Issues

   The myriad marine environmental problems finding their way into print is growing exponentially.
   On the state level (Florida) the fate of the Everglades hangs in the balance. The federal portion of an eight billion dollar price tag may not be committed by Congress if the state does not play its part.   Yet the state legislature is weakening the pollution reduction timetable and other forces are lining up to take fresh potable water meant to enhance Everglades water flow. For southern Florida the best source of info on the Everglades is Restore! Everglades Conservation Network News published by Florida Audubon. To get an e-mail copy ask smayorga@audubon.org.
   On the federal level, the preservation of wetlands, revisions of the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the management of national and international fisheries are all important issues. For fish, the Marine Fisheries Conservation Network's "fishlink" is worth viewing Contact fishlink@tropica.com. Keep in mind this may add ten e-mails a day to your e-address.
   Locally, the counties of Sarasota and Manatee also have an array of problems, like other counties in the state, that need addressing. Progress in the elimination of septic systems has slowed considerably. Beach erosion is becoming serious. Contaminating runoff is a growing problem.    -- excerpt from Southern Shore Lines (Oct 2003) article by Dave Bulloch

Enhancing Sarasota Bay

-- by David Bulloch (published September 30, 2010 in the Sarasota Herald Tribune)

Regarding "Estuaries economic value" and "Bay's health is showing progress":

These articles point out the value of what has been done to enhance the health of Sarasota Bay but not the roadblocks to further improvement. The system's health is not uniform; north Roberts Bay lags significantly, the result of pollution from Phillippi Creek. These waters could be greatly improved by removing three spoil islands -- Little Edwards, Big Edwards and Skiers islands -- and replacing them with red mangroves.

The red mangrove absorbs excessive nutrients and supplies a useful habitat to a host of life. It can also absorb a storm surge of almost any intensity and buffer its impact.

Unfortunately, the mangrove ecosystem's value is lost on a coterie of waterfront property owners who are more concerned with a change in their view. Plans by Sarasota County to alter these islands have been constantly rebuffed by a small group of noisy individuals who somehow have intimidated the county administration.

Another hot potato is the Jim Neville preserve. It too is a spoil site overrun with Australian pine. Surrounding shallow waters and the natural increase in mangrove stands have turned it into a fine fish nursery. Further remediation is held hostage by the potential threats of "open Midnight Pass" advocates who refuse to accept the state's rejection of such a permit.

Further, many seawalls could be fitted with devices to attract oysters, a filter feeder which in quantity can improve water quality.

Thus, further improvement of the bay rests on political will and challenging those who would block these improvements.

--David K. Bulloch

For all the words, spoken and written, about the rapid degradation of our environment, few have fallen effectively on the ears of those who can integrate them into our daily lives.

Too often, the reverse is true. Recent gas shortages have spurred ethanol production. Both economically and environmentally, sugar cane is the best starting source (you use everything). The worst (you guessed it) is corn, a basic feedstock for cattle and humans. As its price rises, Midwestern farmers are pushing up yields by excessively dosing the land with fixed nitrogen and phosphorus. That, in turn, increases N and P runoff into the Mississippi River system which makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico and enlarges the ever-increasing dead zone.

Nearer to home, irrespective of a persistent drought , the emerald-green lawn all year around is king. Whether that depletes the potable water supply or quick release fertilizer damages aquatic life by running into nearby creeks, ponds and bays matters not compared to keeping up appearances.

Then there are the local and state decisions that mainly serve specific economic segments while ignoring the consequences on others. In Florida, it’s real estate. Build it and they will come. So will more impervious surfaces, fixed nitrogen from automobiles, more runoff and more with little or no changes to the infrastructure to sustain it all.

When faced with these questions, the feds, the state and municipalities will all plead poverty. The feds have pulled out of a long string of commitments made in the past, promises in the aftermath of at-home catastrophes, and items needed for the near future (like a replacement for a defunct weather satellite to track hurricanes). Currently, the state of Florida plans to cut property taxes, leaving municipalities with greatly reduced funds. Cuts in environmental services, parks, and alike are sure to follow.

What is lacking in our current outlook is what William James once called “the moral equivalent of war”, that is, a unifying and over-riding commitment, a national single-minded will to correct and sustain its vital problems. The dilemma he pointed to is that this seems to only occur during a war. His 1906 question posed in an essay has been often cited but seldom answered.
-- Dave Bulloch

A research study done over many years by Scripps Institute for Oceanography,the National Marine Fisheries Service, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford has shown that heavy, sustained fishing of a target species makes the stock more susceptible to wider swings in their natural population variability. This raises the uncertainty in predicting future population levels and puts the stock at greater risk of collapse than had previously been assumed. By comparing changes in target species and unexploited species in the same areas, the higher variation in the target species regularly occurred. The method used was to compare the target and non-fished species in their larval stages. Larval numbers correlate well with future adult abundance.
-- Dave Bulloch

