Wildlife Webcams Bring NOAA Restoration Projects Live to You

This is a post by Gabrielle Dorr, NOAA/Montrose Settlements Restoration Program Outreach Coordinator.

A-49, also known as “Princess Cruz,” in her nest on Santa Cruz Island. She was the first Bald Eagle chick hatched naturally on California’s Santa Cruz Island in over 50 years. (Photo Credit: Peter Sharpe, Institute for Wildlife Studies)

We want you to take a bird’s eye view of restoration with our wildlife webcams.  In 2006, NOAA’s Montrose Settlements Restoration Program, established to make up for a toxic DDT and PCB legacy in southern California, installed a live webcam with a close-up view of the first Bald Eagle nest to hatch a chick naturally on California’s Santa Cruz Island in over 50 years. Thousands watched as the eagle parents tended to their chick, affectionately named “Princess Cruz” by webcam watchers. Today, there are a total of five webcams on other nests around the California Channel Islands, highlighting the success of our Bald Eagle Restoration Program.

We also wanted to connect the public to the underwater world of wetlands with an underwater fish webcam. In 2010, our program installed a live webcam in Huntington Beach wetlands, where we completed one of our fish habitat restoration projects. This underwater camera demonstrates the importance of wetlands as a fish nursery and feeding area.

Watch Bald Eagles Live

A Bald Eagle adult and chicks in the Pelican Harbor nest on Santa Cruz Island. (Photo Credit: Kevin White, Full Frame Productions)

What is cute and cuddly and has wings?  You guessed it … a Bald Eagle chick! What is even better is that you can watch these adorable birds on live webcams that are placed near Bald Eagle nests located on Catalina and Santa Cruz Islands in the California Channel Islands right now. Viewers can watch daily as both male and female adults attend to their chicks by feeding them and keeping them warm. One of the most popular nests to watch is the West End nest on Catalina Island that has triplets for the third year in a row.

For eagle enthusiasts, there is a Channel Islands Eaglecam discussion forum where you can post or read daily nest observations, chat with other enthusiasts, or read updates from the Bald Eagle restoration team. With over 1 million hits each year, the Bald Eagle webcams have captivated audiences all over the world from January to June as these regal birds raise their young.

Diving with the Fish

If you are more interested in what lurks beneath the ocean then you should check out the live fish webcam that is broadcast from Talbert Marsh in the Huntington Beach wetlands. Since the fish webcam has been live, we have observed over 20 species of fish, diving seabirds, an octopus, nudibranchs (colorful sea slugs), and numerous other cool invertebrates.  We have also seen fish spawning events, territorial displays of fish, and even sharks.

If you want to let us know what you have seen on our webcam, you can fill out our online fish webcam observation sheet. In case our solar-powered camera is down, you can check out this 10 minute clip recorded from the webcam for a snapshot of what you might normally see. The eelgrass swaying side to side is mesmerizing and you can always catch a glimpse of a fish when you log onto the fish webcam. Test your fish identification skills now!

Gabrielle Dorr.

Gabrielle Dorr is the Outreach Coordinator for the Montrose Settlements Restoration Program as part of NOAA’s Restoration Center. She lives and works in Long Beach, California where she is always interacting with the local community through outreach events, public meetings, and fishing education programs.

$2 Million in Aquatic Restoration Projects Proposed for Polluted Housatonic River in Connecticut

The latest round of aquatic restoration projects for the Housatonic River will also indirectly improve water quality, increase buffering during coastal storms, and reduce runoff pollution into the river. (NOAA)

NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the State of Connecticut released a proposal to use approximately $2 million from a 1999 settlement with General Electric Company (GE) to fund projects to increase fish habitat and restore marshes on the Housatonic River. Between 1932 and 1977, GE discharged polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemical wastes from its facility in Pittsfield, Mass, into the Housatonic River, which runs through western Massachusetts and Connecticut. As a result, the Housatonic’s fish, wildlife, and their habitats suffered from the effects of these highly toxic compounds.

