UPDATE, Thursday, Sept. 10: Kitsap County has sent out a press release about the shoreline planning effort.

Kitsap County’s shoreline planning effort will move into full swing during the second half of this month. That’s when county officials will hold a series of meetings to share information with representatives from more than 100 organizations.

The importance of this process is not being overlooked by county planners, who realize that the outcome must protect the environment and property rights at the same time.

A letter is scheduled to go out next week to various groups, including civic clubs, community and neighborhood groups, chambers of commerce, environmental organizations, property rights groups, land conservancies, news media, yacht clubs, environmental restoration and recreational organizations, economic associations, and environmental and science educators.

Also included are various cities, tribes, county agencies, water districts, port districts, school districts and colleges.

Those who attend any of the five meetings will learn about state requirements as well as county plans for updating the Kitsap County Shoreline Management Master Program. Those who wish to participate in detailed work on the plan may be asked to join an advisory group, which will provide opinions on various proposals for the next two to three years.

The county commissioners recently approved a 25-page contract with the Washington Department of Ecology. Download the contract from the Kitsap County commissioners agenda (PDF 72 kb). The $650,000 contract outlines in detail what the county will be required to do over the next three years.

The work is organized into five phases
Phase 1: Preliminary assessment of shoreline jurisdiction and public participation plan.
Phase 2: Shoreline inventory, analysis and characterization.
Phase 3: Draft of shoreline management plan and cumulative impacts analysis.
Phase 4: Restoration planning and revisiting Phase 3 as needed.
Phase 5: Adoption process.

The vision developed by the planners includes these goals:

• Comply with legislative mandates including requirements for no net loss of shoreline ecological functions and values.
• Protect private individual property rights consistent with the public interest.
• Create a shoreline stewardship program that fosters reasonable and appropriate shoreline uses while protecting valuable and fragile natural resources.
• Engage a wide variety of stakeholders, citizens and interests in developing goals and policies.
• Integrate and support County development plans, policies, and regulations.
• Ensure predictability, accountability, and efficiency during shoreline development review and decision making.
• Have a strong scientific basis.

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The U.S. Navy is collaborating with private and governmental researchers in an effort to determine how sonar affects marine mammals.

Tracey Moriarty, chief of the Naval Operations Environmental Readiness Division, describes three recent field studies in a piece published Monday on the Navy News Web site.

One project, based in the Bahamas, involved tracking marine mammals — notably beaked whales — during battle group exercises. Before the exercises started, researchers were able to attach radio and acoustic “tags” to three Blaineville’s beaked whales, a Cuvier’s beaked whale and five sperm whales.

Beaked whales are believed to be especially sensitive to sonar. It was in the Bahamas that six beaked whales were found dead on the beach within 24 hours of a Navy exercise.

“The mere presence of these species on a Navy range is counterintuitive to the perception of beaked whale reactions to sonar,” the Navy’s David Moretti was quoted as saying. “Given that this is an active Navy range where sonar is used, you wouldn’t anticipate this species to be present in this particular location if you believed the popular press.”

Moretti is the principal investigator for the Marine Mammal Monitoring Program at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island.

“The animals are moving in and out of here,” said Diane Claridge, director of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization, “and one of the things I’m interested in is whether or not that movement is related to the activities taking place such as the SCC (the Navy exercise).”

The working hypothesis is that the animals move off the training range during sonar exercises and then come back when the exercises are over, but researchers can’t be sure the returning animals are the same.

“I think the most important thing is that it’s still very early,” John Durban of the National Marine Fisheries Service said in Moriarty’s report. “Like any study, it’s tempting to want results straight away, but often the key results are only obtained from continued long-term monitoring of abundance and movement patterns.”

A similar experiment in California was conducted with the assistance of Greg Schorr and Erin Falcone of Cascadia Research Collective, based in Olympia. By the way, Cascadia’s Robin Baird collaborated on a study published in June (PDF 832 kb) about the likelihood of beaked whales getting “the bends” when startled by sonar.

The third experiment, in the Mediterranean Sea, looked at the responses of whales to sound in an area where whales were unlikely to have been exposed to sonar in the past.

