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Is the state serious about a Maui-Oahu tunnel?
Maui Time Weekly, April 2, 2004

The waves are flat and the beach is empty, except for one guy standing on some rocks at Baldwin Beach in Paia, overlooking a crumbling army pillbox from World War II. It had rained earlier in the day, and the air was still moist. The guy is just a few feet from the old pillbox, yet he doesn't seem to see the dilapidated structure. Instead, he's staring over it at the ocean beyond.

"That's where the main spar will jut in," the guy said, throwing his right arm straight out. "She'll come straight in, then veer over there towards the airport. The geography isn't perfect, but it's doable. No question it's doable."

The guy is Jack Moffett, the president and chief engineer of Moffett & Associates, a small engineering firm based in La Jolla, California--not far from the University of California, San Diego. But there's nothing small about Moffett's plans for Hawaii.

For the last few weeks, Moffett has been meeting quietly with state and federal officials, mostly in Honolulu, but lately here on Maui as well. Their subject matter: How to construct a road and rail line that would link the four main islands of the Hawaiian chain.

For the past few decades, the only way to get from island to island has been by air. There's talk today of an inter-island ferry service--the Spirit of Ontario I, which is slightly smaller than the proposed "Superferry," even docked in Kahului Harbor a few weeks ago to show off for invited guests.

But Moffett, who said he's been working on the plan for the last four years, believes he has a better idea. He proposes to lay hundreds of miles of tunnels in the water between the islands. Similar in design to the "Chunnel" that crosses the English Channel, linking the United Kingdom and France, Moffett's tunnels would consist of two fast rail lines and a smaller service/escape tunnel in between. People would ride in passenger trains or load their cars on flatbed train cars. The whole system could even include inter-island oil, water and power lines.

"Right now the only way to get from Maui to Oahu is by airplane," said Moffett. "That is absolutely ridiculous, considering that the distance from Maui to Oahu is just 120 miles."

Just 120 miles. That's the distance from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. And that's just Maui-Oahu. Connecting Kauai and the Big Island would add 240 additional miles to the network.

Never mind that the longest tunnel in the world is just a little over 33 miles long. Or that a recently proposed tunnel running beneath the Strait of Gibraltar that would connect the continents of Africa and Europe would run less than 25 miles.

Yet Moffett's plan isn't as long as a proposed 140 mile-long tunnel connecting the Japanese home islands with the Korean peninsula. That tunnel would also involve a three-tube design. And it isn't even close to a theoretic immersed, floating tunnel discussed on a recent Discovery Channel program as well as CNN running the 3,000 miles between New York and London.

Nonetheless, the problems with Moffett's proposal are almost too numerous to catalog. How do you keep an underwater tunnel of that length sealed? How do you get travelers out should something go wrong? How do you keep people driving that distance not merely under ground but under the ocean from going crazy? How do you build the thing without disrupting the delicate reef ecosystem? And, of course, how do pay for the thing?

Moffett just smiled and shook his head when confronted with the last question. "How the hell do I know?" he said. "I'm just an engineer."

Then he took off his glasses and gave a kind of half-wink. "I leave it to the smarter people to figure out costs and such," he said. "Just as long as I get to build the world's longest underwater tunnel system in the world--and make a healthy profit along the way--I'll be happy."

If built, the Maui-Oahu tunnel would be remarkably similar to other undersea or subterranean tunnels around the world. Its three-tube design is pretty much an industry standard these days, allowing for easy maintenance and escape. Moffett said the trains would most likely be propelled magnetically through the tube, which would allow fantastic speeds surpassing even 200 miles per hour.

Every 50 miles or so, Moffett envisions rest stations with restaurants, shops, movie theaters and fitness gyms. If the state adopts a roadway option, the rest areas would include gas and service stations and possibly hotels. From entrance to entrance, hundreds of people would live and work.

Moffett even imagines stations or even tunnel stretches being transparent and lit by seafloor-mounted lights.

"Can you imagine driving and looking up and seeing sharks swimming overhead?" he said. "Or sitting back in a train observation car, just watching schools of fish?"

To many people, few experiences would compare. For others, especially those who have a hard enough time traveling through completely rock-lined tunnels, nothing would be so terrifying.

For reasons not entirely understood, sustained tunnel driving seems to affect women and the elderly, wrote Dag Gotthard in the May, 2002 edition of the engineering journal Shaft. In fact, the journey can be so frightening they require special counseling.

Obviously, if driving through a tunnel for a couple minutes causes problems, what will spending two to three hours or longer under the ocean floor do? Gotthard's thesis was that engineers could design "psychologically correct" tunnels using color, plants and special lighting.

"Especially long tunnels should include special widened tunnel sections about six kilometers [3.7 miles] in length," wrote Gotthard. "These will provide turning areas, police surveillance bays as well as architectural breathing spaces."

Gotthard suggested adding "illuminated lines of columns," which would make the tunnel seem larger than it actually is. "It's a simple fact that drivers feel safer in larger tunnels," he wrote. Gotthard added that painting or illuminating tunnels so they're green actually helps drivers relax.

Actual construction--at least as Moffett describes it--should be easier than most people think. First dredging equipment scrapes out a shallow trench in the ocean floor. Divers place temporary foundation blocks in the trench, then huge platforms are moved in.

