With the weather warming up and opening day of boating season
just around the corner, I would like to take a moment to mourn for
those who have lost their lives in boating accidents.
A kayak adrift near Vashon
Island raised alarms for the Coast Guard on March 31.
Photo: Coast Guard, 13th District
More importantly, I would like to share some information about
boating safety, because I keep thinking about Turner Jenkins, the
31-year-old visitor from Bathesda, Md., who lost his life in
January when his kayak tipped over at the south end of Bainbridge
Island. (See
Kitsap Sun and
Bathesda Magazine.)
Every year, it seems, one or more people lose their lives in the
frigid waters of Puget Sound — often because they failed to account
for the temperature of the water; the winds, waves and currents; or
their own skills under such conditions. An Internet search reveals
a long list of tragedies in our region and throughout the
country.
This warning is not to scare people away from the water. I will
even tell you how to enjoy Opening Day events at the end of this
blog post. I can assure you that my own life would be much poorer
if I chose to never be on, near or under the water. But for those
who venture forth in boats, you must do so with your eyes wide open
to the dangers — especially if your craft is a paddleboard, kayak,
canoe or raft.
Camille Quindica, an eighth-grader from Kapolei Middle School in
Hawaii, captured the spirit of the maritime industry in a poster
that received top honors in an art contest with the theme
“Connecting Ships, Ports and People.”
Artwork by Camille Quindica,
eighth grade, grand prize winner, “Connecting Ships, Ports &
People” Maritime Art Contest
The annual art contest is sponsored by North American Marine
Environment Protection Association along with the U.S. Coast Guard
and the Inter-American Committee on Ports of the Organization of
the American States.
Camille’s drawing took the grand prize in the category for
grades 6-12. She was presented with a certificate, $100 and other
items by Coast Guard officials who visited her school two weeks
ago.
“We have winners from overseas and all over, and we’ve been
quite fortunate here in Hawaii,” said Cmdr. Ulysses Mullins, deputy
sector commander for Coast Guard Sector Honolulu. “We’ve had two
back-to-back winners and we’ve had the opportunity to present the
winners in person.” (See story and photo in
“Coast Guard News.”)
Artwork by Nelson Valencia,
third grade, Grand Prize Winner, “Connecting Ships, Ports & People”
Maritime Art Contest
Nelson Valencia, a third-grader at Atahualpa school in Ibarra,
Imbabura, Ecuador, was the winner of the grand prize in the K-5 age
group. Five other finalists were named for each of the two
categories. To view all the winning posters, visit the
NAMEPA website.
The winning posters have been compiled into a 2018 calendar.
Students were asked to submit an original poster that creatively
depicts the connections among ships, ports and people and how these
connections affect everyday lives. The contest was open to students
in grades K-12 throughout North America, Central America, South
America, and the Caribbean.
More than 500 entries were received, according to a
news release about the contest that lists all the winners.
Artwork by Wilson Cajas, second
grade, finalist, “Connecting Ships, Ports & People” Maritime Art
Contest
The theme for this year’s contest is “Better Shipping for a
Better Future.” Submissions will be accepted between Jan. 22 and
March 30. Details will soon be available on the NAMEPA website.
NAMEPA, led by the maritime
industry, promotes the preservation of the marine environment
through best operating practices and by educating seafarers,
students and the public about the need to protect natural
resources. A webpage, NAMEPA
Junior, provides a variety of activities for children.
The U.S. Coast Guard is dedicated to protecting U.S. coastal
areas along with maritime and environmental interests throughout
the world.
The Inter-American Committee on Ports (CIP) of the Organization
of American States (OAS) brings together the National Port
Authorities of all 35 sovereign nations of the Americas. The
organization promotes sound and sustainable policies for the
maritime industry.
The Coast Guard is asking for help in tracking down one or more
people who placed three emergency radio calls about two weeks ago.
The calls turned out to be a hoax, but they resulted in emergency
responses that cost more than $200,000.