I’m looking forward to conclusions from all three studies, which are expected to be described in upcoming reports.

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The Navy has decided not to conduct training exercises involving sonar within Puget Sound. That information was revealed in a proposed incidental take permit for the Northwest Training Range Complex, now subject to public review under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

While this decision no doubt will be a good thing for area marine mammal populations, I’m still a bit confused about the extent to which sonar may be used in non-training conditions.

Use of sonar in the testing of equipment and new technologies will come under a separate take permit for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, based at Keyport.

But, according to a statement I received from the Navy, that still leaves open the use of sonar for “safety and navigation,” “testing,” and “maintenance.”

As I understand the process, if the Navy were to harm marine mammals in one of these procedures without obtaining a take permit in advance, the Navy would be in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The potential exists for such harm, given the experience earlier this year with the fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco. The submarine was found to be using sonar, which was picked up loudly on hydrophones miles away. The submarine was in the Strait of Juan de Fuca after it left Bremerton after undergoing repairs.

It appears there were no killer whales in the area. But nobody could be sure about other marine mammals, since it was dark during much of the time the sonar was being used.

To keep things in perspective, the Navy has made progress in its effort to come into compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act. While there may always be disagreement about the level of protection necessary, the Navy is explaining its operations more and working cooperatively with other agencies to reduce the harm to wildlife.

It turns out that the proposed incidental take permit for the Northwest Training Range (PDF 1.3 mb) serves as a nice primer to help us understand Navy exercises, sonar technology, types of sonar and their specific uses, potential effects on marine mammals and the history of Navy exercises where marine mammals have been killed.

Similarly, a proposed permit for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (PDF 1.1 mb) offers extensive information about the use of sonar in testing advanced equipment and related activities.

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About.Com — the Web site about virtually everything — has restarted the “Military Photo of the Week” feature.

The idea is that readers submit funny captions for standard Department of Defense pictures, often involving some field activity captured by a military photographer.

Rod Powers, a retired Air Force first sergeant who guides military discussions on the Web site, includes the weekly photo on his blog and invites readers to submit comments. In the previous format, someone judged the top three captions of the week, which I thought worked better, but I understand that it was more time consuming.

About.Com has kept up the old archive of military photos and captions, many of which are quite amusing. Here’s a sample of water-related photos from the archive with the top-rated captions. You may click on the CAPTION # to see some of the other captions submitted.

U.S. Navy photo

CAPTION 23

“Mom said to come in NOW!” (David)

“Uh sir…enemy bombers in range!!” (Weasel)

“Oh $#!^, we hooked you up backwards on the CAT. Do some of that fancy pilot stuff and see if you can get pointed in the right direction.” (PaulFalk)

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Official DOD photo

CAPTION 62

The men knew that the Admiral was getting lazy when he conducted the first drive by open ranks inspection. (Jonathan Elder R)

“Hiding behind our backs? What? No! We’re not hiding anything behind our backs.” (Xie)

Damn Naval drag races… (Sgt. Yell2Much)

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Official DOD photo

CAPTION 36

The Environmentalists received this picture as an explanation for why so many ships were hitting whales. (XGEP)

“Okay Sir, do you see this little sinking boat? Yeah, that’s you.” (Coelho)

“Just 15 more years in the NFL and I could have bought one of these…15 more years….” (Devil Dogg)

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Official DOD photo

CAPTION 12

“Obi Wan? I haven’t heard that name in years.” (Veuxdeux)

“Hey soldier, Pull my thumb.” (PaulFalk)

Achmed’s “Popeye” impression was the last straw. The Navy silenced him with the 16 inch guns. (P3C-AT)

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Barnacles and other organisms that attach themselves to ships’ hulls are the focus of an enormous amount of attention, as experts try to find nontoxic methods of keeping hulls clean.

Historically, bottom paints have included compounds that deter organisms with their toxic effects. To be successful, such antifouling paints must slough off at a sufficient rate. That places these toxic compounds into the water, where they can build up in enclosed bays.

