The small boat which washed up on remote Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, was positively identified as a vessel lost during the 2011 Japan tsunami. Credit: Kevin Head.
What happened to the massive amounts of debris swept into the ocean by the tsunami that inundated Japan’s coast in March 2011? How much is out there? How has the NOAA Marine Debris Program, a division of the Office of Response and Restoration, been involved?
Learn the answers to these questions and more in the following NOAA video, infographic, and documents related to Japan tsunami marine debris.
Get a visual snapshot of the issue of in our Japan tsunami marine debris infographic [PDF]. Find out at a glance about subjects including what tsunami debris has been found, NOAA efforts to model its path, and the likelihood of debris carrying invasive marine species.
Learn more about the issue of Japan tsunami marine debris with this NOAA infographic. Click to enlarge and download.
Share information about tsunami debris, get tips for cleaning up beaches, and more in our handy brochure [PDF].
Join us during our TweetChat about tsunami debris with the Office of Response and Restoration’s Marine Debris Program Director, Nancy Wallace. She will be available on Twitter to answer questions about radioactivity, floating docks, and anything else you can think of related to Japan tsunami marine debris.
What: Use Twitter to chat with NOAA Marine Debris Program Director Nancy Wallace
A family fishes on Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia River. According to a 2012 report, 74 percent of those fishing this river are eating or sharing fish possibly contaminated by cancer-causing chemical pollutants. Credit: Rebecca Harlan/All rights reserved.
An extensive study partly funded by NOAA has found that nearly half of the people living near Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia River are unaware of the dangers of eating its fish. The results are prompting a reexamination of how to communicate these important public health risks to a diverse, multilingual, and urban community.
The report uncovered further evidence that many local fishermen—who were disproportionately African American, Latino, or Asian—are catching, eating, and sharing potentially contaminated fish with family, friends, and others, greatly expanding the possible long-term health risks to the public. The study estimated some 17,000 people living near the Anacostia could be eating these polluted fish.
“Our research confirmed that contaminated fish are, indeed, being shared in the community,” said Steve Raabe of OpinionWorks, the company that did the survey. “What we could not have known, prior to embarking upon this effort, is the extent to which this sharing happens and the complex set of factors that drive it.”
When shown this ad during interviews with Anacostia River fishermen, one respondent answered, “This (ad) makes you just want to grill it!” This demonstrated “how difficult it is to break through to this audience with a message about unseen contaminants,” such as PCBs. (Addressing the Risk 2012 report)
A Dirty History
The Anacostia River, which runs through Maryland and the District of Columbia, has suffered from decades of pollution, mainly from runoff and hazardous waste sites. NOAA has been partnering to evaluate, clean up, and restore the Anacostia watershed since the late 1990s.
One of the most notable chemical pollutants in the river is polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have immune, reproductive, endocrine, and neurological effects, and may cause cancer and affect children’s cognitive development. This and other chemicals build up in the river bottom, where they make their way up the food chain and become stored in the tissues of fish, posing a health threat if people consume them.
Even though the District of Columbia and Maryland have been issuing warnings about eating Anacostia River fish for more than twenty years, the majority of fishermen and community members surveyed were not aware of these advisories. While both governments tell the public not to eat any channel catfish or carp, this report exposed that these are some of the most commonly caught fish in the river.
Furthermore, over half the fishermen reported that “knowing about such a health advisory” would not change whether or how they ate their catch. Researchers found at least two misunderstandings playing into this. One was the fishermen’s mistaken belief that they would be able to see contamination on the outside of the fish. Another was their assumption that getting “sick” from the fish would be immediate, in the form of food poisoning, instead of a future risk of cancer.
Hungry Now or Sick Later?
A particularly surprising result from the study was that fishermen along the Anacostia River often are approached by people who ask them to share fish because they do not have enough food.
