News Archive: July - September 2007

Massachusetts State House Holds Hearing on Ocean Act

In late June, the Massachusetts Ocean Act (S.529), promoting comprehensive ocean management planning in the state’s ocean waters, received a key legislative hearing at the State House. With OCRM funding assistance, NOAA’s state partner, the Massachusetts Coastal Management Program, led the state’s Ocean Management Task Force and provided significant input drafting the Act.
The Act will:

  1. establish clear authority for balanced ocean management and decision-making by placing oversight, coordination and planning authority within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs;
  2. create and be advised by a broad-based ocean management commission;
  3. ensure decisions are guided by the best available science through an ocean science advisory council; and
  4. require all permits and decisions about ocean development conform with the plan.

The Act was written to reflect the findings of the Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force, the U.S. Commission for Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission. The bill was drafted in consultation with scientists, environmentalists, fishermen and other marine trade industries, and state resource managers to end the uncoordinated decision-making process that currently exists for commercial ocean projects.
Contact:  Diana Olinger

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Northwest Shellfish Growers Get Real Time SWMP Data

Shellfish growers in the Pacific Northwest can now get near-real-time water quality data from the System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) operating at National Estuarine Research Reserves in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Accurate and current water quality data help growers spot potential problems with shellfish health that can result from low oxygen, high temperatures and other factors.

These data are available thanks to SWMP’s new telemetering capability added last year in order to strengthen the burgeoning Integrated Ocean Observing System. Through a Web site jointly sponsored by the National Estuarine Research Reserve System and the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), growers can view up-to-date water temperature, salinity, oxygen, turbidity, pH and chlorophyll data from the Kachemak Bay, AK; Padilla Bay, WA; and South Slough, OR, reserves, as well as from four buoys in Hood Canal operated by the University of Washington’s ORCA (Oceanic Remote Chemical-Optical Analyzer) project.

The Web site was spearheaded by Cathy Angell, the Coastal Training Program coordinator at Padilla Bay Reserve. Cathy received support from Steve Rumrill, research coordinator at South Slough Reserve, Doug Bulthuis, research coordinator at Padilla Bay Reserve, and Steve Baird, research coordinator at Kachemak Bay Reserve. The project was funded through NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association, and NANOOS. Technical assistance was offered by the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and the Pacific Shellfish Institute.
Contact: Whit Saumweber

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Sylvia Earle and Jason Project "Discover" Chesapeake Bay Virginia NERR

Famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle, three students from Alaska, Mexico and New Zealand, and a New York teacher ventured into the mud and the marsh of the Chesapeake Bay Virginia National Estuarine Research Reserve June 23-25 to film a portion of a new National Geographic Jason Project educational production on aquatic ecosystems.

Reserve Manager Willy Reay and Graduate Research Fellow David Gillett acted as guides for Earle and the Argonauts, as the Jason Project students are known, giving them hands-on experience with sampling water quality and sediments, setting transects, measuring abiotic and biotic indicators and interpreting data.

Every move was filmed by a Jason Project crew for inclusion in the aquatic ecosystems curriculum, which will include videos, podcasts, Webcasts, live chat, computer simulations and message boards. The segments filmed at the Chesapeake Bay Virginia Reserve will make up the coasts and estuaries portions of the curriculum, a nine-week teaching unit that will also look at lakes, rivers and ocean basins “as teaching tools to examine multiple aquatic ecosystems,” according to a Jason Project news release.

The Jason Project is a non-profit subsidiary of the National Geographic Society that connects students with great explorers and scientists like Earle to inspire and motivate them to learn science. The resulting science curricula are based on National Science Education Standards and are used in school districts across the country in fifth to eighth grade science classes.

School district officials from throughout Virginia visited the reserve during the filming to meet with Jason Project officials and tour Reserve facilities. The segments filmed at the Chesapeake Bay Virginia Reserve will be presented online in fall 2008.
Contact: George Cathcart.