The first call was placed on VHF-FM radio channel 14 about 11
p.m. on May 31, according to Coast Guard reports. The caller told
the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service that five people were
donning life jackets and abandoning the fishing vessel Bristol
Maid, said to be on fire in Lilliwaup Bay in Hood Canal. You can
hear a portion of the call:
1. First radio call
The Coast Guard deployed two MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crews from
Port Angeles and sent a 45-foot response boat from Seattle. A boat
crew from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office also searched the area.
The search, suspended after five hours, cost an estimated at
$138,000.
A similar call came in the following day about 9 p.m., reporting
that two adults and a child were donning life jackets and
abandoning a vessel between Hoodsport and Lilliwaup. The caller
first said the vessel was Bristol Maid but later changed the name
to Aleutian Beauty.
2. Second radio call
Again, a Coast Guard helicopter, rescue boat and a sheriff’s
office boat responded, along with a tribal fisheries boat. The
search was called off after more than three hours, costing about
$71,000.
Coast Guard officials believe the same caller placed a third
false call a day later around 10 p.m., saying a body had been
found.
3. Third radio call
These kinds of calls must be extremely frustrating for emergency
crews, who are on call around the clock to help people in distress.
Personally, I would like to see this caller or callers caught and
forced to explain themselves in court.
Coast Guard Capt. Michael W. Raymond, commander of Sector Puget
Sound, said hoaxes are a major problem.
“The Coast Guard takes every distress call seriously,” he said.
“False distress calls tie up valuable search assets and put our
crews at risk. They impede our ability to respond to real cases of
distress where lives may be in genuine peril.”
The Coast Guard would like to locate those responsible for the
hoax, which is considered a federal criminal offense with penalties
up to 10 years in jail and fines up to $250,000, along with
possible reimbursement for the cost of the response. Boaters are
reminded that they are responsible for radio use by their
passengers. Could you imagine showing up on sites
like https://www.checkpeople.com/mugshot-search
just because one of your childish passengers decided to prank the
police? That would be unbearable to say the least.
Anyone with information about the caller or callers heard on the
radio recording is asked to call the Coast Guard 13th District
Command Center, (206) 220-7003. Here’s the original Coast Guard news
release.
I thought it would be great to pass along some water-related
jokes linked to the Navy or Coast Guard. In searching the Internet,
I found a few good ones, some clean and some dirty. It seems that
most of the good jokes have simply been revised and recycled again
and again through the years. There are plenty of bad jokes I would
just as well forget.
Here are my favorites that seem suitable for general audiences.
If you have heard a good joke about the military that you can share
in good conscience, please feel free to write it down in the
comments section below. If you know the source or remember where
you first heard the joke, please mention that as well. Continue reading →
UPDATE, OCTOBER 15
President Obama signed the Coast Guard Authorization Bill today.
For details, check out the news
release from U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
—–
President Obama is expected to sign a sweeping authorization
bill that reorganizes U.S Coast Guard operations, increases
maritime safety rules and calls for improved oil-spill prevention
and response in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
It seems this bill has something for everyone, at least among
those of us living in coastal states. By skimming through the
Coast
Guard bill or reading
a summary, you get an idea of just how sweeping these changes
will be for the Coast Guard.
The legislation, largely written by Sen. Maria Cantwell of
Washington, was blocked by Republican leaders in the Senate for the
past four years. To get approval, several provisions were stripped
from the bill in the Senate. Then in the House, many of these ideas
were put back in and ultimately approved when it came back to the
Senate.
What are the most important parts of the bill? Well, that
depends on whether you are involved in the Coast Guard, the
shipping industry, the fishing fleet or just want to protect
against oil spills or terrorists. Continue reading →
As the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history unfolds in the
Gulf of Mexico, emotions are boiling over along the Gulf Coast.