When and where such compounds actually reach toxic levels in the environment is a complex problem, involving the toxicity of the compound, the amount that gets released within an enclosed inlet and the level of mixing that occurs in the waters.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton is struggling with the issue of copper, a primary component in antifouling paints now that tributyltin has been banned. TBT builds up in marine life and is quite toxic to clams and oysters.

The Navy recently reached an agreement with the Department of Ecology to reduce the amount of copper in its stormwater discharges. Most of the copper comes from releases during sandblasting and painting activities. The Navy has tightened up its processes. (See Kitsap Sun, May 29.)

The Navy is considering treating such stormwater before release, and negotiations are under way for a new federal discharge permit. I’ll be writing more about this issue in the coming weeks.

Behind the scenes, the Navy is spending an enormous amount of money to develop new materials and processes to prevent growth on the hulls of ships. The reasons are obvious. Fouling of ships hulls can reduce vessel speed by up to 10 percent, requiring a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption to counter the extra drag. That’s amounts to roughly $1 billion a year the Navy has to spend, according to the Navy’s own figures. (See story on the Web page of the Office of Naval Research.)

It’s hard to tell whether there are any absolute breakthroughs, but some interesting findings are coming out of studies into why barnacles attach to some marine animals, such as gray whales, but not to sharks. Anthony Brennan at the University of Florida is looking at the unique surface pattern found on sharkskin and trying to mimic that for a ship’s hull. The best explanation of the concept can be seen in a video produced by the Office of Naval Research (bottom of page).

That report also mentions work by Shaoyi Jiang at the University of Washington, who is working on anti-fouling coatings that incorporate mixed-charge compounds, which alternate between positive and negative charges and seem to keep organisms from binding.

For recreational boaters, the University of California Sea Grant Extension Program has been studying alternatives in San Diego Harbor and Newport Bay with the idea that the ideas could be applied elsewhere. One study looked at silicone- and epoxy-based coatings.

For more details, check out “Demonstrating a Solution to Copper Boat Bottom Paint Pollution!” (PDF 28 kb).

When you think about it, the need for a low-cost product that will keep hulls clean is obvious, but I’m frankly amazed at how many ideas are floating around, as can be demonstrated by plugging the words “antifouling” and “hull” into a search engine.

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Fred Hill Materials has sold its gravel-mining operation known as the Shine Pit, yet the company plans to move full speed ahead on the controversial pit-to-pier project. See today’s story in the Kitsap Sun.

I’ve been hearing rumors for well over a year that the company was struggling financially, yet I was never able to confirm anything.

With this sale, the company acknowledges that it has been having financial troubles, at least with respect to the construction downturn in the current economy.

Opponents may hope that this new development will mean the end of the pit-to-pier proposal, which includes a four-mile conveyor belt and a 1,000-foot-long pier designed to move gravel by barge and ship throughout the Puget Sound region and along the West Coast. Environmental groups argue that the project could injure Hood Canal, threaten smooth operations at the Hood Canal bridge and interfere with Navy operations.

Company officials insist that the benefits of the project far outweigh the potential problems. They say the sale of the Shine Pit will mean an infusion of money to continue environmental studies and permitting activities on the pit-to-pier project.

It appears the company is staking a good deal of its future on this major project, despite a well-organized opposition.

Today’s story about the sale of the gravel pit was posted on the Sun’s Web site yesterday afternoon. I expected to see a bunch of comments by now, but there has been only one. The writer, didisaythat, makes an interesting point:

I can’t believe that no one’s commented on this story yet. Poor Fred has got to be rolling in his grave about now. How can they have a pit-to-pier project anymore when they just sold their pit ????? Lets see how long they can keep the concrete end up and running before they sell that too…. This story just doesn’t add up.

For permitting details, see Jefferson County’s project site.
For opposing arguments, see Hood Canal Coalition.

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I’m beginning to get confused about these high-adventure reality TV shows filmed on the high seas, as television producers escalate the clash of man against the elements.

First, we had “Deadliest Catch,” in which we watched a ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while catching elusive crabs.

Then came “Whale Wars” in which we watched a ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while hunting another ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while hunting elusive minke whales.
The twist: Our heroes sail aboard a dark and brooding vessel that projects the image of a pirate ship and flies a flag that looks remarkably like a traditional skull-and-crossbones.