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Study Shows Hurricanes Sometimes Benefit Reefs

A project funded partially by NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), as well as by the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), has shown that hurricanes can act as natural cooling mechanisms for thermally stressed corals.  Contrary to the historical scientific standpoint that a hurricane can only have negative effects on a reef, this study shows that a well-timed hurricane can mitigate coral bleaching. 

The research team used temperature data from across Florida's reef tract to show that winds whipped up by a hurricane can cool an 800 kilometer-wide (497 mile-wide) swath of water by an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) for eleven days.  Hurricane-induced cooling appears to have been important in aiding reef recovery in Florida during a mass Caribbean bleaching event in 2005.  Florida waters were cooled by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, respectively, in September and October of 2005.  “Our underwater surveys showed that bleached corals in Florida immediately responded to the cooler water,” noted study co-author Derek Manzello, a marine biologist from CIMAS. Other parts of the Caribbean, most notably the U.S. Virgin Islands, remained hurricane-free that Fall and suffered more intense coral bleaching and mortality. 

The study’s findings were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The CRCP is housed in NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. 
Contact: Jim.Hendee@noaa.gov; (305) 361-4396

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OCRM Supports Gulf of Mexico Regional Efforts

OCRM staff attended the NOAA Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration and Gulf of Mexico Alliance all-hands meeting the week of July 9th in St. Petersburg, FL, to establish priorities and further partnerships within the region.  The Alliance is a significant initiative, achieving the only “A” score in the 2006 Ocean Policy Report Card.

The Alliance reviewed successes and developed implementation plans to support the Governors’ Action Plan. OCRM facilitated the Nutrient Reduction Priority Issue Team (PIT) meeting and two additional workshops: Monitoring Standardization and Understanding Nutrient Dynamics and Effects.  The PIT established next steps including pilot studies, technical inventories and databases, and a hypoxia position paper.  The PIT also established partnerships with other Alliance teams, including the new Resiliency Team, to conduct regional projects including a watershed assessment as well as community outreach and training.

OCRM also presented the Gulf of Mexico News, a regional newsletter that OCRM developed to enhance communication with partners in the region. The presentation contributed to the team’s discussion of their draft communications plan and internal and external communication ideas to support regional collaboration.
Contact: Laurie.Rounds@noaa.gov

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CICEET Announces Funding Opportunities

The UNH/NOAA Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET) invites proposals to its FY08 funding opportunity programs. Through these programs, CICEET makes strategic investments in the development, demonstration and application of tools to detect, prevent and reverse the impacts of coastal pollution and habitat degradation to coastal ecosystems and communities.
1) CICEET’s Mitigating Shoreline Erosion along Sheltered Coasts Funding Opportunity seeks to improve understanding of how to use different erosion prevention measures to protect sheltered coastlines from the impacts of rising sea levels and waves generated by extreme weather, as well as to protect, preserve and restore ecosystem function.
2) CICEET’s Environmental Technology Development and Demonstration Funding Opportunity has two goals, developed in support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s five-year strategic plan for research.

Both funding opportunities reflect CICEET’s approach to RFP development, one that incorporates an analysis of the technical and non-technical factors that influence coastal management problems, and mandates the active participation of intended end users in technology development and demonstration.  Learn more on CICEET’s web site.

Contact: Dwight.Trueblood@noaa.gov ; (603) 862-3508

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ACE Basin Staff Help Plant Oysters

Staff members at ACE Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve in South Carolina have been working with volunteers from local retirement communities to plant oyster shells on eroded banks to promote stabilization and oyster recovery. The oyster planting projects are part of South Carolina Oyster Recovery and Enhancement (SCORE), a state Department of Natural Resources program that is trying to establish new oyster reefs in 53 locations along the South Carolina coast.

During one recent outing covered by the Beaufort Gazette, more than a dozen volunteers, mostly from the Hilton Head Sun City retirement community, planted nerly nine tons of oyster shells in mesh bags on the eroded banks of Hutchinson Island in the Ashepoo River, one of the three rivers that form the ACE Basin (along with the Combahee and Edisto Rivers) and St. Helena Sound.
The shells were planted during the prime season for free-swimming oyster spat to seek shell structures to build their own shells, which establish new reef habitats and stabilize banks in tidal waters.
Contact: Amy Clark.