Researchers found that this kind of direct messaging got the attention of those fishing on the Anacostia River. But simply improving warning signs may not be enough to address the root of the problem. (Addressing the Risk 2012 report)
“They will ride around in their cars and look to see if we’re catching fish and ride up and ask, ‘Have you caught anything today? Are you going to keep them?’” said one Anacostia fisherman interviewed during the study about sharing his catch with those lacking food.
The community’s apparent lack of access to enough affordable food complicates the task of merely delivering a better message about health risks.
“The answer to this problem will be far more complex than simply telling anglers not to share their catch,” said Raabe. “How can you tell someone who is hungry today not to eat fish that may pose future health risks?”
With almost three-quarters of fishermen eating or sharing the fish they catch, those involved in the study are looking at a broad range of possible fixes to this complex problem:
Improving health-risk messages to those most affected.
Creating more and better opportunities for education, such as fishing tournaments.
Introducing healthier alternative protein options to the community, through aquaponics (“a farming technique that grows plants and fish in a recirculating environment”) and local fish subscription services (akin to community supported agriculture programs).
Increasing the amount of city food gardens and farmers markets in the area.
Along with NOAA, the following organizations were involved in this study: Anacostia Watershed Society, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Anacostia Riverkeeper, District Government, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Baltimore, Md., has been awarded $150,000 to study the effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on the commercially important blue crab, a keystone species of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast, and its larvae. A female blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is pictured here on a beach on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. (NOAA)
Earlier this year I wrote about NOAA making funding available to study the effects of chemical dispersants on the marine environment. NOAA partnered with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to make a formal call for research project proposals.
We received 36 proposals from researchers and universities across the U.S. and Canada and even a few from scientists in Europe. Those proposals were peer-reviewed this past summer and early fall, and while there were lots of great proposals, only three research projects could be selected for funding.
Developing a worldwide quantitative database of the toxicological effects of dispersants and chemically dispersed oil.
Conducting research to improve understanding of chronic impacts of chemical dispersant and chemically dispersed oil on blue crabs, a commercially important species of marine life.
Researching public concerns and improving risk communication tools for oil spills and dispersants.
Over the next year we’ll get progress reports from the researchers, and all of the materials will be available online at the University of New Hampshire’s website.
Volunteers. The Internet. Remote sensing. NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has been using all three to deal with the environmental aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At Restore America’s Estuaries’ recent conference on coastal restoration [PDF], three of my colleagues showed how each of these elements has become a tool to boost restoration efforts in the Gulf.
Managing Data
OR&R scientist George Graettinger explained how responders can use remote sensing technology to assess damage after a major polluting event, such as the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill. He has helped develop tools that allow both Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists and responders to visualize and manage the onslaught of data flooding in during an environmental disaster and turn that into useful information for restoration.
Here, the ERMA Gulf Response application displays information gathered by SAR remote sensing technology to locate oil in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP incident. (NOAA) Click to enlarge.
The principle tool for this work is OR&R’s ERMA, an online mapping platform for gathering and displaying environmental and response data. During the Deepwater Horizon response, ERMA pulled in remote sensing data from several sources, each with its own advantages and disadvantages:
AVIRIS, another NASA sensor which took high-resolution infrared imagery from a plane to estimate the amount of oil on the water surface. Its disadvantages included being able to cover only a small area and being limited by weather conditions.
SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), a satellite radar technology with super-fine spatial resolution. This technology actually transitioned from experimental to operational during the 2010 oil spill response in the Gulf of Mexico. While very effective at “seeing” through cloud cover to detect ocean features, SAR does not allow easy differentiation between thinner and thicker layers of oil on the water surface.
Managing People
Volunteers plant vegatation to restore a section of Commencement Bay, WA which was injured by hazardous releases from industrial activities. (NOAA)
“If you spill it, they will come,” declared Tom Brosnan, scientist and communications manager for our Assessment and Restoration Division, at his presentation. “They” were the hordes of volunteers offering their eager help after the 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico caused the largest oil spill in U.S. waters.
