Researcher Jie Xiao with the microbattery, which packs twice the energy capacity compared to other microbatteries currently used to tag fish. | credit: Contributed photo by Kristin Nol / East Oregonian
A new microbattery no larger than a long grain of rice could help biologists track the movement of younger, smaller fish through Northwest rivers.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland developed the tiny battery to power transmitters placed in juvenile salmon and steelhead, monitoring the fish at earlier stages in their life cycle.
By studying how subyearling chinook behave and migrate down the Columbia River, federal managers can make better decisions to improve overall habitat and survival. The challenge is creating smaller tags for smaller fish, which take smaller batteries that still pack enough of a charge to work.
PNNL now believes it has the answer. Its battery, at 6 millimeters long and 3 millimeters wide, isn’t the smallest ever created but packs twice the energy compared to current microbatteries, according to the lab’s findings.
That’s enough power for acoustic fish tags to broadcast signals every three seconds for about three weeks, or about every five seconds for a month. It’s also teeny enough to inject into fish using a hypodermic needle, as opposed to surgically implanting the transmitter, which is more expensive and stressful for the fish.
Brad Eppard, fisheries biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland, said battery size was the biggest obstacle to tracking such small juvenile salmon. This microbattery not only clears that hurdle, but essentially revolutionizes the market, he said. “We have a pretty good tool here,” Eppard said. “It helps us to better understand what’s happening when (the fish) are migrating.”
The Corps was first required to study subyearling fall chinook salmon based on a 2001 biological opinion by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Columbia River hydroelectric system. Researchers launched the Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System, or JSATS, developing tags for the young fish.
It took five years to get their first functioning transmitter, Eppard said. In 2010, the Corps turned to PNNL to create an even smaller, injectable device. Lab engineer Daniel Deng called on Jie Xiao, a materials science expert, to come up with the battery design.
Xiao and her team ultimately perfected a painstaking process that involved cutting snippets of battery material, running them through a flattening device and stacking them on top of each other in layers. Each battery is then rolled by hand with tweezers — like a jellyroll — and inserted into an aluminum container.
“It was pretty difficult in the beginning,” Xiao said. “Once you learn how, as well as all the tricks, it becomes very standard protocol.”
Samuel Cartmell and Terence Lozano, scientists in Xiao’s lab, hand-rolled more than 1,000 of the batteries last summer. A PNNL team led by Deng then surgically implanted 700 of the tags into salmon in a field trial at the Snake River, where preliminary results show the technology worked exceedingly well. More details about the experiment will be released in a later publication, according to PNNL. Xiao said she has high hopes for developing the tags, as well as other uses for the microbattery. Battelle Memorial Institute, which operates PNNL, has applied for a patent. “There is a lot of opportunity,” she said.
MARYSVILLE — The Marysville School District will be presenting its summit on education, “Dream Big for Kids! Imagine Where We Can Go Together,” from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, in the commons and gymnasium of the Marysville Getchell High School campus.
In February of 2013, the Marysville School District Board of Directors began an initiative to increase community involvement, by including parents, students, business and civic leaders, and other community members in conversations to improve the educational opportunities for Marysville students.
The Marysville School Board began the process with a series of community forums, to help identify the successes of the Marysville School District and the areas where it needed to improve. The school district then utilized this information to focus on what it needed from a new superintendent, to help lead the district to its next levels of success.
This led to the hiring of Dr. Becky Berg as superintendent, who has since done significant community outreach work, including meetings with parents, staff and community members, as well as a series of “Coffee and Conversations” with families in the community. While the district has learned much from this process, more insights are needed, which is where “Dream Big for Kids” comes in.
Hundreds of Marysville and Tulalip community members are expected to join business leaders, parents, students and school district staff at this educational summit, to help envision the future of the Marysville School District and its children.
This is a no-cost event, but space is limited, so it’s recommended that you reserve your seat at a table ASAP.
To register, or for more information, call the Marysville School District at 360-653-7058, or visit its website at www.msvl.k12.wa.us.