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MPA Science Institute and Climate Change Report

Dr. Rikki Grober-Dunsmore from the National MPA Center worked collaboratively with lead author Dr. Brian D. Keller, from NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program, to produce a chapter on marine protected areas (MPAs) in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s draft Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.4: “Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources.” The draft analyzes information on the state of knowledge of adaptation options for key, representative ecosystems and resources that may be sensitive to climate variability and change.  The draft is undergoing public review through October 5, 2007, with an estimated final publication by the end of 2007.  To view the draft chapter on MPAs, visit
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-4/public-review-draft/ch8-mpas/sap4-4prd-chap8-all.pdf

Contact: Rikki.Dunsmore@noaa.gov, NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (MPA Center)

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Innovative Stormwater BMP Inventory for New England

Interested in applying an innovative stormwater management technique, but hoping someone else has tried it first? The CICEET-sponsored University of New Hampshire Stormwater Center and Connecticut NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials) have launched an interactive database that documents the implementation of innovative stormwater approaches, such as Low Impact Development (LID) designs, in New England.
A lack of applied examples often limits the widespread acceptance and implementation of innovative stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs). Searchable by state and town, the UNHSC-NEMO Innovative Stormwater Management Inventory is a database of New England sites where innovative stormwater BMPs have been implemented. Database users are welcome to add new examples of innovative BMP implementation and provide suggestions of how to improve this regional resource.

Access the database at http://www.erg.unh.edu/lid/index.asp
Submit an example of innovative BMP implementation though this online submission form: http://www.erg.unh.edu/lid/lid1.asp

Contact: dwight.trueblood@noaa.gov, NOAA.UNH Cooperative Institute for Coastal & Estuarine Environmental Technology

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NERRS on Google and CDMO

GIS shapefiles and Google Earth overlays of all 27 National Estuarine Research Reserves are now available for download from the Web site of the reserve system's Centralized Data Management Office (CDMO). The files were created by CDMO's Jay Poucher in the process of mapping the locations of System-Wide Monitoring Program water quality and weather data collection sites as the sites are telemetered for connection to the Integrated Ocean Observing System. The files include locations of the data collection points. The files include both reserve boundaries and watershed boundaries.

The Google Earth files can be combined with other GIS data within Google Earth, the popular Web-based mapping system. Shapefiles can be read by a variety of GIS viewing products, including many free applications available on the Web. To access the files, go to the CDMO Web site (http://cdmo.baruch.sc.edu/) and click on "Get Data." Then select "GIS Files" and choose Shapefiles or Google Map. The Shapefiles link will list all the reserves so users can download the files for each reserve. The Google Map link will list regions so users can download all the reserves in a region and add them to "My Places."

Poucher cautioned that the Google Map files are large and can slow the opening of the Google Earth application if left permanently in the user's My Places folder. He suggests un-checking the boxes before exiting the program.

Contact: Whit.Saumweber@noaa.gov, NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (NERRS)

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Restoration Monitoring Projects Begin

NOAA’s Restoration Center and the NOS Estuarine Reserves Division are digging in to monitor the long-term success of restoration techniques, a goal of the Estuary Restoration Act of 2000.
Grants have been awarded to five National Estuarine Research Reserves (Wells, ME; Narragansett Bay, RI; Chesapeake Bay, VA; North Carolina; South Slough, OR) for this work. Each Reserve will monitor basic salt marsh characteristics (such as the percent of ground covered by each plant species and groundwater salinity) at a reference site in their reserve, and at several recent habitat restoration sites nearby.

Outcomes will include reference site data that can be used by other restoration practitioners and an analysis of the success of past salt marsh restoration projects.

