H2ONCoast

The good folks at National Geographic have put out a well done piece synthesizing a smattering of the latest science, economics and politics that wrap around the issue of a drying western United States. This is serious stuff and worth a read even for water logged North Coasters’. The article’s main premise: water management won the west; what happens when there is not enough water to manage? Remember, we may get abundance but we are extremely interdependent upon our other western neighbors. Drought that burns the Sunbelt will affect all things Pacific Northwestern very quickly. It’s a good FYI read and plus, the photos are pretty spectacular!

The on-line version of this article is available here.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) has been bashed on both the left and right for aiding and abetting some painfully bad episodes in international development. Regardless of the critics’ stances, the agency also does some fine things with our tax dollars, including assisting countries in managing coastal and freshwater systems in an integrated manner.

The coasts of the world are understandably where a large majority of humans have settled. In the U.S. alone, over 53% of the population lives on the coast. In places like China, India and sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion is closer to 70%. That said, coastal areas are subjected to concentrated impacts of these populations on upland fresh water systems, estuaries, and coastal waters. More importantly for burgeoning coastal population centers are the increased demands for fresh water. Hence the need for folks employed by U.S. AID, the United Nations, and others to help communities throughout the world working on ways to manage both fresh water supplies and coastal resources in an integrated fashion. To document their own work, U.S. AID published Basins and Coasts.

The latest edition is focused on how communities worldwide might need to adapt to climate change. Coastal areas are obviously among the most vulnerable to climate change as witnessed by the impacts of “big events” like the Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast, Cyclone Sidr in India and Bangladesh in 2007, or “smaller” events like sea water intrusion into fresh water aquifers in Northwestern Mexico (the latter, in part because of excessive mining groundwater from aquifers allows the sea water to intrude where it had been held back by the fresh water “lens”). Though many of these locations outlined in latest edition of Basins and Coasts are far from the North Coast of Oregon, I encourage folks to read it–the lessons are just as applicable here at home. Check it out at: http://www.imcafs.org/coastsheds/. Of particular merit, I encourage a read of Pamela Rubinoff and Catherine Courtney’s piece on evaluating coastal communities for resilience to coastal hazards (including tsunamis).

For those of us concerned with invasive species in the PNW, examples of impacts, management and prevention abound. The following story is a striking example of why invasive species are such an urgent issue locally and globally: they very often generate serious but completely unforeseen consequences for the ecosystems in which they become established. Note here that one of the organisms mentioned, the quagga mussel, has become established in reservoirs on the Colorado River in the Southwest and is expected by some to appear in the Northwest at some point as boaters inadvertently transport them into either the Snake or Columbia systems. Thanks to Joan Cabreza of the EPA Region 10 for passing this on to H2ONC.

Botulism takes fatal toll on thousands of Great Lakes birds Botulism and the infamous zebra mussel are blamed for killing birds - from gulls to loons - by the thousands.

By James Janega | Chicago Tribune reporter January 15, 2008 (corrected January 16, 2008)

The bird die-off was obvious as soon as Gary Rentrop and his English setter turned onto the Lake Michigan shore. The sugar-white sand, long buried in the crushed gray shells of invasive mussels and mats of rotting algae was now, suddenly, littered with dead birds.

“It was almost like a war zone of birds,” said Rentrop, a Michigan lawyer who recalled his November stroll along a Michigan beach. Rentrop counted 80 carcasses on a remote mile of beach near Cross Village, just a fraction of the estimated thousands of dead mergansers, gulls, loons and other birds whose migration last autumn ended in deadly poisoning from Type E botulism on Lake Michigan.

The mounting toll on migrating birds has stoked fears among researchers and ecologists that blame for the deaths lies with invasive populations of zebra mussels and round gobies — which arrived in ballast tanks in the 1980s and 1990s — spreading over the Great Lakes and effectively creating a new food chain.

Zebra mussels and their deep-water kin, quagga mussels, filter naturally occurring botulism and other toxins from the water. Gobies eat the mussels, and birds, in turn, eat the gobies.

Scientists theorize this new food chain is concentrating botulism and other toxins and passing them up to predators. The theory is the subject of a handful of scientific papers and upcoming research proposals.