Randy Ervin’s GoFundMe campaign opened to help deal with life changing stroke
By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News
Randy Ervin is a guy who loves life. Ask his many friends who have enjoyed, or lovingly suffered, his bizarrely funny bitstrips and constant Christmas countdowns. He’s also a friend, a mentor, a beloved co-worker and leader. He’s a beacon of hope for those in recovery, and a poster child for living better sober than addicted. Since February 25, Randy has been completely incapacitated after suffering a massive stroke. He is looking at returning to a two-story home and full time caregiving, with no prospects of returning to a normal life anytime soon.
Randy’s wife of 23 years, Tina Ervin, painted the picture.
“I left the house on February 25, I was only gone for about half an hour,” she explained. “I came home and he was sitting in the chair and he was just sitting there. He was non-responsive. I pulled up on his face, and I said, he’s having a stroke.”
Randy was in a medically induced coma for a week and a half. Doctors kept him breathing with a ventilator while they monitored the swelling in his brain. It took another two weeks to slowly bring him out of the coma.
“His right side is paralyzed,” Ervin said, describing her husband’s symptoms. “He’s learning how to speak all over again. He lost the ability to form words when he tries to talk and he’s learning to write with his left hand.
“If you write ‘apple, banana’ and leave an open space, he’s trying to figure out what to put in that open space, but he can’t tell you that the line of words means fruit. His brain is still not firing the way it should. Three hours a day he’s in physical and speech therapy, they’re teaching him how to use the other side of his brain.”
Family and friends aren’t the same for Randy either, many of his memories are missing because of the stroke.
“He didn’t recognize his brother, his best friend,” said Ervin. “Our anniversary is the 23rd of this month [March], and he didn’t even remember that. But he did recognize Pete Warbus from the casino. He loves his crew and his job. Other than his family, that’s his life.”
A family friend, Mike Pablo, helped Ervin set up a GoFundMe account to help raise money for Randy’s expenses, which are numerous. The stroke is the most recent in a cascade of medical complications. In 2013 Randy was diagnosed with a tumor in his colon. Because colon cancer runs in his family, the best option was to remove it surgically. After the surgery, things went downhill quickly.
“He was eating dinner and he coughed,” said Ervin. “His shirt started filling up with blood. By the end of the night it turned brown and started to smell really bad. He stood up and it just gushed out of his belly. I rushed him to the hospital and the surgeon said, ‘Why did you wait so long!’
“They said his small intestine blew out like an inner tube blows out if you fill it too much. From there, his kidneys shut down. He spent more than 48 days in the hospital. It was a long road, but he finally went back to work December 23rd. The aneurysm came out of nowhere.”
Because of his ongoing medical care Randy has no paid time off remaining, leaving his family deprived of the primary breadwinner. Because his leave has been exhausted he will likely lose his job at the Tulalip Resort, a job that currently provides the medical insurance paying for his care. Ervin said they’re doing what they can, but she’s concerned about how to pay for ongoing medical expenses and the necessary remodel of their home.
“I talked to Jay Napeahi in housing because my house is not set up for a wheelchair and I don’t have a full-sized bathroom downstairs. In the meantime they’re going to put us up in a duplex. We’re trying to raise some funds, we’re going to have to buy a wheelchair and some other equipment and I’m not sure how much his insurance will cover.”
His co-workers are doing what they can.
“We are definitely feeling the loss of him not being here,” said friend and co-worker Ashley Hammons. “It was a mess here, and everyone was trying to hold it together. ”
Resort employee Aliana Diaz agreed.
“It was pretty bad to the point where we approached the Employee Assistance Program and let them know that several of our team members were affected by it. I was giving them a heads up that people might need them.”
Slot Assistant Director James Ham, who has known Randy for years, described the outpouring of support, “Randy did a lot to give back. He would talk to anyone in addiction and recovery, he was reaching out constantly. I’ve seen a lot of people donate hours, there’s definitely been an outreach here.”
Coping with medical bills, the trauma of becoming a full time caregiver and the unknown challenges of the future might seem overwhelming, but Ervin’s been too busy to dwell on it.