Brosnan outlined some of the many challenges of using volunteers productively during an oil spill: legal liability, safety, technical training, logistics, reliability. The National Response Team, a federal interagency group coordinating emergency spill response, has taken a strategic approach to these challenges by creating guidelines for incorporating volunteers into response activities [PDF].
Brosnan also pointed out other great opportunities for harnessing the energy of concerned citizens for environmental restoration. One example was partnering with Citizens for a Healthy Bay in Tacoma, Wash. This is a community group soliciting and overseeing volunteer efforts to maintain already completed restoration projects making up for the decades of industrial pollution around Tacoma’s Commencement Bay.
Managing Communications
And no less important, explained NOAA communications specialist Tim Zink, is keeping people engaged after an oil spill is out of the public eye. For the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill, this has been a challenge particularly during the environmental damage assessment process. Zink described the difficulties of continuing to communicate effectively after initial interest from the media has diminished, of many different government trustee organizations trying to speak with one unified voice, and of the need for communication with the public to be framed carefully within the legal and cooperative aspects of the case.
He cited something as simple as a well-run online presence: the Gulf Spill Restoration website. This is a joint effort representing no fewer than three federal government departments (Commerce, State, and Interior) and five state governments. Well-organized and user-friendly, this website serves as a one-stop source of information about the ongoing effort to evaluate and restore environmental injuries in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill.
Among the closing speakers at the conference, Dr. Dawn Wright, chief scientist at GIS software company Esri, reinforced the importance of communicating “inspired science” to policymakers, communities, and other stakeholders throughout the restoration process. As a GIS specialist, she spoke to the many types of sophisticated spatial analysis that are available to anyone with a smartphone. The average person now has unprecedented access to geographic data on earthquakes, flu epidemics, and sea level changes. However, it is up to us to decide how we use these data-rich maps—and other tools—to understand and tell the story of environmental restoration.
Most of us have seen marine debris in its smaller forms—water bottles, plastic bags and other consumer waste. But it can also take the form of abandoned vessels, drifting fishing nets, and even lost crab pots on the ocean bottom, still catching sea life long after they are lost.
NOAA marine debris expert Peter Murphy has some fun teaching a child about trash in our oceans. (NOAA)
Peter Murphy is the Alaska Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, which supports national and global efforts to research, prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine debris. Murphy and his colleagues work to understand these impacts and communicate them to policy-makers, stakeholders, and the public. Alaska, with its massive and remote coastline, significant coastal resources, and strong marine economy and culture, is a dynamic and important part of the marine debris landscape.
Here, Murphy gives us the insider view of working at NOAA and what it takes to help keep trash off our coasts and out of the ocean.
However, there’s something people can do about it by making more sustainable choices in what they use, how they use it, and how they dispose of it. Doing research on the impacts and finding ways to communicate those findings to change behaviors is an important link that we work to make in the Marine Debris Program. I focus on Alaska, which has more coastline than the rest of the United States combined and a huge amount of natural resources, so there is even more opportunity for impact and for action.
What part of your job with NOAA did you least expect to be doing?
Working with detection technologies—satellites, radar, and especially sonar—was definitely an unexpected element of my work, but a very rewarding one. Translating sonar tracks into a map that guides divers to retrieve and examine crab pots 100 feet below the surface is a fun challenge.
If you could invent any tool to make your work more efficient and cost were no object, what would it be? Why?
First: A remote sensor that could definitively and reliably detect debris greater than one millimeter in size. One of our challenges is that we know there are areas of concentration in the open ocean, but when they go undetected, we don’t know if it is because there isn’t anything there to detect (unlikely) or because our sensors can’t pick up everything that’s there (more likely). Knowing that would help our work in assessing density, impacts, and behavior of debris.