Now comes a new show called “Pirate Hunters: USN.” If I get the gist of it, we will watch a ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while hunting another ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while hunting another ship’s crew riding giant waves and trying to stay alive while carrying cargo along the African Coast.
The ultimate twist: Our heroes sail with the most supreme naval force on Earth while flying the valiant flag of red, white and blue.

How can this show possibly go wrong?

OK, on a more serious track, let me update these three real reality shows for you.

Photo from the movie “The Perfect Storm”

(more…)

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Next week’s Frontline program on PBS allows viewers to race along with killer whales in the San Juan Islands, explore Seattle’s Elliott Bay with scuba divers and watch crab fishermen work their pots on Chesapeake Bay.

Hedrick Smith // PBS photo

Along the way, reporter Hedrick Smith peers into more stormwater outfalls than I could count, as he goes about asking scientists, politicians and environmental activists why Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay are dying.

The two-hour documentary, titled “Poisoned Waters” (Tuesday, 9 p.m., KCTS) features stunning visuals that remind us why we love our waterways. More importantly, the program confronts questions about why we allowed these estuaries to be used as a toilet, unraveling the food web and even threatening our revered orcas with extinction.

When I talked to Hedrick Smith this afternoon, he said this project was unlike any he had done before.

“As a reporter, I loved it,” he told me. “I’m an outdoor kind of person. I have sailed both bodies of water. I was passionate about the outdoors, but I didn’t realize how bad the situation was. This has been an enormous education for me.”

Smith worked for the New York Times for 26 years, serving as a national and foreign correspondent. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 as part of the team that broke the Pentagon Papers, revealing government lies about the Vietnam War. He won the prize again in 1974 for his coverage of Russia and Eastern Europe.

Smith has authored several best-selling books and produced 20 award-winning programs for PBS.

With a house on Orcas Island, he said he has visited Kitsap County numerous times, attending festivals and such.

The secret to good journalism, he told me, is to tell fascinating stories that use captivating pictures while explaining the “nitty gritty” of government policy and regulation.

“We want the topics to be interesting and entertaining and educational for people while pushing the frontier of their knowledge,” he said.

(more…)

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Sea trials this week for the newly repaired submarine USS San Francisco in the Strait of Juan de Fuca once again raises the question of whether the Navy can lessen its harm to marine life while adequately training for warfare.

USS San Francisco after underwater collision, Guam, Jan. 8, 2005. U.S. Navy photo

Check out my story in today’s Kitsap Sun, where I recount some of the history of this debate, which isn’t about to end soon.

We’ve covered this question many times in Water Ways. (Just put “sonar” into the search engine of this blog to go back more than a year.) The Navy won the first round in the legal theater when the U.S. Supreme Court (PDF 308 kb) reversed lower federal courts and decided that it would not second-guess the Navy until more studies are done.

I know there are many people who believe it’s an open-and-shut case, that the debate should be over, that the Navy’s mission is too important to allow interference by environmentalists, lawyers, courts or politicians.
I believe, however, that the debate is worthwhile, provided we bring knowledge to the table, though it may be uncomfortable at times.

As a result of the Shoup incident in 2003, the Navy stopped using sonar in Puget Sound except on rare occasions, such as this week. It appears the move was good for whales and dolphins, and I have not heard of any profound regrets from the Navy.

The Navy has undertaken a great deal of research about the impacts of whales on sea life, as it should, and Navy commanders have committed to making the information public. From that, scientists can debate what is and is not safe. In the process, we all can learn.

OK, there are also debates within the debate — such as whether the studies are independent enough of Navy influence — but that’s another question.

While the public does not need to know all about Navy tactics and capabilities, I believe everyone is served by discussions that can lead to either 1) better protections for the environment, or 2) knowing what environmental sacrifices we are making to protect our country.

Maybe it’s my training and experience as a reporter, but I don’t believe any one person in this debate is totally right. I believe, however, that even folks with an extreme point of view can learn from this debate and contribute something to the discussion.
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In closing, I’d like to respond to those who have criticized my stories for not containing enough “facts” or else brushing lightly over the details.