“Ever since this happened it’s been, ‘What’s the worst case scenario?’ I’ve just tried to get everything going rather than sitting around and crying all the time. Right now we need a different bed, probably just a full size, because our water bed is too big [for the duplex].”
If you would like to help Randy’s family, check out www.gofundme.com and search Randy Ervin. The family is hoping to raise $15,000 to remodel the family’s home and get Randy set up for full time caregiving. As of March 25, $1,270 has been raised towards that goal. Ervin said every bit helps.
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Crowdfunding is becoming the new hand up
At the Tulalip 2014 Annual General Council, Tulalip Tribal citizen Mike Pablo made a motion to create an emergency relief fund for tribal members who are in need, either due to emergent medical situations, or because of natural disasters, fire or other catastrophes beyond their control. When he made the motion he was thinking about Tulalip citizen Randy Ervin who recently suffered a life-altering stroke. The motion was tabled, so instead, Mike helped the Ervin family to set up a crowdfunding site.
Increasingly, crowdfunding has become a way for people to directly support their causes. Whether it’s Matika Wilbur’s use of Kickstarter to launch Project 562, a photo project documenting contemporary Native America, or Randy Ervin’s GoFundMe campaign, citizens are turning to their peers, rather than a government agency, for assistance.
Crowdfunding isn’t new, in 1884 the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty ran short on money and Joseph Pulitzer launched an enormously popular fundraising effort. More than 125,000 people donated (mostly donations of less than $1) ultimately bringing in over $100,000. According to the website measuringworth.com, $1 in 1884 is equivalent to $24.50 today. So, a similar donation by modern citizens would mean about $25 each to raise around $2.5 million. This example is clear evidence that financial support for a cause doesn’t have to be a financial burden in order to be effective.
Crowdfunding quickly becoming a way for tiny businesses, broke inventors, and unknown musicians to launch a career. Unlike traditional investing, crowdsource funding doesn’t promise a return on investment, just the knowledge that your money is directly funding a cause that you support. According to the 2013 Massolution Crowdfunding Industry Report (http://www.crowdsourcing.org/research) crowdfunding is anticipated to bring in $5.1 billion in total global funding for the year.
Air pollution has become the world’s largest environmental risk, killing an estimated 7 million people in 2012, the World Health Organization says.
That means about 1 out of every 8 deaths in the world each year is due to air pollution. And half of those deaths are caused by household stoves, according to the WHO published Tuesday.
The fumes from stoves that burn coal, wood, dung and leftover crop residues as primary cooking fuels contribute to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and respiratory infections.
“What people have had available to them are primarily wood, dung and crop residues,” says , an environmental health researcher specializing in air pollution at Harvard University who wasn’t involved in the study. “These three fuels are the most polluting fuels on earth per unit of energy extracted.
“They don’t have a lot of energy, so you have to burn a lot of fuel, and that causes a lot of pollution in the process,” Powers told Shots.
People in low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific are most affected, with 3.3 million deaths caused by indoor air pollution annually.
But it’s not an easy problem to fix, despite new technologies like solar, gas and electric stoves that are more efficient and healthier than the biomass stoves many are using today.
“No matter how much you improve biomass stoves … you can have some health benefits but you can’t meet health targets,” she tells Shots.
The challenges, she says, lie in distributing less-polluting stoves to people in rural areas, and getting people to want them. Many of these people sit around the stove to keep warm or use the stove to heat their beds, so more efficient stoves may not be accepted if it forces them to change those habits.
“Even if they are given the stove for free, they end up not using it,” Powers says.
The bigger issue at hand is to get cleaner fuels to people, she adds, which will address not only the health hazards but also the environmental problems.
But because of population growth and increasing cost, the shift to cleaner and more efficient use of energy hasn’t made much progress. In fact, the shift has slowed and even reversed, to the International Energy Agency.
Associated Press Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder.
Indian Country Today Media Network
With a four-page letter released late in the day on Monday, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has taken his stubborn defense of the team’s name to a new level.