An oil-covered pelican
flaps its wings on an island in Barataria Bay off the coast of
Louisiana on Sunday. The island, home to hundreds of brown pelican
and other birds, is being hit by oil washing ashore.
AP photo by Patrick Semansky
Sitting here in the Pacific Northwest, I am still dazed by the
realization that an oil well, nearly a mile under water, has gone
out of control, spewing millions of gallons of crude and creating
an underwater mess bigger than what we see on the surface.
I cannot fathom that we are experiencing a disaster likely to be
many times worse than Alaska’s Exxon Valdez. Until somebody figures
out how to turn off the flow of oil, we can’t begin to estimate the
size of this catastrophe or imagine that things will get
better.
BP is hoping that a process, never used underwater, will stop
the flow of oil. The technique, called a “top kill” and performed
on above-ground wells in the Middle East, involves shooting heavy
mud and cement into the well. The first shot could come tomorrow.
Chances of success are estimated at 60-70 percent by BP, but the
company’s track record for estimates has not been good so far.
Oily dead birds and other sea life, predicted weeks ago, are
washing up on shore. Sensitive marsh lands, impossible to clean
without destroying them, have been touched. Longtime fishermen and
fishing communities are shut down.
“Once it gets in the marsh, it’s impossible to get out,” Charles
Collins, 68, a veteran crew boat captain told reporters for the
Los Angeles Times. “All your shrimp are born in the marsh. All
your plankton. The marsh is like the beginning of life in the sea.
And it’s in the marshes. Bad.”
Yesterday, I joined a telephone press conference with Lisa
Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She
was doing her best to calmly cope with the enormity of the
disaster. She had just come off a boat after witnessing oil piling
up on shore. Joining her was Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, who
is in charge of the National Response Team.
Jackson said the federal government has ordered BP to cut back
on the use of dispersants, which break up the oil but may have some
toxic effects. No formal studies have ever been conducted on the
effects of applying huge quantities of dispersants underwater, but
limited studies in recent days suggest that this approach may be
the least harmful method to keep the oil from coming ashore.
Without such treatment, the oil itself is highly toxic and a
much greater concern, she said. BP has been ordered to look for
less toxic alternatives than the dispersant currently being used,
but safer alternatives may not be available in the quantities
needed. Meanwhile, Jackson said her staff believes the treatment
can be equally effective by using half or less the amount of
chemical applied until now.
Keeping as much oil off the shorelines as possible seems to be
the top priority. That starts by keeping some of the oil immersed
as tiny droplets underwater. Oil that reaches the surface is
attacked by skimmers and burned if necessary. Fighting the oil with
absorbent booms and pads along the shore is the last step.
I hope this strategy is not one of “out of sight, out of mind,”
because the oil immersed in the water becomes a problem of its own.
It’s been compared to a bottle of oil-and-vinegar salad dressing
that you shake up, breaking the oil into tiny globules that float
around. Smaller globules are believed to degrade faster in the
environment.
Still, with this oil starting 5,000 feet below the surface, it
could take months or years to coalesce, rise to the surface and
come ashore, where cleanup crews could be facing oil damage for an
undetermined amount of time.
“I’m afraid we’re just seeing the beginning of what is going to
be a long, ugly summer,” Ed Overton, who has consulted on oil
spills for three decades, told Bob Marshall, a reporter with the
New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I hope and pray I’m wrong, but I
think what we’re in for is seeing a little bit come in each day at
different places for a long, long time — months and months. That’s
not what I said in the beginning of this. But events have made me
amend my thoughts.”
Some constituents of the oil will never come ashore but will
drop to the bottom of the Gulf in various locations. As specialized
bacteria move in to break down the oily compounds, they will
consume oxygen, potentially adding to the dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico.
If this were an earthquake, I would be reporting on damage
assessments and offering hope for a renewed community. If this were
an oil spill from a ship, I would be talking about worse-case
scenarios and long-term effects. But, frankly, it is hard to know
what to say when the spill goes on and on with no certainty at
all.