Contact: Nina.Garfield@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (NERRS)

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Brothers' Find Shows Alaska Crab Extending Range

Two brothers, aged 9 and 11 years, went looking for a crab they didn’t want to find this summer and ended up confirming the spread of a native crab into Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Clem Tillion had learned about the dangers of invasive species in a fourth grade science class last year and had taken younger brother Hunter out on the beach at Halibut Cove to look for European green crabs, an exotic that hasn’t made it to Alaskan waters yet, and that everyone hopes won’t turn up. When Hunter found a crab that looked suspicious, Clem took a look and realized that his brother had found instead a new species of crab in Kachemak Bay, the yellow shorecrab (Hemigrapsus oregonensis), a common crab in Alaskan waters, but never before seen in Kachemak Bay.

The class where Clem learned about the invasive European crab was taught as part of a program of developing community resources to monitor local waters for invasives. The program was developed by the Kachemak Bay Reserve in cooperation with the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council in Valdez.

“This is such a cool program!” said Carole Demers, Clem’s fourth grade teacher. “It gives kids the opportunity to be involved in hands-on science. The kids learn how to identify and handle crabs, how to use scientific equipment, and how to work in teams. It’s just a great program at all levels.”

To read more about the Tillion brothers’ discovery and the monitoring program, see the article in the September edition of the Alaska Fish and Wildlife News.

Contact: Nina.Garfield@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (NERRS)

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CNMI Kicks off Vessel Debris Cleanup with ICC

beach with trash on the marianas islandsWith support from the NOAA Marine Debris Program and Coral Reef Conservation Program, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands’ (CNMI) Coastal Resources Management Office (CRMO) is using the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) to kick off a project to clean a reef flat of debris from the fishing vessel Nam Sung #62 on the island Rota. CRMO is anticipating the full cooperation of the local government, private sector, high school, junior high school, and the college as well as some private contractors for the September 15 cleanup. ICC volunteers will focus on the small marine debris of the Nam Sung #62 on this one-day event. CRMO will continue the efforts until they remove the bulk part of the vessel.

Contact: Kris.McElwee@noaa.gov, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management/Office of Response and Restoration; Ian.Zelo@noaa.gov, Office of Response and Restoration

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North Carolina NERR Celebrates New Building Completion

NOAA and North Carolina officials celebrated the opening of a new joint facility to house a teaching laboratory, classrooms, meeting rooms and offices for NOAA’s Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research and the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve in a ceremony on Pivers Island in Beaufort Thursday, Sept. 20.

Jack Dunnigan, assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Ocean Service, and William Ross, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, were the featured speakers at the ceremony, followed by tours of the $4.6 million facility and boat trips to the Rachel Carson component of the Reserve.

The 2,675-acre Rachel Carson Reserve is one of four components of the N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve. The other components of the reserve are Currituck Banks near Corolla, and Masonboro and Zeke’s Islands near Wilmington.

The new building provides permanent space for reserve education and research programs that have not previously been available for the Rachel Carson component.

The building is a joint venture between the reserve and the Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research (CCFHR), an office of NOAA’s Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS). CCFHR conducts laboratory and field research on estuarine processes, marine biological productivity, harmful algal blooms, fishery resource dynamics and human impacts on resource productivity to help commercial and recreational fishery resource managers.
The four components of the N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve are among 10 components of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve System, which also protects habitats for research, education and recreation.

Contact:  Amy.Clark@noaa.gov, NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (NERRS)

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Guam Receives Full Approval of its Coastal Nonpoint Program

On September 26th, OCRM, in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, fully approved Guams’s Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program.  The Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program was established by Congress in 1990 to encourage better coordination between state coastal zone managers and water quality experts to reduce polluted runoff in the coastal zone.  Coastal states must develop programs, backed by enforceable authorities, to implement a suite of management measures that will control runoff from six main sources: forestry, agriculture, urban areas, marinas, hydromodification (shoreline and stream channel modification), and wetlands and riparian areas.  Guam is the 19th coastal state or territory to receive full approval for their Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program.

Contact:  Allison.Castellan@noaa.gov, NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (CPD)

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