The early reaction from Indian country: We’re not buying it.
Snyder’s letter begins by affirming that he has no intention of ever changing his team’s problematic name, referring to a letter he wrote to fans in the fall: “I wrote then–and believe even more firmly now–that our team name captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.”
The Redskins owner then describes his campaign of outreach to American Indian communities, and cites facts about poverty, health, and standard of living in Native communities that everyone in Indian country is all too familiar with.
Snyder’s conclusion: Clinging to his team’s racial-slur name is a noble gesture, but isn’t enough to solve Indian country’s problems. Or as he puts it: “It’s not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of Native Americans. We must do more.”
The letter is rife with self-satisfaction and misdirection, repeatedly emphasizing all the wonderful ways the Redskins, through the Foundation, might help Indian country, with no mention of the elephant in the room: The widespread objection in Indian country to the team’s name. For instance, here’s another interesting tap dance, bolded and italicized as in the original:
“Our efforts will address the urgent challenges plaguing Indian country based on what Tribal leaders tell us they need most. We may have created this new organization, but the direction of the Foundation is truly theirs.”
Such willingness to let Indians say what is most beneficial for Indians does not, obviously, extend to his football team’s name.
The announcement has met with harsh criticism in Indian country.
“We’re glad that after a decade of owning the Washington team, Mr. Snyder finally says he is interested in Native American heritage, but this doesn’t change the fact that he needs to stand on the right side of history and change his team’s name,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter, said in a statement to ThinkProgress.
Suzan Shown Harjo, who has led the legal charge against the name for decades, shared stronger words with Think Progress: “Native America is impoverished? He just now figured that out? We know what the pressing issues are. We’re the ones who’ve been dealing with them all our lives. What an insult. The whole thing. This is a stunt. To me, it’s a stunt. But we’ll see. Supposedly it’s a change of heart, but it’s not a change of mind. And it’s not a change of name.”
Backlash on Twitter from Natives, many of whom have been united by the #NotYourMascot hashtag, has been forceful.
Frank Waln @FrankWaln “Dan Snyder is scum of the earth”
Lauren Chief Elk @ChiefElk “Countdown until ‘Dan Snyder is trying to help you and you guys aren’t even grateful!'”
Johnnie Jae @johnniejae “Apparently visiting 26 of 300+ reservations & bribing 400 tribal leaders means we should bow to our new savior Dan Snyder #notyourmascot ”
What TRIBE @WhatTRIBE “When redeeming racist brands, hire brand management experts from secret service to create pity press for penance/ not repentance @Redskins ”
Dani @xodanix3 “Whats most frustrating about Snyder’s strategies is just how petty they are. Its insulting they even take it there.”
julia good fox @goodfox “‘@Redskins: It’s not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of #Native Americans, we must do more’ <— not The Onion.”
Sarah @eyesnhearts “I’m pretty sure I don’t need the white savior industrial complex to help me with my reality #NotYourMascot ”
Adrienne K. @NativeApprops “What kind of choice is that for communities? Here, have some desperately needed resources. Shhh, just say you don’t mind the racial slur.”
Aura Bogado @aurabogado “Synder understands #Natives so well that he mentioned Redskins 24 times, and tribal sovereignty 0 times”
Jacqueline Keeler @jfkeeler “Dan Snyder, helping is not dictating. Being a friend means listening not buying silence. #NotYourMascot ”
Snohomish County Public Works Director Steve Thompson, left, explains the relative stability of terrain at the Oso landslide site on March 24, as Snohomish County Executive John Lovick looks on. — image credit: Kirk Boxleitner
ARLINGTON — Snohomish County Executive John Lovick described Monday, March 24, as “a day of progress and sadness,” as six more were confirmed dead as a result of the Oso landslide on Saturday, March 22, bringing the disaster’s total death toll to 14, and reports of missing and unaccounted for persons in the area escalated from 108 at the start of the day to 176 by the time county officials conducted their third and final press conference of the day, outside of the Arlington Police Station.
Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots reiterated that firefighters and law enforcement personnel have been joined in their efforts by search and rescue crews, search dogs and heavy equipment from the state Department of Transportation, the latter to move mud out of the way, and he added some words of appreciation to locally based responders, who have provided insights on whether certain homes were likely to have been occupied at the time of the landslide.
“Crews up there are up against enormous challenges,” Hots said. “The debris fields are like big berms of clay and quicksand. One of the folks out there told me, ‘You know, Chief, sometimes it takes five minutes to walk 40-50 feet and get our equipment over these berms.'”
Hots noted that the challenges of working in, much less walking across, such debris have been further complicated by the presence of septic tank materials, as well as gasoline, oil, propane and other contaminants.
“It’s very tedious and slow-going,” said Hots, who relayed another responder’s experiences with “void spaces,” such as houses, out in the field. “He said it’s very tough to even search those buildings, because they’ve been collapsed and compressed with all that material that’s come down. He best described it as like cement, that’s gone into those void spaces, and it’s very, very difficult to get in there and actually search. One of them even told me, ‘You know, Chief, I sat there for an hour, moving material, and only moved maybe about four buckets of material in about an hour.'”
Hots was disappointed to report that crews found neither any survivors nor any signs of survivors during the day, and Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management Director John Pennington likewise acknowledged how discouraging it must sound to hear that the number of reported missing and unaccounted for had increased by so many in a single day, but Pennington emphasized yet again that those consolidated lists of reports are not entirely synchronized yet, and could include duplicates.
“That number is about individual names reported,” Pennington said. “They’re not individuals that are deceased. They’re not individuals that are injured. They’re not individuals that are missing. They’re 176 reports.”
Pennington described the crews’ “strongly enhanced and coordinated response” as improved over their previous two days, and extended his thanks to Gov. Jay Inslee and President Barack Obama for declaring this situation an emergency on the state and federal levels, thereby facilitating assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“They’ve dispatched us a mobile command vehicle from the Mobile Emergency Response System, otherwise known as MERS,” Pennington said. “That’s going to be dispatched out to Darrington to help them establish communications. At the same time, I’m happy to announce that we’ve established an Emergency Operations Center in Darrington, in conjunction with the town of Darrington and the Department of Emergency Management.”
According to Pennington, the federal government is finalizing the details to send a Type 1 federal search and rescue team, in addition to the Incident Management Assistance Team that’s already arrived from FEMA.
“Today, we were able to secure National Guard assistance, in the form of a 50-person search and extraction team,” Pennington said on March 24. “That team is en route here, and they will assist with our search and rescue efforts as well, with very technical expertise that we believe will be very effective in the days to come. The Northwest Incident Management Team — the local regional team from the Pacific Northwest and the northwest part of Washington state — remains on scene and continues to manage this incident, and for that, we’re eternally grateful.”
Pennington not only repeated his request, that members of the public report the names of missing or unaccounted for people to the Department of Emergency Management Call Center at 425-388-5088 if they have not done so already, but he also asked that they send in photos of those who may be missing or unaccounted for, via email at DEMCallCenter@snoco.org, and include the individuals’ first and last names, as well their distinguishing marks or features.
“There is an awful lot of grieving out there in this community,” Pennington said. “There is an awful lot of unknown. That is completely expected. No information at the Call Center can be given out, and what we’d ask of the media and the public is, especially with shelter operations, and those individuals that are in these very tight-knit, very small communities where neighbors know neighbors, and families know each other very, very well and help out, that we would respect the privacy of those individuals as they begin the extensive grieving process.”
Although Pennington acknowledged that it is increasingly unlikely that any survivors will be found at this point, he nonetheless expects crews to proceed as though they’re conducting rescue rather than recovery operations, until such time as they feel the need to stop.
Snohomish County Public Works Director Steve Thompson clarified that certain crews had been pulled out of the area between approximately noon to 1 p.m. and 2:30-3 p.m., due to concerns that the landslide might still be moving, but assessments by three geologists on site determined that there was no additional risk.