Second: A small, sturdy, reliable, and inexpensive device to convert plastics (including Styrofoam) into liquid fuel. Small communities in Alaska often do beach cleanups, but have nowhere to put the debris—primarily plastics—that washes ashore from all over the Pacific Rim. This would give them a way to not only empty their landfills, but provide a direct benefit in the form of energy for the work they do.
How did you become interested in communicating about science?
As I learned more about the oceans and the fascinating interconnections across the many systems that make it all work, I wanted to be able to explain and share that information in an accessible way. Seeing a concept—derelict fishing gear, ocean circulation, or plastic degradation—click for somebody at a booth we’re hosting or during a presentation we’re giving is a great feeling.
When did you know you wanted to pursue a career in science?
I was always fascinated with how things worked. My grandfather, an engineer at Boeing, gave me a subscription to Popular Mechanics as a kid, and I became fascinated with how people worked to innovate and solve problems using science. That respect and fascination stuck with me all through school.
While everything may be bigger in Texas, some reports about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” would lead you to believe that this marine mass of plastic is bigger than Texas—maybe twice as big as the Lone Star State, or even twice as big as the continental U.S.
For NOAA, a national science agency, separating science from science fiction about the Pacific garbage patch (and other “garbage patches”) is important when answering people’s questions about what it is and how we should deal with the problem. (For the record, no scientifically sound estimates exist for the size or mass of these garbage patches.)
Marine debris accumulation locations in the North Pacific Ocean.
The NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Carey Morishige takes down two myths floating around with the rest of the debris about the garbage patches in a recent post on the Marine Debris Blog:
There is no “garbage patch,” a name which conjures images of a floating landfill in the middle of the ocean, with miles of bobbing plastic bottles and rogue yogurt cups. Morishige explains this misnomer:
While it’s true that these areas have a higher concentration of plastic than other parts of the ocean, much of the debris found in these areas are small bits of plastic (microplastics) that are suspended throughout the water column. A comparison I like to use is that the debris is more like flecks of pepper floating throughout a bowl of soup, rather than a skim of fat that accumulates (or sits) on the surface.
There are many “garbage patches,” and by that, we mean that trash congregates to various degrees in numerous parts of the Pacific and the rest of the ocean. These natural gathering points appear where rotating currents, winds, and other ocean features converge to accumulate marine debris, as well as plankton, seaweed, and other sea life. (Find out more about these “convergence zones” in the ocean and a NOAA study of marine debris concentrations in the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone [PDF].)
Any way you look at these “peppery soups” of plastic in the Pacific, none of the debris should be there. The NOAA Marine Debris website and blog have lots of great information and references if you want to learn more about the garbage patch issue.
*Updated July 10, 2012. **Updated Jan. 28, 2013 to correct a statement incorrectly identifying the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone as what is referred to as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
A plane releases chemical dispersant to break up an oil slick on the water surface below. Photo courtesy of the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
Help NOAA expand what we know about the effects of chemical dispersants on both spilled oil and the marine environment: funding for research projects is now available[leaves this blog].
The explosion and subsequent well blowout on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010, led to the largest oil spill in United States history.
The unprecedented use of chemical dispersants on and below the ocean’s surface during this oil spill raised scientific, public, and political questions about both their effectiveness and their potential consequences for ecosystems and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.
To help answer those questions, NOAA is partnering with the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire to fund research on dispersants and dispersed oil. The focus will be in the following areas: 1) dispersants and risk communication; 2) degradation of dispersants and dispersed oil; and 3) biological effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on surface and deep ocean species.
The request for research proposals is available at the Center’s website[leaves this blog]. Researchers interested in submitting a proposal need to turn in a letter of interest by May 15, 2012.
The Coastal Response Research Center was established in 2004 as a hub for oil spill research, development, and technical knowledge transfer. The Center is a partnership between the University of New Hampshire and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration. The Center collaborates with other federal, state, and local research and development programs to promote effective protection, assessment, and restoration of coastal areas and resources.