To view a live video feed of the oil spill, go to
BP’s web cam mounted on a remotely operated vehicle.
Last, but not least, I am learning a good deal from bloggers who
are part of the UC Davis
Oiled Wildlife Care Network. They are working in the Gulf and
providing an insider’s view about their work with affected
wildlife.
Pelicans fly past a nest of
eggs on an island off the the coast of Louisiana on Saturday. The
island, home to hundreds of brown pelican nests, is being impacted
by oil coming ashore.
AP Photo by Gerald Herbert
Former Washington governor Gary Locke was nominated this morning
to be President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, a department that
oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
other agencies integral to environmental issues in the
Northwest.
Gary Locke accepts
nomination to be Commerce secretary.
White House photo by Pete Souza
I was preparing to write something about Locke’s environmental
history in Washington state, then I saw a piece that Howard Garrett
of Orca Network had written. So I’ve yielded this space to him, and
I would welcome further comments from anyone:
Gov. Locke has been a reliable friend of the Southern Resident
orcas.
You may recall that on May 5, 2003, the USS Shoup was training
with mid-frequency active sonars in Haro Strait where 23 members of
J pod were foraging. The whales were videotaped as they bunched up
near the shore and seemed very agitated, and at least 7 porpoises
washed up dead days later. In June, 2003 Gov. Locke wrote a letter
to the acting secretary of the Navy requesting a report on the
incident and an explanation of the mitigation measures to prevent
it from happening again. He wrote: “The actual or potential impact
of sonar use on Puget Sound marine mammals is a concern.”
Ten years ago Gov. Locke said about our endangered Chinook,
“Extinction is not an option.”
As Secretary of Commerce, Locke will preside over the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine
Fisheries Service (responsible for salmon and orca recovery) and
will have a key role in determining how to best restore salmon runs
in the Salish Sea and from the Columbia River to the Sacramento.
The Obama team has declared that respect for science is back, and
with Locke at Commerce and OSU marine biologist Jane Lubchenko as
the new head of NOAA, there is every reason to expect that sound
science will guide restoration efforts, at last.
Also, in December 2002, Governor Locke provided money from his
own discretionary funds to pay for the rescue tug at Neah Bay to
prevent oil spills, during the state’s $2-billion shortfall.
Gov. Locke is also among the political figures who have
supported the goals of the Lolita Come Home campaign to retire the
Southern resident orca captured in 1970 who remains on display in a
Miami marine park. See Orca
Network’s Captivity page.
If Gov. Locke is nominated and confirmed as Secretary of
Commerce, he will be in a position to act on these principles
immediately in the determination of the impacts of the proposed
expansion of the Navy’s Northwest Training Range to include most of
the waters along the coast from Neah Bay, WA, to Eureka, CA. If
approved, multiple ships, subs and aircraft will be practicing with
a wide range of sonars including explosive active sonars, along
with demolition charges, torpedoes and a variety of anti-submarine
munitions. See Orca Network’s page
about the training range.
The comment period has been extended to March 11, and NOAA is
required to review the proposal and comment on the potential
impacts to marine mammals (including endangered Southern Resident
orcas) and birds, fish (especially listed chinook salmon) and
turtles along the coastline. The Navy EIS says no marine mammal
mortalities are anticipated due to mitigations, such as placing
observers on ships and listening for whale calls amid the
maneuvering ships, sonars and explosions. As Secretary of Commerce,
Locke (or Lubchenko) will review the EIS and at the very least,
comment on how realistic that prediction of no mortalities really
is. It’s unclear whether NOAA can hold up the training range
expansion.
Locke can also be a valuable voice in Secretary of State
Clinton’s diplomatic initiatives to tone down international
tensions following 8 years of Bush/Cheney hostility, which degraded
communications and contributed to the perceived need to train for
an attack by enemy submarines.
Howard Garrett Orca Network
Greenbank WA
360-678-3451
