimes experience both ocean acidification and hypoxia simultaneously.

“Along this coast, we have relatively intensified conditions of ocean acidification compared with other places. And at the same time we have hypoxic events that can further stress marine organisms,” Klinger said. “Conditions observed along our coast now are forecast for the global ocean decades in the future. Along the West Coast, it’s as if the future is here now.”

Klinger is co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center based at the UW and served on the West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel, which was convened two years ago to promote coast-wide collaboration and cooperation on science and policy related to these issues.

For this paper, the authors examined dozens of scientific publications that reported physiological responses among marine animals exposed to lower oxygen levels, elevated acidity and other stressors. The studies revealed how physiological changes in marine organisms can lead to changes in animal behavior, biogeography and ecosystem structure, all of which can contribute to broader-scale effects on the marine environment.

The tri-state panel has completed this phase of its work and will wrap things up in the coming months. Among the products already published or planned are a number of scientific publications — including this synthesis piece — as well as resources for policymakers and the general public describing ocean research priorities, monitoring needs and management strategies to sustain marine ecosystems in the face of ocean acidification and hypoxia.

The group’s other papers and findings related to ocean acidification and hypoxia will soon be available on its website.

Co-authors of this paper include George Somero, Jody Beers and Steve Litvin at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station; Francis Chan of Oregon State University; and Tessa Hill of the University of California, Davis.

The research was funded by the California Ocean Protection Council, the California Ocean Science Trust, the Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State University and the National Science Foundation.

Subscribe to SEAFOODNEWS.COM Read the original post: http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1005090/Dual-Impact-of-Ocean-Acidification-and-Low-Oxygen-on-West-Coast-Foretells-Future-for-World-Oceans

A steady conveyor belt of El Niño storms is what has officials concerned

Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times  San Dimas Public Works Supervisor Terry Gregory cleears a clogged drain from North San Dimas Canyon Road as heavy rains cause clogged drains and mud flows in San Dimas, Glendora and Azusa.

To understand the power and potential dangers of El Niño, look at satellite images of the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.

At least four storms were brewing — the farthest still getting going in Asia — and all aimed at California.

It’s this pattern, a series of back-to-back-to-back storms seemingly arriving on a conveyor belt, that concerns officials bracing for potential damage from the predicted winter of heavy rains.

“El Niño storms: it’s steady, not spectacular. But it’s relentless,” said Bill Patzert, climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. “It’s not 10 inches in 24 hours and nothing afterward. It’s a 1-inch storm, a 2-inch storm, followed by a 1-inch storm, followed by a 2-inch storm.

“As this goes on for many weeks, then you start to soak the hillsides — then you get more instability. And then, instead of having 6 inches of mud running down your street or off the hillside behind your house, then you can get serious mudflows — 2 to 3 feet in height.”

This week was the first that the weather pattern associated with El Niño has formed over California this season. A first system Monday didn’t amount to much after it ran into dry air out of the mountains, but three more storms are targeting California on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Patzert said.

“The next systems seem primed to deliver at least a couple good punches Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by plenty of showers Thursday,” the National Weather Service in Oxnard said in its forecast.

The riskiest areas for this week are areas recently burned by wildfires, such as the Camarillo Springs community in Ventura County, Silverado Canyon in Orange County, and the communities near the Christmas weekend brush fire that burned north of Ventura. Officials are concerned about flash floods in those areas, and a voluntary evacuation advisory is planned for Silverado Canyon, which is recovering from a fire in 2014.

But the worst problems will probably come later in the winter. “This is the first major line of storms. The ground isn’t quite saturated yet,” said meteorologist James Thomas of the National Weather Service in San Diego.

It’s later in the winter that the risk heightens; in Southern California, that’s particularly in neighborhoods and roads below arroyos and canyons and along the beach.

“That’s called, ‘The price you pay with the view,'” Patzert said.

Still, Patzert said, Southern California isn’t expected to encounter the same kind of widespread regional flooding that has hit the South in recent weeks. Although such devastating flooding occurred earlier in the 20th century, the transformation of the Los Angeles, San Gabriel and Santa Ana rivers into concrete-lined flood control channels has protected the region for generations.

Besides this El Niño, there are only two similarly strong El Niños in the record books over the last half-century.

The 1982-83 El Niño caused more than $500 million in property damage in California, which is equivalent to more than $1 billion in today’s dollars, and unleashed flooding and sent mud and rock raining over canyon and coastal roads, destroying the Seal Beach Pier and severely damaging the Santa Monica Pier.

The El Niño of 1997-98 also caused more than $500 million in damage, and 17 people died during those storms. In February 1998, 13.68 inches of rain poured down on Los Angeles — almost a year’s worth of precipitation. That month, two California Highway Patrol officers died in San Luis Obispo County after their car fell into a massive sinkhole as a river eroded a highway; two Pomona College students were killed when a tree slammed into their SUV; and mud pummeled homes in Laguna Beach, crushing homes and killing two men.