“It just turned out to be some sloughing off the edge of the slide,” Thompson said. “Some trees were falling, but nothing deep, nothing to worry about, so we gave a green light to let the rescue commence.”
“Currently, the search effort is directed where there’s most likely to still be people that may need rescuing,” Hots said, before adding that pockets of vehicles, buildings and other structures are most likely to contain any remaining survivors. “There’s other areas of the scene where it’s not probable that there’s going to be anybody, areas where there were no houses. We’re checking the areas where the two neighborhoods were, and along the road on SR 530, both from the Darrington side and the Oso side.”
While the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River is currently flowing in an orderly fashion as it carves a new channel for itself on the north end of the Oso landslide blockage, the National Weather Service’s Flash Flood Watch remains in effect through Tuesday, March 25, due to the instability of the debris dam and the materials in it, as well as the unpredictability of how the new river channel will cut through it.
Killer whales swimming in Prince William Sound alongside boats skimming oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Scientists report that orca populations there have not recovered and oil is still being found. | credit: (State of Alaska, Dan Lawn)
25 years ago today the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, Calif., ran aground in Prince William Sound.
11 million gallons of oil spilled out, polluting 1,300 miles of Alaska’s coastline.
At the time it was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Gary Shigenaka and Alan Mearns responded to the Exxon Valdez, and they’ve been studying oil spills ever since. They’re scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.
They told EarthFix’s Ashley Ahearn about their experience responding to the Exxon Valdez all those years ago.
Alan Mearns: Some places we’d go ashore and you’d see starfish that looked like they were sick, they were just kind of drifting around in the surf. And you could smell the oil too, in the places where there was plenty of it. It smelled like benzene, like you’re pumping gas at the gas station and you sniff that little bit of benzene as you pull the hose out of your car.
EarthFix: Gary, how were orcas impacted by the spill?
Gary Shigenaka: Two groups that frequent Prince William Sound crashed immediately after the spill. So since the time of the oil spill those populations have continued to be monitored and we can follow the trends and for the AB pod — the resident pod – there’s been a slow recovery. For the AT1 group, which is the transient pod, it’s been declining ever since the spill and the orca specialist for Prince William Sound, Dr. Craig Matkin, has predicted that that particular group is going to go extinct. It continues to decline with time. So it’s an unfortunate longterm legacy from the spill.
EarthFix: Some people thought the orcas would swim away, would avoid the oil spill itself, but that wasn’t actually the case, was it?
Shigenaka: What we all thought was that orcas are so smart. They will simply avoid the oiled waters. But we’ve got very good photographic evidence that shows that indeed they did not.
One photograph, an aerial photograph, shows orcas cutting through a slick and you can see where they’ve come to the surface right through the oil. There’s another shot of a pod of orcas right at the stern of the Exxon Valdez, right at the tanker.
EarthFix: What creatures were the most impacted or most harmed by the Exxon Valdez spill?
Mearns: Oh, birds. We’re talking about 200 to 300,000 I think, Gary.
Shigenaka: Yeah.
Mearns: Seabirds, mainly seabirds and some shorebirds. And of course that was the big thing you’d see in the news almost every day: pictures of an oiled bird, somebody picking it up, taking it to a wildlife rehabilitation station where they’d clean them and then hold them until they could be released.
Birds killed as a result of oil from the Exxon Valdez spill. Credit: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
EarthFix: SO for people who weren’t alive, weren’t reading the paper when the Exxon Valdez spill happened, what were those animals going through? What happens to a bird when it interacts with an oil slick?
Mearns: Well, first of all, even though it’s in the spring and summer it’s still cold up there. If it’s not killed by being smothered by gobs and gobs of oil, if it’s a little bit of oil, it will succumb eventually to things like pneumonia-type diseases and things like that, so it suddenly causes birds that had good insulation not to have insulation and start suffering the effects of cold conditions.
Shigenaka: And the same holds true for another of the iconic wildlife species in Prince William Sound: the sea otters. They insulate themselves with that nice thick fur pelt and they are affected in the same way by oil disrupting their ability to insulate themselves during a spill.