Whatever the mechanism of transmitting the botulism, scientists in 1999 counted 311 birds in Lake Erie that appeared to die of it. The next year they counted 8,000, and the toll has remained in the thousands in the Great Lakes every year since. And instead of fading quickly as outbreaks did in decades past, the toxin has spread — first through Lakes Erie and Ontario, then Huron. In 2006, Lake Michigan was the most recent lake to be affected and by last autumn was one of the hardest hit.

In spreadsheets, scientists have noted the fatal effects of the annual outbreaks on more than 50 species of birds throughout the Great Lakes, from bald eagles to lowly pigeons. The list names 16 species of ducks, four types of grebes and six types of gulls. It includes double-crested cormorant and four of Lake Michigan’s tiny piping plovers, a bird so threatened its nests get protection from police tape and fences at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The deaths of many hundreds of loons have focused new urgency on the now-annual die-offs that occur from summer to fall. Loons live in small numbers, are slow to reproduce and are a symbol of northern wilderness.

The die-off that ended in November claimed an estimated 3,500 to 8,500 birds — including the loons and plovers — over hundreds of miles of beach in seven northern Michigan counties. It spread from an estimated 2,900 birds in 2006 along just 14 miles of shoreline at Sleeping Bear Dunes, said dunes biologist Ken Hyde.

The die-off also sparked preparations for a sprawling and macabre bird count in 2008 that will involve scores of volunteers combing hundreds of miles of Lake Michigan beaches over the summer and fall — to add up, bury and haul off what are expected to be thousands more poisoned birds and fish.

“We wish we weren’t dealing with this,” said Mark Breederland, who as extension educator for the Michigan Sea Grant research program is organizing the upcoming response. “We’ve got enough challenges on Lake Michigan, but it’s here. It’s upon us.”

The heightened threat to Lake Michigan became clear over the summer, when shore birds began dying, possibly of picking maggots off infected fish carcasses that washed ashore.

Then came autumn.

“We were getting so many loons,” said Thomas Cooley, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologist who performed necropsies on the birds. It takes 10 or 12 of the big birds to cover a laboratory table, he explained. “When you have two or three tables covered with those, it’s pretty sobering to look at that.”

Among the birds found dead was one of the most-studied loons in Michigan, a venerable male with four boldly colored tags on his legs and a name: C-3.

Each year since 1993, he had been observed at an Upper Peninsula pond in the Seney National Wildlife Refuge, said Damon McCormick, a biologist at Common Coast Research and Conservation who studied the bird.

Researchers knew C-3 had spent much of his life with the same female loon on a secluded pond in a corner of the refuge and that for unexplained reasons, he had recently left her for another loon on a neighboring pond in the refuge.

They knew that he stayed behind at the new pond a few weeks this year to supervise one late blooming chick as other loons began their fall migration, which may have timed his migration perfectly to a botulism plume and indirectly spelled his doom. To their knowledge, C-3 had raised more than 15 chicks over the years, and only once let a chick drown — when its leg got caught on a submerged log. For a loon, made him a good father, researchers said.

The loon’s body was found Nov. 1 by an old friend, of sorts, on a deserted, sandy crescent of Lake Michigan’s north shore.

Biologist and Common Coast co-director Joe Kaplan had handled C-3 “four or five” times in 14 years, most recently in 2006. Kaplan was on his last day of surveying bird carnage along the shore when he discovered the body.

“I remember specifically walking up to this bird,” Kaplan said. “There are thousands of thousands of birds that died on that lake, and here’s a bird that had a known history. I had a relationship with this bird. It’s an element of familiarity that you didn’t want to find.”

Adult loons return to their northern nesting grounds by early spring about 93 percent of the time, McCormick said. This year, researchers will be watching for them anxiously. A decline in adult population would almost certainly spell a decline among loons.

“We expect to see all our birds,” McCormick said. “But based on finding the C-3 male, there’s a lot more trepidation of what we’ll find this spring.”