Part of an amendment to the 2009 restoration plan [PDF] for the Housatonic site, these latest projects highlight aquatic restoration because the original plan primarily focused on recreational and riparian restoration, with more than half of those projects already complete. The amendment identifies seven preferred restoration projects and three non-preferred alternatives to increase restoration of injured aquatic natural resources and services. These projects aim to more fully compensate the public for the full suite of environmental injuries resulting from GE’s decades of PCB contamination by:

• Enhancing wetland habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife.
• Supporting native salt marsh restoration by eradicating nonnative reeds and removing large debris (e.g., plywood and lumber).
• Restoring migratory fish and wildlife passages by removing dams and constructing bypass channels.
• Promoting recreational fishing, other outdoor activities, and natural resource conservation.

The 1999 legal settlement with GE included $7.75 million for projects in Connecticut aimed at restoring, rehabilitating, or acquiring the equivalent of the natural resources and recreational uses of the Housatonic River injured by GE’s Pittsfield facility pollution. Settlement funds grew to more than $9 million in an interest-bearing fund. NOAA and its co-trustees are using the majority of the remaining $2,423,328 of those funds to implement these additional aquatic natural resources projects.

Public comments and additional project proposals for this draft amendment to the restoration plan will be accepted through March 11, 2013. Comments should be sent to Robin Adamcewicz, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Eastern District Headquarters, 209 Hebron Road, Marlborough, CT 06447, or emailed to robin.adamcewicz@ct.gov

Learn more about Restoring Natural Resources in Connecticut’s Housatonic River Watershed [PDF].

Report Reveals Hudson River and Wildlife Have Suffered Decades of Extensive Chemical Contamination

According to the report, “Fish not only absorb PCBs directly from the river water but are also exposed through the ingestion of contaminated prey, such as insects, crayfish, and smaller fish…New York State’s ‘eat none’ advisory and the restriction on taking fish for this section of the Upper Hudson has been in place for 36 years.” (NOAA)

The Hudson River Natural Resource Trustees, including NOAA, released a report today outlining the magnitude of toxic chemical pollution in New York’s Hudson River. The report, “PCB Contamination of the Hudson River Ecosystem” [PDF], documents six years of data and analysis showing that the Hudson River, for more than 200 miles below Hudson Falls, N.Y., is extensively contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Starting in 1947 and for approximately 30 years, manufacturing plants operated by General Electric Company (GE) discharged PCBs into the upper Hudson River,  with additional releases of PCBs occurring as well.

According to the report, PCBs are a “group of highly toxic compounds that are known to cause cancer, birth defects, reproductive dysfunction, growth impairment, behavioral changes, hormonal imbalances, damage to the developing brain, and increased susceptibility to disease in animals.” Hazardous at even very low levels, they make their way up the food chain and become stored in the tissues of wildlife and fish, posing a health threat if people consume them.

Analysis of the river from 2002 to 2008 shows that PCBs permeate nearly every part of the river: surface waters, sediments, floodplain soils, fish, birds, wildlife, and other natural resources. The report further documents decades of high levels of PCBs and likely harmful effects on living organisms exposed to the contamination in the Hudson River. PCB levels in fish were often 10 or more times the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) standards for safe consumption (pp. 10) and in water samples tested “10 to 10,000 times higher than that deemed safe for aquatic life, fish-eating wildlife and human consumers of fish” (pp. 5).

As a result of this pollution, the public has lost the use of these natural resources, for example, due to restrictions and advisories for catching and eating fish and navigational losses due to contamination of the Champlain Canal.

A Hudson River PCB Forum is being held on January 16, 2013 at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The intent of the forum is to provide mid-Hudson communities with an update on the PCB dredging project and restoration planning by the Natural Resource Trustees.

Study Reveals D.C. Community near Anacostia River Are Eating and Sharing Contaminated Fish

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.

You can download the complete report at www.anacostiaws.org/fishing, read about ways to reduce exposure to chemical contaminants when eating fish, and learn about efforts to cleanup and restore the Anacostia.