Tragedy of the Commons Revisited
      In an essay thirty-eight years ago, Garrett Hardin outlined why humans, ever on the increase and consuming more and more, would eventually doom themselves to catastrophic harm unless public attitude and centralized institutions limited the continual overuse of natural resources.
     In 1993, the journal Science devoted five issues to “the state of the planet” and recently revisited their initial findings in a book of the same title. Not long ago, the United Nations released its Millennium Environmental Assessment Report which should shortly be available in book form. On the book shelves now is Lester Brown’s “Outgrowing the Earth”. Brown was formerly the long-time director of World Watch Institute whose yearly “State of the world” is widely read and considered credible.
     Given all this information along with a wide range of similar material that spells out the rapid degradation of both renewable and non-renewable resources world-wide, why has this mountain of information been virtually ignored? Why hasn’t it had greater impact on both the discourse and actions of nations or on the attitudes of people who have the means to affect change?
     There are nations in which its people or governments have acted to alter at least some of the components of the problem. In China, at one time, the government moved to limit population growth. In Japan, that has happened to such an extent their population is shrinking. Currently the same is true in the countries that make up the European Union. Birth rates per couple are well below 2.1, the replacement rate . Nevertheless , world population continues upward at an unsustainable rate.
     As soil wears out and the number of mouths to feed increases, not only will private resources dwindle but so will common ones. That trend is obvious in oceanic fisheries. With no central authority to check rapid overexploitation coupled with continual global warming and pollution of the oceans, oceanic ecosystems are being altered for the worse year after year with only a modicum of interest in creating an international consensus , implementation and compliance to reverse this trend..
     Even where there is a ruling authority, Canada for example, that nation’s control of fishery jurisdiction two hundred miles offshore after the collapse of the northern cod fishery in 1977.led to closures that created an apparent rebound by the mid 1980’s. The fishery was reopened and collapsed again in 2002. The scientists had looked only at the offshore fishery and ignored inshore where the catches showed that adult fish were growing smaller every year.
     There is no one right method of management. The Maine lobstery is often cited as an example of how local interests and the state can exert considerable influence over fishing without intrusive central regulation. As good as it sounds, it probably works only as long as the supply remains relatively reliable.
     Time, information, enforcement, and limitations rarely come together to create a sustainable commons. As Jarad Diamond's recent book “Collapse” reiterates, powerful nations who have wasted their resources on war and over-consumption have vanished in the past and are likely to do so again in the future.

Dirty Water
The US Environmental Protection Agency has released a proposed change in an existing rule that would allow the transfer of water from one body of water to another without getting a federal permit as now required by the Clean Water Act. If the ruling stands, it will let untreated or polluted water be dumped into clean water that may be someone’s potable water supply.
Water transfers are presently done for good reason: to avoid flooding in one region or to increase potable water supply in another. Under the Clean Water Act, where water goes is closely monitored under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES).
Public comment on this rule is open until July 24. Go to EPA rulings and look up Reference Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2006-0141. PLEASE READ THE RULING AND SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO THE EPA URL.

Roving Bandits
   Coastal and alongshore depletion of fishery stocks has been going on for many years. Getting regulations in place that will rebuild exhausted stocks and then protect them from being over harvested again is difficult but at least it is a matter that can be addressed by the concerned nationals.
     However a larger problem exists in international waters which has drawn little attention and for which international agreement would be needed. The world’s oceanic fisheries are being hunted to extinction by, as one authority put it, “roving bandits”, fishing vessels that hit a stock until it is no longer commercially viable, then move on to another stock at a new location.
   New markets can be overexploited before any institution has had an opportunity to weigh in. With no trade restraints, modern fleets can quickly catch, process and distribute fish wherever a market exists with little or no restraint. Internationally, CITES (UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) rarely reacts soon enough to halt species depletion in a new fishery. Monitoring this trade and establishing checks through permits and other controls are possible countermeasures. Whether international cooperation can be pragmatically instituted is another question.
    ED note: Over harvested fish pop up regularly on restaurant menus. You can find a list of fishes to avoid at www.seafoodwatch.com. It includes Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, rockfish, tilefish, Atlantic cod and halibut. There are others to avoid because of high mercury content. Check out www.gotmercury.org .

Heating UP
   As greenhouse gases and heat-absorbing aerosols are released by human activity, more incoming radiation from the sun is converted to heat and the earth’s surface warms up. By how much and how fast is critical for the construction of numeric models on climate change.
     Because of ‘thermal inertia’, temperature response is delayed. If nothing is done to reduce energy absorption, in time its effects will appear and its consequences will be impossible to avoid. Hansen et al have calculated that at present the earth absorbs 0.85 +-0.15 watts per square meter more energy than it releases back into space. This will lead to additional global warming, ice sheet degradation and sea level rise.
     Ed note: This seminal research paper, technical in nature but understandable to the lay reader, is a centerpiece in the argument that global warming requires more evidence before industrial nations take heed and reduce gas emissions. Hansen , of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, has found himself in the thick of political controversy by an administration that doesn’t want to act on the evidence. - Science 308, p 1431 et. seq.