Join the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership and Oregon State University for an evening presentation on water quality in the Tillamook Bay basin, Thursday, January 17th, 6:00 PM at the United Methodist Church (3808 12th Street, Tillamook). Featured speakers include Dr. Katherine Field of OSU’s Microbiology Department and York Johnson of the TEP. Dr. Field will highlight the path-breaking research she and others have conducted on genetic markers for tracking sources of fecal contamination in the bay’s many subwatersheds.

One of the persistent problems of monitoring water quality is understanding the sources of contamination. Being able to trace a chemical or biological contaminant back to its source is a positive step towards eliminating the problem. But how do you know what is the source? With biological contaminants–such as bacteria from sewage or manure–it’s possible to look at their genetic make-up as the “tracer,” since the bacteria that appear in the guts of cattle, horses or other ruminants are different than those that appear in the guts of humans. Dr. Field’s work builds a case for monitoring genetic markers in ruminant (cattle) vs. human forms of the common fecal bacteria Esherichia coli (E. coli) as means of determining what the sources of contaminants are in a particular watershed. The initial studies conducted by Dr. Field and other researchers here in Tillamook indicate that there was a 40% greater probability of detecting a ruminant source marker (genetic marker) than a human one across the entire Tillamook Bay basin. She will discuss her research and implications for monitoring as well as cleaning up fecal contamination in this important coastal basin.

York Johnson will combine these data with over 10 years of water quality trends gathered by TEP volunteers and Johnson himself. His presentation “Status and Trends in the Tillamook Bay Basin” will outline the overall direction of water quality in the rivers and sloughs that flow into Tillamook Bay. York is the monitoring coordinator for the Partnership.

For more information, call TEP at (503) 322-2222.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center has released its forecast for the spring 2008 season. As La Niña continues in the western equatorial Pacific with cooler than normal sea surface temperatures, the winds will continue to stall in the western Pacific, likely bringing drought to southern North America and wetter than normal conditions to the northern-tier states, including Oregon. Here’s what the diagnostic discussion said specifically:

“Expected La Niña impacts during January-March include a continuation of above-average precipitation over Indonesia and below-average precipitation over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. For the contiguous United States, potential impacts include above-average precipitation in the Northern Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, and parts of the Great Lakes region. Below-average precipitation is expected across the South, particularly in the southeastern states. Recent Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) activity has contributed to short-term fluctuations in low-level winds and convection over the equatorial Pacific, which has acted to modify some of the typical La Niña impacts on a sub-seasonal timescale.”

In short, while the December Storm brought tremendous rainfall to the region, we can expect to see more chances of above-average precipitation and increased chances of below-normal temperatures, particularly as the northerly jet stream brings more arctic-origin storms to the PNW coast. Keep your hatches battened down and your winter coats handy. Storm-track trends are illustrated in the animated graphic (courtesy of NOAA) below.

While I was away on holiday vacation, Michael Harte, director of OSU’s Marine Resources Management program, delivered an interesting talk at the American Geophysical Union about scaling down climate change work to the local-level. Here are a couple of snippets:

“As researchers, we need to better tailor our science and advice to the needs of our local communities,” said Michael Harte, a professor and Extension specialist in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. “Climate change is a global issue, but the specific impacts – and strategies to cope with them – will be local and that’s where our help is urgently needed.”

“People living on the coast want to know how great coastal erosion will be if predictions of higher sea levels, stronger winds, and more intense storms are true,” Harte pointed out. “Fishermen want to know if they should continue to fish for salmon, or switch to sardines. In inland communities, water is the main issue. Farmers want to know if drought is a more distinct possibility and whether they should invest in more expensive, but less wasteful irrigation systems.

“This is the level at which climate change is real to people,” Harte added. “It’s where it strikes them in everyday life.”

You can read OSU’s full press-release on his talk by going here.

Along with some other colleagues, Michael and I hope to work together on some North Coast specific research and extension related to local adaptation to a changing climate. I’ve already alluded to this theme in my November 16th posting here.