EarthFix: 25 years later, how is Prince William Sound? What species have recovered, how does the place look?
Mearns: Well, 14 or 15 species or resource values have recovered. The recovery started a few years after the spill with things like bald eagles. A number of them were killed off but their population rebounded. The most recent recovery was just announced was of the sea otters that we were just talking about. So between 1991-92 when we started seeing reports of recovery of a few bird species and now we’ve had about 14 or 15 species recover but there’s still some others that haven’t yet.
EarthFix: Which ones are you most concerned about, Alan, or scientists are following most closely with concern?
Mearns: The orcas are really the ones we’re most concerned about now.
EarthFix: Is the oil gone?
Mearns: No. There are still traces of oil in the shorelines. When you go out at low tide and go into some of these back bay areas with gravel and sand overlying bedrock and dig down maybe a foot sometimes you’ll hit spots with oil that is still actually fairly fresh. We’ve encountered that at a few sites that we’ve monitored over the past 25 years.
Shigenaka: That’s been one of the 25-year surprises for us is that there are pockets of relatively fresh oil remaining both in Prince William Sound and along the coast of the Alaska Peninsula and that’s something that I don’t think any of us expected 25 years later.
EarthFix: What did this spill mean for your careers? You guys were both young bucks when this happened. And now, 25 years later, when you look back, what did it mean, the Exxon Valdez?
Shigenaka: I think overall, just the notion that we have a responsibility, both as responders and as scientists to try to communicate what we do and what we know in a way that’s understandable to the people who are affected.
EarthFix: There is more oil moving through this region now – more oil coming from the tar sands of Alberta and coming from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to refineries here in Washington state. If I talk to you guys 25 years from now, what do you hope we’re talking about?
Mearns: One thing that I worry about and I think Gary has some other things that he worries about is a lot of this new oil is going to be going through the Aleutian Islands, the great circle route, more and more tankers leaving here or in Canada and heading across. And in the Aleutian Islands, we thought Prince William Sound was remote, well the Aleutian Islands are even more remote. Getting equipment there, getting staff, we’ve had a few experiences with spills. I guess I’m concerned that there will be more spills in that region from this increased traffic out there.
EarthFix: Or elsewhere.
Mearns: Yeah.
Shigenaka: 25 years from now I’m hoping that we have a much better handle on how these novel new oils like the tar sands oil and the Bakken crude oil from North Dakota, how they behave in the environment and what their potential impacts are to exposed organisms because frankly right now we don’t really know how the stuff behaves, both types of oil, once it gets loose in the environment and we’re only beginning to understand what potential impacts there might be for the exposed communities.
Gary Shigenaka and Alan Mearns are scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. They responded to the Exxon Valdez spill 25 years ago.
File photo of the fish ladder at John Day Dam on the Columbia River. The fish ladders at the Wanapum and the Rock Island dams are dry. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The ongoing issue with the cracked Wanapum Dam in central Washington is now creating a problem for migrating salmon.
The drawdown of water between the Wanapum and the Rock Island dams to relieve pressure on the crack means the water levels are down about 25 feet at the base of both dams.
That leaves fish ladders high and dry.
Now, government fish scientists and engineers are trying to figure out just how to get adult salmon by both hulking concrete structures. At Wanapum, engineers plan to pump water into the fish ladder and create a sort of waterslide for salmon.
Russell Langshaw, a fisheries scientist with Grant County utility district that owns and operates Wanapum, says record numbers of fish are headed that way, so they have to get it figured out by mid-April.
“We have a lot of fish coming back this year, and we agree it’s an absolute necessity that we have safe and effective passage at both Wanapum and Rock Island dams.”
Langshaw says the smaller, juvenile fish are expected to be fine. They’re going downstream, and can move through the spillways and turbines.
Langshaw also says juvenile bypass systems are still operational at the Wanapum and the downstream Priest Rapids dam to help the small fish get downriver.