The arrival of the El Niño-influenced weather pattern in California comes just as expected, when El Niño’s influence on California weather peaks in January, February and March. A subtropical jet stream that’s normally not well-defined has emerged as a strong force over California. And “when the jet stream is stronger and closer, the storms can maintain their strength or get stronger as they approach California,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at Stanford University, said in an interview.

The back-to-back storms means a week not seen since December 2010, the last time a weeklong series of weather systems had a significant effect on Southern California, said Thomas, the San Diego meteorologist. The National Weather Service estimates as much as 2 to 3 inches of rain will fall along the coast of Los Angeles and Orange counties through Thursday — a decent amount, given that the average rainfall for all of January in downtown Los Angeles is about 3 inches.

Through Thursday night, there could be 2 to 4 feet of fresh snow in the San Bernardino Mountains at elevations above 7,000 feet, where Big Bear Lake is. “So that’s significant,” Thomas said. He warned of areas of near zero visibility because of blowing snow from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday night, and gusts of up to 50 mph. “So it’ll be a mess up there.”

Tuesday is expected to be the heaviest storm day for officials monitoring the Solimar fire burn area north of Ventura, which charred more than 1,200 acres over Christmas weekend. Vegetation, once burned, can no longer hold back loose sediment, and officials are worried about mud and debris crashing onto Solimar Beach communities, Pacific Coast Highway and sections of the 101 Freeway all the way up to the Sea Cliff area.

Even half an inch of rain in an hour could create a debris flow in these burn areas, said Gil Zavlodaver of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services.

Steven Frasher, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, cautioned residents and the homeless to stay out of flood control channels such as the L.A. River and Sepulveda Dam that, in dry times, are popular recreational areas.

Commercial and Recreational Rock Crab and Recreational Dungeness Crab Fisheries Open in Southern Portion of the State

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – December 31, 2015

Commercial and Recreational Rock Crab and Recreational Dungeness Crab Fisheries Open in Southern Portion of the State

• Recreational Dungeness and rock crab fisheries along the mainland coast south of 35° 40′ N Latitude (Piedras Blancas Light Station)
• Commercial rock crab fishery along the mainland coast south of 35° 40′ N Latitude (Piedras Blancas Light Station)

• Commercial Dungeness crab fishery statewide
• Recreational Dungeness crab fishery north of 35° 40′ N Latitude (Piedras Blancas Light Station)
• Commercial and recreational rock crab fisheries north of 35° 40′ N Latitude (Piedras Blancas Light Station)
• Commercial and recreational rock crab fisheries in state waters around San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands

• CDPH News Release: Dungeness and Rock Crab Health Advisory Partially Lifted along the California Coast
• OEHHA Memo: Dungeness and Rock Crab From Mainland Coasts of San Luis Obispo County and Counties to the South

No Christmas crabs for Californians this year

The savory-sweet meat of Dungeness crab isn’t going to make coastal Californians’ Christmas spreads this year.

Though the neurotoxin responsible for delaying crab season — the algae-produced domoic acid — has slowly begun to wane in the tissues and organs of West Coast Dungeness, the last round of tests in California, taken off more than a dozen ports in late November and early December, showed many samples still solidly above the limit of 30 parts per million. 

Two clean tests, a week a part, will be necessary before crabbers are able to ply the seas again, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. 

Forty-percent of the Dec. 1 Crescent City samples exceeded levels deemed safe, at a total average of 34 parts per million, down from 44 percent and 40 ppm Nov. 18, 

Rough waters have delayed sampling for much of this month, said Senior Environmental Scientist Pete Kalvass, however, he anticipated a boat would be able to get out of Crescent City this week between storms. 

“Hopefully we’ll get the season started after the holidays, but I want to make sure everything is safe for the public,” said Tim Potter, owner of the F/V Pacific Pride, who had been responsible for fishing out the November samples. 

Potter had just returned Tuesday from the A Dock at the Crescent City Harbor, where he’d been hanging Christmas lights on his boat with his wife. Over the phone, he said he wasn’t “chomping at the bit to get on the water.” 

“I don’t get to relax and do a lot of calm stuff. I’m just enjoying time with my family while I have it,” he said. 

Potter’s boat was one of a handful of volunteers to leave pots to collect 12 crabs at graduated depths —15, 25 and 35 fathoms — off both St. George’s Reef and the mouth of the Klamath River. 

Following protocol habitually taken during the pre-season to test for quality and size as well as domoic acid, the crabs are then frozen and shipped overnight to the California Department of Public Health labs in Richmond, to be tested for solely for domoic acid. 