On another climate change note: Michael Furniss of the Watershed Management Council posted a fascinating use of Google Maps to illustrate the degree of inundation from sea-level rise. The map I am linking to here is pointed to Tillamook and Nehalem bays. You can then add or subtract the meters of sea level rise from 0-14. Keep in mind that while this can be an interesting if not alarming exercise, the amount of expansion in the oceans due to climate change is not entirely clear yet. Rather, think of these as potential scenarios (i.e., dependent upon levels of ocean heating, melting of significant icepack in Greenland or Antarctica) that could play out over indeterminant periods of time.

At the extreme end with sea-level rise of 14 meters, by the way, the entire valley of Tillamook looks rather wet as does all of that now valuable real estate in South Florida, Brooklyn, and other prominent coastal regions.

As readers of H2ONC know, stormwater is a persistent interest of mine as well as OSU which collaborated on the document discussed below. I hope that the report is part of an opening salvo for more engagement on stormwater. Despite our largely rural nature, stormwater is an important issue for the North Coast so check out the report!

The Oregon Environmental Council today released a first-of-its-kind report examining how Oregon’s built environment currently turns rain into a problem — and how this can be corrected. Stormwater Solutions: Turning Oregon’s Rain Back into a Resource looks at water pollution and other side effects of mismanaged stormwater, providing more than 60 recommendations and policy suggestions that can protect human health, natural resources, and public infrastructure from the impacts of urban runoff.

In urban areas, the hard, impervious surfaces created by buildings and pavement cause rainwater and snowmelt to flow quickly over the landscape, rather than soaking naturally into the soil or being absorbed by plants. This changes stream flows, increases flooding, endangers private and public infrastructure, erodes stream banks and channels, and destroys fish habitat. Runoff also carries pollutants such as oil, heavy metals, bacteria, sediment, pesticides, and fertilizers into streams and groundwater.

The way most urban areas currently manage stormwater increases the risk of downstream flooding, damages urban streams, and causes water pollution. While new, cost-effective technologies are available to address these problems, they are uncommon outside of Oregon’s largest cities.

“You can find some excellent examples of improved stormwater management all around the state, but institutional barriers, old habits, and a lack of resources can prevent them from becoming common practice,” said Teresa Huntsinger, program director at the Oregon Environmental Council. “Many Oregon cities lack information on best practices, have development codes that impede innovation, and need greater support from the state, including funding.”

To solve this problem, the Oregon Environmental Council and a team of 18 experts from around the state – dubbed the “Stormwater Solutions Team” – worked for over a year to develop a broad range of creative strategies for developers, builders, designers, state and local governments, and others to overcome existing barriers to successful stormwater management. The Stormwater Solutions Team identified two major approaches to reducing impacts of stormwater runoff:

• Improving the way stormwater is managed by promoting green infrastructure and other best management practices
• Reducing the sources of pollutants commonly found in stormwater

Modern approaches to stormwater management can capture runoff near its source, filter out pollutants, and allow the cleansed water to infiltrate into the soil and recharge groundwater supplies, maintaining the natural water cycle. These stormwater systems are known as “green infrastructure” or “Low Impact Development.” While these techniques are usually most cost-effective to install during new development, they can also be successfully implemented as retrofits.

To seek broad input on potential solutions, the team conducted a non-scientific survey of over 150 stormwater professionals from across Oregon. Those surveyed included developers, government employees, private firms, non-profits, and more. They helped identify the pollution sources most in need of additional attention, including oil and fluid leaks from vehicles, erosion from construction, dumping waste into stormdrains, and urban use of fertilizers and pesticides.

The report is now available online at www.oeconline.org/rivers.

This is just a quick update now that I can ford the flood waters and debris to get to the office, and have steady Internet connectivity. More news will come as we dig out and have more time to devote to these luxuries.

It’s been a wild ride here on the North Coast as those of you who have access to news can follow. Suprisingly, my family, neighbors, local coworkers, and I have been in what could be described as a news blackout due to the power outages, cable failures and just the fact that we’ve had more to do than keep up with the news. Rather than find out what’s going on in the region or even up the road, my neighbors and I been trying to secure sections of a roof, a barn, or fences, clear off the downed trees everywhere, and keep our families warm, dry and safe. As day 3 of no power, we hope that we’re through the worst of it. But progress will be extremely slow.