Join NPCA on April 19, 2014 as we partner with other environmental groups to remove debris from Washington beaches. Household plastics, garbage and other manmade debris are polluting our ocean, killing our marine wildlife, and spoiling our beaches and collectively we can do something about it!
This is your opportunity to be a part of the largest coastal cleanup event of the year. Last year a combined 1,000 volunteers removed over 15 tons of oceanic garbage!
We will meet at the Kalaloch Campground Saturday morning and carpool to South Beach for coastal debris removal. Olympic National Park is providing free camping at Kalaloch Campground both Friday and Saturday evenings. The event organizers, CoastSavers, will host a barbeque cookout at the campground Saturday afternoon. We encourage everyone to stay and explore the breathtaking coastlines and rainforests found in this area.
Event Details WHAT: Washington Coastal Clean-Up 2013 hosted by CoastSavers. WHEN: The clean-up is Saturday, April 19 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. FREE camping will be available on Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19! WHERE: Kalaloch Beach, Olympic National Park. Meet at the Kalaloch Campground in the main parking lot. WHO: Anyone interested–-families welcome! RSVP: Please RSVP to Shannon Brundle, sbrundle@npca.org or 206.903.1444 ext. 704, by Monday, April 14.
OTHER INFO: Remember to bring your work gloves and camping gear if you plan to camp overnight. Food is provided on Saturday at the cookout; please bring your own food and water for the rest of your stay. Also, the free camping is limited and available on a first come, first served basis– plan ahead to make sure you have a site.
Sunny, high 50s, and just a light breeze: It’s a perfect California December morning for rock climbing at the Owens River Gorge and Alex Honnold has just offered to give me a belay — meaning, he’s offered to attend to the safety rope for me on a climb. The official reason I’m here is to get the scoop on Honnold’s environmental foundation. But, for a climber, getting offered a belay by Honnold is probably the closest thing we have to getting thrown a ball by Peyton Manning or LeBron James.
Because his crazy free-solo (climbing without ropes) ascents in places like Zion, Utah, and Yosemite, Calif., have landed him front-page features in Outside, National Geographic, and on 60 Minutes, Honnold has probably done more than anyone else to bring the historically fringe sport of climbing into the U.S. mainstream. When he started climbing full-time in 2005, he got used to living the dirtbag life of a rock-obsessed vagabond on about $8,000 a year. Now, the 28-year-old does stuff like star in commercials for Citibank and Dewar’s Scotch.
So, in considering whether to take him up on the offer to do the climb, I’m intimidated. I step back and tell myself I’m here to learn about what he’s up to away from the crag, anyway. Through his namesake foundation, he’s dropping some of his extra cash into environmental projects like Solar Aid and Grid Alternatives.
He’s bringing a can-do attitude to it, too: Instead of looking down at how far the planet could stumble, he’s looking for the next hold. “I feel like a lot of the traditional environmental stuff is sort of depressing,” he says. “You know, ‘the world is fucked, things are going downhill, we’re going to have to drastically change our lifestyles in order to keep the world from being so fucked.’ I’m not really that pessimistic by nature … There are so many solutions that only take, like, doing it,” Honnold says.
For now, he sees the next handhold as solar power, hence his next trip: a 2.5 week tour he’s embarking on Friday that will combine climbing desert towers, biking, and working for his foundation installing solar panels in Navajo Territory. The Honnold Foundation will work with Eagle Energy to install solar power systems into the homes of 30 Navajo elders who are currently living without access to electricity, and a total of 200 solar lights into five schools.
“There’s something like 18,000 households on reservations there that don’t have access to power,” Honnold told me over the phone recently. “And, in sunny Arizona, especially, solar is the ideal solution. It seems like we should be powering people who are on the grid with it, let alone people who are off the grid.”
For the record, I did suck it up and do the climb. Later in the day, a hush came over the crowded crag — everyone around me was looking up. There was Honnold, at the top of that same climb, totally solo.
Here’s some footage I took of Honnold on the climb:
Honnold and Wright leave for their trip on Friday. Look out for their movie Sufferfest 2.0about it next year.
Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.
