Watching Our Water Ways

An amazing collection of wildlife photographs came together in the 2009 contest sponsored by National Wildlife Federation. These are pictures that touch you with their beauty, inspiration and humor.

Grand Prize, Amateur, 2099 National Wildlife Federation Photo Contest. Minke whale by Steffen Binke

The photo at right shows a minke whale descending the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. The picture, by Steffen Binke, won the Grand Prize in the amateur division.

To see a slide show of all 32 winners, visit the Web site of National Wildlife magazine. I hope you can take a few moments to enjoy them.

Other entries were so good that the magazine put together a slide show of 60 honorable mentions that are worth seeing.

If you are a photographer interested in entering the 2010 contest, you will find information on the online magazine’s Web pages.

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Water may be one of the most common compounds on Earth, but its unique properties continue to amaze.

A report out today shows that the freezing temperature of water can be controlled by the type of electric charge you put at the surface.

If you take supercooled water, which has no dust particles to begin crystallization, you can get the temperature down to about -12.5 degrees C. on average. If you apply a positive charge to the surface, that same water freezes at about -7 degrees. With a negative charge, it goes down to about -18 before freezing. This is really an amazing range.

Study coauthor Igor Lubomirsky of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel was quoted in today’s Science News:

“We are very, very surprised by this result. It means that by controlling surface charge, either positive or negative, you can either suppress ice formation or enhance ice formation.”

This also means that you can freeze water by heating it up — assuming that you change the charge on the water’s surface. Another experiment by the researchers bear this out.

Speculation about how to use these new-found properties are already beginning to pop up. One researcher suggests that it could have an application in the study of cloud formation, which is central to the issue of climate change.

Joe Palca of National Public Radio jumped on the story and does a good job in his piece for the radio.

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It was at the end of March last year that the Legislature shifted the burden of paying for a tugboat at Neah Bay to the shipping industry, and the governor signed the bill into law.

At the time, it seemed to me that it would be much easier said than done for various shippers to allocate the cost among themselves. Industry representatives agreed that negotiations would be difficult, as I reported in a Kitsap Sun story last March 31.

The Legislature had looked at a cost-allocation system but decided to allow the industry to work it out themselves. Progress reports were required by Oct. 31 and Dec. 1.

And this is where I may have misunderstood the Legislature’s intent. I thought the idea was that if the shippers failed to put a system in place by the end of last year, then the Legislature would come back and do something this year to ensure no disruption in tug service. By then, the industry would have little room to complain. But that’s not what is happening.

This week, I wrote about progress in those negotiations and learned that the two major groups are still some distance apart. (See Thursday’s Kitsap Sun.) But the Legislature has no intent of stepping in. The law requires that the tugboat be on station before ships can operate in Puget Sound, and everyone seems confident that the law will be followed.

Department of Ecology officials have indicated that penalties for shippers could run to $10,000 a day if the tugboat is not there. (You may review the correspondence on the subject.) Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D- Bainbridge Island, a key player in the bill, told me that the fines would be enough to cover the cost of the tug, so he would allow the process to play out.

Since the shipping industry is generally divided between oil shippers and cargo shippers, the only alternative I can see, if negotiations fail, is to have two tugs at Neah Bay. Of course, that would be ridiculous and a waste of money.

As in many negotiations, these are likely to go down to the wire. Everyone expects a new tug to be in place by July 1.

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The first “State of the Sound” report issued by the Puget Sound Partnership was announced yesterday with practically no fanfare.

I recall that the Partnership’s predecessor group, the Puget Sound Action Team, used to make a big deal out of these ecosystem reports. Frankly, I had expected a major rollout, like that of the Puget Sound Action Agenda — until I read through the document and began to ask questions.

David Dicks, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership, told me the report was a “hybrid version.” Before the next formal report is due in two years, he hopes to provide more meaningful ecosystem-condition reports through a Web site.

The Partnership’s Science Panel called the report a “transitional” document between descriptions of ecosystem conditions in past “State of the Sound” reports and a new “ecosystem-reporting framework” being developed for the Puget Sound Partnership.

Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, said the document is not what the Legislature envisioned when it laid out reporting requirements for the Partnership. Without better indicators, benchmarks and long-term goals, nobody knows if the Partnership is on track to restore Puget Sound to a healthy condition by 2020, she said.

Fletcher has a unique perspective on this process. Besides heading an environmental organization, she serves on the Partnership’s Ecosystem Coordination Board. She also was the first executive director of the original Puget Sound panel — called the Puget Sound Water Quality Authory (1983).

I won’t linger on this new report, as I expect more useful information to be forthcoming in the next few months. Read my story in today’s Kitsap Sun, or download the report from the Puget Sound Partnership.

If you download the report, you may wish to read about the Performance Management System being developed, which is described in some detail, as well as a description of funding issues. Those and a few other details are new additions to the “State of the Sound.”

Because the Partnership is relying heavily on its Science Panel to develop a system to measure changes in the ecosystem, I’ll highlight a few of the problems, which the panel describes in its section of the report:
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Kitsap and Mason counties were well represented in recent high-tide photos that area residents e-mailed to the Washington Department of Ecology.

Twanoh State Park on Hood Canal near Belfair. Photo by John Stokes.

Another opportunity to photograph high tides begins today, according to Ecology officials. For information about submitting photos to Ecology, go to the agency’s EcoNet blog.