Highlights at this point (Wednesday, 12/5/07, 12:00 PM) (from South to North):

• Nestucca River has dropped from a high of 20.5 feet on Tuesday (1.5 feet higher than 1996 flood of record);
• the Trask River crested on Tuesday at 20.75 feet (4.25 feet above flood stage and 2.75 feet above 1996);
• the Wilson River crested on Monday at 20.45 feet (above flood stage of 12.00 feet and 1 foot above 1996) and is currently at about 15 feet;
• flooding on the Nehalem River has isolated the North end of Tillamook County and seriously flooded Vernonia in Clatsop County;
• Foss Creek flooded at 24 feet (twice its bankful stage);
• the Necanicum River at Sea Side was moderately flooded as of Monday but no new information is available;
• Clatsop County is still largely without power and sections without water or sewer;
• Tillamook County is still largely without power and significant sections are without water or sewer service, but schools and public life have restarted.

Here are three resources that have more information than I do (ironic given that my county clocked the highest winds), largely because we are so cut off due to communications and power failures:

• Tillamook County Update courtesy of Oregonian site Oregon Live.
• Clatsop County Update (same source)
• Mapping the Storm (Oregon Live).

I will update this blog as I can in the coming days. Hopefully with better and more news. Expect pictures soon.

Wave energy has made a lot of national press lately. The media attention the technology has grabbed is not without merit, as some say it promises a real alternative to standard (problematic) sources such as coal, natural gas, hydroelectric and petroleum. However, like most of the alternative energy technologies (wind, solar, and geothermal), there are potential hiccups.

The attention that companies have spent on acquiring rights to explore the Oregon coast for wave energy parks has generated at least one particularly thorny question–what to do about access for fishing communities. Thus far, only two experimental deployments of wave energy technology have taken place (both in the Newport area). What happens when the actual wave parks are established? Crabbers and others are concerned with the potential conflicts over sandy-bottomed zones where wave energy is high and fisheries are productive.

One North Coast newspaper, the Daily Astorian, has begun to explore these questions. You can read the full article by clicking here.

Hydrologists and others working with water pay careful attention to climate and climate change. Patterns that bring us increased or decreased precipitation should be high on the minds of anyone dependent on surface and groundwater resources. As I posted earlier, patterns generated by the El Niño and La Niña have wide-ranging impacts on how wet and cold our winters can be. Cooler, wetter weather means more precipitation that infiltrates into our aquifers and recharges our streams during the dry summer and fall months. Dryer, warmer weather obviously means the opposite.

Climate models have predicted that winters in the PNW may grow wetter, but ultimately warmer. For Oregonians dependent on the snowmelt providing stream flow in the dry season, this is bad news. For those of us on the coast where snow provides very little of our annual precipitation and contributes almost nothing to aquifer or stream recharge, this may not be an immediate problem. Our concern may lie with increasingly intense storms that generate more flooding and greater storm surge on the beaches and bays. Climate also has significant impacts on sea life and fisheries as witnessed by coastal hypoxia and potential salmon declines due to warmer water.

It’s time to start talking about climate change on the North Coast. That discussion might center around a couple of important themes:

1.) What are the potential scenarios and what are the impacts of these futures on coastal communities? This means gathering the existing data on climate change and extrapolating into the near, medium and long-term future. It means discussing risk and realistic ideas of the degree of risk for a given community or economic sector. It also means looking at opportunities that may result–recognizing that there will be some silver lining in any scenario.

2.) How do we plan for these scenarios, either in order to attempt to minimize direct impacts or to avoid them altogether? This is a dialogue for the communities that would be most impacted by the various scenarios and the sectors that are most at risk.

To begin this discussion, I will offer some information and sometimes provocative opinion on aspects of climate change here on H2ONC. As we move into the new year, OSU will try to offer some more concrete efforts.

One start is to ask the question of why, despite a very high profile in the news, climate change gets so little attention by Americans (and others) on a daily basis. An old friend and colleague of mine from Whitman College in Washington just published an intriguing discussion of that topic on the BBC on-line. You can find the full article by clicking here.