The overall goal of the Center is to reduce both the potential for, and the consequences of, spills and other hazards threatening coastal environments and communities. Advances in science and technology relating to spills will be applied to other types of threats to coastal environments and communities, when possible.
Preventing a spill is always the preferred scenario, but as long as we explore, drill, and transport oil, there will be a chance for spills. And once oil is spilled, we can no longer prevent harm from happening to the marine environment, but we can reduce that harm through a combination of response measures. With our partner at the Coastal Response Research Center, we hope to improve the science of spill response before the next oil spill happens, so that when it unfortunately does occur, we are better prepared to deal with it.
As threats to the environment continue to grow, so is people’s thirst for information about these issues. Today, perhaps more than ever, scientists and their institutions are the ones stepping up with ideas about how to meet this demand for information.
This week, thousands of oceanographers from all over the world gathered at the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City to discuss the latest developments in ocean science. Yet a surprising portion of that dialogue centered on communicating science through mainstream media, the internet, and social media.
WikiScience
Margaret Leinen, Executive Director (and oceanographer) of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, predicted that social media will actually change the scientific process itself, by enabling collaboration on a huge, unprecedented scale. She credits Michael Nielsen for furthering this change with his book, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science.
She described one such dramatic experiment in social media, detailed in Nielsen’s book, in which a complex math problem was solved faster than anyone would have thought possible thanks to what is now known as the Polymath Project, an online collaboration of a large and decentralized group of mathematicians (both professional and amateur). And on a personal level, she commented on how quickly her colleagues seem to have adopted social media.
Blogging for Smarties
Another highlight came from Ken Kostel, a web science writer and editor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He directed two blogs from marine research cruises, one studying the effects of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the other the 2011 Japan tsunami/Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. The blogs incorporated personal impressions from researchers on the cruise as well as real-time data from the ship. I spoke with a graduate oceanography student who participated in the Fukushima cruise; she is now looking into a career that incorporates both science and communications.
Kostel’s Dive and Discover blog, where the Gulf spill research cruise was recorded, is geared toward students and teachers. Here, you can see that he swears by the communications principle of “show, don’t tell” and strives for compelling visual elements. He also believes in brevity, using the help of communication professionals, and a lot of advance planning.
In an interactive workshop, graduate students Miriam Goldstein of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Andrew Thaler of Duke University shared insights on running their respective science blogs, Deep Sea News and Southern Fried Science. They stressed the benefit of having a clear goal for the blog, of writing about what interests you, and the importance of maintaining a two-way conversation with readers. And naturally, they use Facebook to drive readers to their blogs.
The Gateway to the Public
With a slightly different approach, Heather Galinda spoke about what she has learned working for COMPASS,* an organization whose mission is to connect science with ocean policy-makers and the media. She’s part of a team of science communications professionals based at affiliate institutions across the U.S. She emphasized the huge role the media play in the transfer of scientific knowledge, describing them as “the gateway to the broader public” and “the gate-keepers to policy-makers.” She encourages scientists to connect with journalists through social media.
In between the flurry of presentations, Mary Scranton, a marine geochemist at Stony Brook University and a conference organizer, chatted with me about this increased emphasis on science communication at the Ocean Sciences conference. She attributes it to the public’s need for accurate information on the environmental issues that affect their lives. She also feels that there is more interest from science graduate students in pursuing careers outside of university research, such as at an aquarium, where the ability to communicate effectively to the public is a crucial skill.
Readers, what do you think? Do you want to see more science on what’s affecting the world around you? Let us know!
GULF SHORES, Ala. - A NOAA employee records evidence of oil found below the water's surface, along with other shoreline observations, Sept. 20, 2010. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Lauren Jorgensen, U.S. Coast Guard)
Nearly two years ago, the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill forced government agencies to work together in ways unlike any previous spill. The government—and NOAA in particular—gathered an unprecedented amount of data and information on complex topics like seafood safety, the use of chemical dispersants, and oiled marsh cleanup.