In the first case, I have a relatively good relationship with Navy officials, but (as anyone involved with the Navy knows), the Navy is very cautious about the information it releases, so often my stories are not as complete as I would like. If something is speculation or opinion, I try to label it as such.

The issue of details is often a judgment call. Looking back on my early career, I often filled my stories with details that left the average reader behind while satisfying a limited number of experts. Now, I tend to go the other way, trying to put things in context and leaving out a lot of details. Over the past year and a half, I have been fortunate to write this blog, Watching Our Water Ways, where I can post links to documents and Web sites for those who like to dig deeper. I hope that satisfies more people in the long run.

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Concerns about the Navy’s use of sonar Tuesday night in the Strait of Juan de Fuca are reverberating among environmental groups, whale advocates and researchers.

USS San Francisco leaves Bremerton Tuesday // Kitsap Sun photo

Many are wondering whether killer whales and other marine mammals may have been injured by the intense sounds — including human voices —emanating from the recently repaired fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco.

From what I gather, there is talk about calling for an official investigation into the Navy’s activity, perhaps with input the National Marine Fisheries Service. More discussion is expected tonight at a public forum called by whale advocates concerned about an expansion of Navy training activities. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. at Port Townsend Community Center, 620 Tyler St.

Meanwhile, Val Veirs, professor emeritus of physics at Colorado College, has calculated that the highest levels of sound received at Lime Kiln Lighthouse on San Juan Island was about 140 decibels, according to a press release issued this afternoon by The Whale Museum. Veirs is president of the board for The Whale Museum.

“The received levels of the signals at Lime Kiln Lighthouse were about the most intense sounds that the hydrophones there have recorded in the past several years of continuous operation,” Veirs said a written statement.

The sonar pings were about as intense as those recorded in May 2003, when the Navy’s guided missile destroyer USS Shoup moved through Haro Strait, Veirs said.

Biologists observing killer whales at that time believe that the animals responded to the sound by moving away at a rapid pace. As a result of that incident, the Navy changed its protocols on the use of sonar.

I have requested additional information from the Navy about operations by the USS San Francisco, including general mitigation measures that the Navy takes when using sonar around marine mammals. Navy officials have indicated that the crew took the normal precautions to protect marine mammals.

For those still wondering about the strange human voice emanating through the water, you can start finding answers with this brief entry in Wikipedia:

The underwater telephone also known as UQC or Gertrude was developed by the U.S. Navy after World War II, the UQC underwater telephone is used on all manned submersibles in operation. Voices communicated through the UQC are heterodyned to a high pitch for acoustic transmission through water.

Based upon the Navy’s acknowledgment that crews were operating sonar in the Strait of Juan de Fuca but not Haro Strait, Veirs made additional calculations of the sound energy that must have emanated from the sub.

“We estimate that the distance between our hydrophone at Lime Kiln Lighthouse and the submarine was in the neighborhood of 10 nautical miles,” Veirs said. “For our hydrophones to pick up the strong signals that they did, the submarine was emitting sound with source level in the range of 174 to 226 dB re 1 microPa@1m.”

I’ll look to others to report on definitive studies and tell me whether these sound levels can cause injury under the circumstances we find in Puget Sound. But I seem to recall the levels reported by Veirs are worthy of concern. See “NOAA Technical Memorandum: Sound Exposure and Southern Resident Killer Whales (PDF 884 kb).”

While The Whale Museum has received no reports of stranded or injured marine mammals, the organization wants the public to be on alert and contact the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network, (800) 562-8832, if unusual behavior is seen.

Howard Garrett of Orca Network offered this response to a comment related to the previous entry about the sonar incident.

“The fact the sonar was taking place in the Strait of Juan de Fuca rather than Haro Strait is even more disturbing because 1) that is where the reports of Transients, a minke, & 2 gray whales were; & 2) if the sonar was happening in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, & it was being picked up so loudly at Lime Kiln & NW San Juan Island, then it must have been much louder closer to the source in the Strait…”

Obviously, this discussion will continue.

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