By the way, Kitsap Sun reporter Rachel Pritchett reported about the high tides as well as those mentioned in Ecology’s blog.

The following, along with numerous photos, is posted on Ecology’s Web site:
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I love the reaction of newcomers to the Northwest when they see a giant geoduck clam for the first time.

Some people laugh; others stare in disbelief at the unique creature that reminds some people of the male anatomy.

After you’ve lived in Washington state, you learn that this massive mollusk is not only funny, it is big money on the international market. Geoducks are believed to play an important role in the ecosystem, where they filter water and can live for 100 years or more.

Geoducks grow naturally in deep water and are harvested by divers who dislodge them from the seabed with jets of water. Revenues go for managing the resource and to local governments willing to make recreational improvements to the shoreline. Some people contend that the state is over-harvesting, at least in certain locations.
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For older state highways, the method of managing stormwater typically is to dump it directly into ditches and streams. This is the historical approach: get rid of the water as quickly as possible. But, as the result of a legal settlement announced this week, we are likely to see more retrofits in the future.

Washington Department of Transportation has been improving its stormwater systems for new highways and a few older systems, but the latest federal stormwater permit issued by the Washington Department of Ecology did not go far enough, according to the group Puget Soundkeeper Alliance.

Represented by Earthjustice, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance appealed the permit to the Pollution Control Hearings Board. The settlement was not everything the environmentalists wanted, but it is a solid step in dealing with aging highways.

Bob Beckman, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, explained the group’s position in a news release:

“Government agencies, businesses, and citizens are all working together to protect and restore Puget Sound, but the state’s department of transportation wasn’t carrying its share of the weight. There is a lot more work to be done, but we feel that this is a step in the right direction. The state highway system should not be held to a weaker standard than industries, local governments and the public.”

So what was included in the deal?
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UPDATE, Jan. 29, 2010
Big Beef Creek continues to threaten several houses built close to the stream. The house most at risk at the moment is one belonging to Jon and Kimberly DeYoung. Read about their story and see pictures in a piece I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun.
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It is the best of streams. It is the worst of streams.

There’s been talk lately about Big Beef Creek in Central Kitsap, where a much-traveled bridge has been closed to heavy traffic because of a washed-out bridge abutment. It appears the bridge will be closed for a couple of weeks, beginning next week. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

There’s reason to believe we’ll be hearing a lot more about this stream in the future.

In my mind, Big Beef Creek is a beautiful salmon stream that has been much abused through the years. Despite a large population of people in the watershed, the creek has managed to hold onto its populations of salmon. Somehow, pollution has been mostly avoided.
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As part of my weekend duties this month, I’ve been checking police reports for the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office and other local law-enforcement agencies. It’s amusing sometimes how clumsy people can get while breaking the law.

I thought today I’d share some real news stories — mainly from elsewhere in the U.S. — about incidents involving water and the law. The Web site Clumsy Crooks helped me find and sort through these stories.
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Returning home, a woman caught a suspected burglar in her house, and he was rummaging through her things. The man looked up, asked the woman for a glass of water and went on his way.

Police caught up with him an hour later and discovered that his backpack contained electronic equipment and DVDs. The story does not say if he ever got the drink he was looking for.
Treasure Coast (Florida) story and mugshot

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Two men faced theft and public intoxication charges after allegedly filling a 1,500-gallon tank from a fire hydrant. They were towing the tank with its stolen water on a trailer when a tire blew out, sending their rig into a ditch. They told police they needed the water to operate their water slide.
ABC News picked up the story
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For those of us concerned about sealife, the issue of ocean acidification is beginning to be at least as worrisome as rising ocean temperatures.

The first direct evidence of ocean acidification across a broad expanse of ocean was revealed this week in a new report detailing an ongoing study focused on waters between Hawaii and Alaska.

Ocean acidification, related to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is believed to be affecting the ocean’s food web, beginning with creatures that form external shells of calcium and carbonate.

A new report, based on direct measurements of acidity at the ocean’s surface, as well as biological changes down to half a mile, show an increase in acid concentrations. Principal investigator Robert Byrne of the University of South Florida said there is no longer any doubt that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are affecting the world’s oceans.

“If this happens in a piece of ocean as big as a whole ocean basin, then this is a global phenomenon,” Byrne said in a news release.

Scientists from 11 academic institutions and two labs operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are taking part in a long-term study of ocean conditions in the Northeast Pacific Ocean, where changes are happening rapidly.

Christopher Sabine, one of the leaders of the investigation, commented in the news release:

“It is now established from models that there is a strong possibility that dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean surface will double over its pre-industrial value by the middle of this century, with accompanying surface ocean pH decreases that are greater than those experienced during the transition from ice ages to warm ages. The uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean changes the chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts on the biological systems in the upper oceans.”

We have talked before in Water Ways about ocean acidification, but in a more speculative way. More information is coming out all the time. An excellent synthesis of current knowledge can be found in the latest issue of the journal “Oceanography.” Although somewhat technical, the subject is broken down into focused articles that are easy to get through. I recommend that anyone who cares about the oceans spend a little time with this online information.

For a more general description, check out the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s page on Ocean Acidification including a brief fact sheet (PDF 280 kb) on the topic.

Sandi Daughton, science reporter for the Seattle Times, wrote about the latest findings in a story on Wednesday.

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