The volunteers pay for the fuel, and the Del Norte Fisherman’s Marketing Association picks up the tab for shipping costs.

Most of the higher domoic acid levels detected have been in Dungeness collected off the North Coast, or in rock crab found in waters surrounding the Channel Islands.

Meanwhile, Humboldt and Del Norte county razor clams are the only bivalve still deemed unsafe for consumption, since CDPH lifted all other health advisories on recreational clams and mollusks Dec. 9. 

Shellfish south of Bodega Bay, and in Oregon, have seemingly dropped off their domoic acid a little more quickly, according to CDPH figures. 

“It’s kind of counterintuitive,” said Kalvass, noting that algae production is generally associated with higher water temperatures. 

Asked why this might be, University of California – Santa Cruz researcher Clarissa Anderson wrote in an email: “Our spotty pier-based monitoring is not extensive enough to really answer this question.”

She had a few guesses, however. Small resurgences of Pseudo-nitzschia, the single-celled chain-forming algae that produces domoic acid, have been seen since the large algae bloom that caused alarm this summer had dissipated some. This could account for how crabs may continue to ingest domoic acid, she said. 

“Crabs are acquiring DA (domoic acid) in the sediments where there is a lot of DA from the massive bloom. It could be that we just had great DA production in CA hotspots over the summer/early fall, thereby creating a larger pool of DA in the sediments (for) Dungeness to acquire,” said Anderson. 

The North Coast and areas in San Diego are still projected to be hot spots, though this has not been substantiated, she wrote. 

CDFW Director Charlton Bonham has said once the season opens again, there will be a lot of such questions that will need to be vigorously researched.

In the meantime, crabbers will continue to scrape by and volunteer their time and fuel to collect samples, hoping that when the season does open, all the publicity about domoic acid won’t scare customers away, said Capt. Randy Smith of the F/V Mistasea. 

“It’s really hard. Your bills keep going and we’re just sitting here. And with Christmas coming that’s really hard on the crews. That part’s the shame, but we’ve sat for months and months in the past,” he said, conjuring up past seasons stalled by crab that was too small or too poor in quality.

 “There’s no history or data available with domoic acid. It’s just a guess,” Smith said. “You can guess all day long if you want. With soft shell we know what we’re doing in numbers, but with this we don’t have any idea when we’re going to get out there. We’ve all been ready for a couple of months.”

Tim Potter and his wife decorated the Pacific Pride with Christmas lights this week, relishing the free time while waiting for crab season to open. Del Norte Triplicate / Bryant Anderson

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Rep. Janice Hahn calls for $10 million in federal funding for breakwater repairs ahead of El Niño

The sun sets behind the Angels Gate Light during a harbor cruise off San Pedro on Aug. 6, 2015. The San Pedro breakwater extends left from the lighthouse to Cabrillo Beach. (Scott Varley / Staff Photographer)

Rep. Janice Hahn is calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fund $10 million for repairs to the San Pedro breakwater to safeguard the harbor and portside community against potential harm from upcoming El Niño storms.

Hahn, who represents the 44th Congressional District based in the Harbor Area, announced a plea for immediate repairs Thursday after the Army Corps reported finding four major and 12 significant damage areas along the more than century-old stone breakwater, though corps engineers have “a high degree of confidence” it will hold up to heavy storms predicted to begin in January.

Hahn had asked the corps for an assessment of the breakwater after officials gave several members of Congress from California a briefing on El Niño preparations last week.

She penned a letter Thursday to Army Corps of Engineers Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy calling for the funding to be made available so repairs can proceed on the breakwater, which stretches from Cabrillo Beach to the Angels Gate Lighthouse.

“This El Niño season could bring unprecedented storms to California and we have to be prepared,” Hahn said in a statement. “The significant damage to the San Pedro breakwater needs to be repaired as soon as possible.”

She inquired about the status of the breakwater out of concern that El Niño could create breaches like those in the neighboring Middle Breakwater caused by Hurricane Marie last year, spokeswoman Elizabeth Odendahl said.

Army Corps spokesman Greg Fuderer said emergency repairs to that breakwater cost about $5 million. Less critical work on the Middle and Long Beach breakwaters cost an additional $9.25 million.

The San Pedro breakwater likely incurred some of its damage during the same storm in the summer of 2014, he said. Heavy waves from the hurricane pounded all three breakwaters, dislodging stones in some places.

Though Hahn is asking for $10 million, Fuderer said a project manager has estimated the repair cost to be about $7 million.

“The Port of Los Angeles is part of the busiest port complex in the nation and any disruption in cargo movement could be disastrous for the local as well as the national economy,” Hahn said. “As we prepare for El Niño storms, we cannot risk allowing any damage to the protective breakwater to go unaddressed.”

Rep. Janice Hahn

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