As a result, we at NOAA have a wealth of resources that are free and available to the public.
To make it easier for you to pin down the data point you’re looking for or find the restoration project proposal you want to comment on, we’ve rounded up a couple key locations for these Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill materials. Check them out: [All links leave this blog.]
The Deepwater Horizon Institutional Repository:A brand-new, searchable, online collection of Deepwater Horizon/BP spill data and information from NOAA’s data centers, libraries, and websites (and federal and state partners too). While still expanding what is currently available, this site will offer observational data, analytical reports, public briefings, images, and videos from response and restoration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.
NOAA Deepwater Horizon Archive:An early online center for much of the information NOAA gathered during the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill response and restoration activities. This archive includes past oil movement forecasts, subsurface oil and ocean current data, and seafood safety data.
GulfSpillRestoration.gov: This is primarily a NOAA site for providing updates on our participation in the Natural Resource Damage Assessment for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. For example, here you can comment on draft early restoration plans, find a public meeting, and learn about how this spill has affected the Gulf’s natural resources.
ERMA Gulf Response: This interactive mapping platform is designed for oil spill responders and the public to access up-to-date and historical data on the oil spill, including oil observations, fishery closures and re-openings, wildlife reports, and Gulf Coast resources.
National Ocean Service Flickr Photo Gallery: This digital photo collection, hosted on Flickr.com, features NOAA photos from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill response, including ones of oil, wildlife, and our scientists and responders at work in the field.
For non-NOAA information and updates on the response and recovery in the Gulf of Mexico, check out http://www.restorethegulf.gov/, the official U.S. government website for this spill.
This is a guest post from graduate students at the University of Washington.
Where do you go to get reliable information about things that matter to you?
Do you send news to friends and family using Facebook or Twitter?
Are you interested in learning more about oil spills in your area?
These are a few of the questions our team [leaves this page] of three graduate students at the University of Washington are interested in answering for our community partner, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). We want to know, how can governmental organizations like the Office of Response and Restoration leverage social media to communicate science better during oil spills? Our project, which OR&R is sponsoring, is part of an Environmental Management Certificate Program.
The project is officially known by the title, “Using Social Media to Communicate Science and Exploring the Role of Information During Environmental Disasters.” It focuses on oil spills and ongoing environmental problems like oceanic debris. We have been studying the role social media plays in informing the public about environmental disasters such as oil spills, both large and small. With our recommendations, OR&R hopes to engage more effectively with the public and expand their use of social media tools, especially during emergencies and disasters.
OR&R's Doug Helton answers our team's questions about responding to oil spills. Credit: NOAA.
We have just passed the halfway mark and have learned so much already. In addition to interviewing members of the OR&R team, we have researched how they have used social media tools in the past, read academic literature on how to effectively communicate scientific information, and examined current trends in social media communications.
This research will inform a strategy for effectively using common digital tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, mobile applications, and YouTube, to communicate about oil spills. We have also investigated cutting-edge technologies for tracking how information is spread and how to engage new volunteers successfully during disaster response efforts.
The project will wrap up in March, and we will present our final report and list of recommendations to the Office and Response and Restoration. NOAA has a long history of partnerships with the University of Washington, and our final report will include ways for NOAA to continue to provide opportunities to students while also adding value to the work carried out at the agency.
You can read our proposed list of deliverables on our blog [leaves this blog], where we will continue to update our progress on the project. We are thrilled to have this opportunity and would love to hear about how you use social media during disasters. Feel free to use the comments here to let us know.
We look forward to hearing your feedback,
Jeremy, Libby, Elspeth, and Bob
Jeremy, Libby, and Elspeth are graduate students at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs and the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. They are supported by their mentor and adviser on the project, Dr. Robert Pavia [leaves this page], Affiliate Associate Professor at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. This project is a community partnership between the University of Washington (Seattle, Wash.) and NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration.