These massive structures would then lower prefabricated sections of tunnel down into the trench. After sealing the sections, other equipment fills in the trench with backfill, and the whole process would begin again further down the line.

"You build a ramp at Kahului near the airport, another one in Honolulu, and then you start digging," Moffett said. "Just like laying down track for your old HO-scale train set, except you're using tunnel sections. Each side meets in the center, seals it up and breaks open the Korbel."

Moffett is 41 years old. He's about average height but thin--the sleeves of his green and white aloha shirt hang an inch below his elbows. He has closely cropped brown hair and bright blue eyes that seem to dance when talks to you.

By his own admission, Moffett was a problem child growing up in Carbondale, Illinois, a small town a lot closer to Kentucky--literally and culturally--than Chicago.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It was a tough place, we were all tough. Even the faculty had chips on their shoulders. I can remember chucking many a cantaloupe at teachers' houses."

Twice divorced--he joked that his exes are friendlier with each other than they are with him--Moffett spends much of his intellectual life hundreds of feet beneath the surface in the world of undersea tunneling. There, buzzcut men such as himself trade PowerPoint Presentations punctuated with weird engineering terms like "shotcrete," "shaft sinking" and "gravity base structures."

It's a world Moffett seems comfortable in. But that hasn't always been the case.

For seven years during the 1980s, Moffett served in the U.S. Navy as a submariner. Serving mostly on attack boats, Moffett became very familiar with the idea of spending weeks or even months underwater.

"A boat is like any other ship in the navy, except it doesn't have any windows," said Moffett. "But unlike the other ships, submarines only have one enemy, and that's the water that surrounds you. Every weapon you can think of--a missile, torpedo or depth charge--only serves to break open your hull and let the water come in. Every submarine that ever sunk was sunk by the ocean."

In the waning Cold War days of 1987, when U.S. and Soviet subs still chased each other around the world's oceans, Moffett's boat ran into trouble 250 feet down. Or rather, Moffett ran into trouble 250 feet down.

"You've seen, oh, what was that movie... Crimson Tide?" asked Moffett. "Remember how narrow those gangways and hatches are? Well, we were diving one day and I got to not looking where I was going and I tripped and fell down a stairwell. It wasn't a particularly glamorous way to end my career--I was going to be a 30-year man. But it did turn out to be a blessing in disguise."

Moffett said the accident left him with a crushed left arm--an injury so serious the Navy gave him a medical discharge. "Sure, it hurt like hell," said Moffett. "At least it was my left and not my right arm. Without my right arm, I wouldn't be able to... um... is this on the record? Uh huh... Well, if I didn't have my right arm, I wouldn't be able to play golf."

After his recuperation, Moffett said he decided to finish college, majoring in civil engineering.

Moffett paints a very pretty picture of high-speed trains and cars traveling hundreds of miles under the sea between the islands, but what about the surrounding reef? Won't tunnel construction damage its delicate structures?

"Hey, I love the reef," said Moffett. "There's nothing I like better than going scuba diving. Okay, to be honest, there's at least a dozen things I like better than scuba diving, but I do love scuba diving. I consider myself pro-environment, pro-marine life, and it pains me to say that dredging for the tunnel will tear merry hell out of that reef. Just blast it to Kingdom Come. If I could do this without ripping apart the reef I would, but I can't."

In fact, environmental degradation might be the least of Moffett's problems. There's still the little matter of political opposition to his proposal.

"I can't believe anyone is taking this guy seriously," said Sidney Finch, a spokesperson for the Fresno-based National Airline Association (NAA), an industry lobbying group. "His numbers don't even come close to adding up. Do you have any idea what his tunnels will cost? Try $100 billion at least."

Moffett bristles at such talk.

"Nobody knows that," he said. "No one knows yet what kind of federal transportation grants this thing could qualify for. If the officials I've spoken with are as serious about this as they seem to be, they will find a way to fund this."

No state or federal official contacted by Maui Time would comment on the record concerning the status of Moffett's proposal. Moffett himself wouldn't reveal which officials he's spoken with.

"At this stage of the game, no one wants to go public with this, and I respect that," he said. "But I can tell you that numerous people I've spoken with are very, very interested in this."

One legislative aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, did confirm that Moffett had met with "more than one" state representative.

"Oh yeah, we're all very familiar with this guy," said the aide. "He's a fascinating guy who, considering the utter outlandishness of his idea, makes a pretty good case. Can he make the numbers pencil out? That's the question. And can he at least hold his ground against the airlines? If he can, I think you'll find a few officials start to speak publicly on this. In just a few years, I think this will all be a very big deal."

Fisheries rules eased.
New federal rules will allow longline fishermen to catch swordfish and expand tuna fishing
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, March 27, 2004

Hawaii-based longline fishermen will be able to target swordfish for the first time in three years, under new federal rules to be announced Tuesday.

The National Marine Fisheries Service also plans to end its annual April-May closure of a huge area of the Pacific to Hawaii-based tuna longlining, fisheries officials said yesterday.

The changes were praised yesterday by Hawaii longline fishermen eager to take advantage of expanded fishing opportunities.

They are opposed by environmental groups that believe longline fishing remains a significant threat to endangered sea turtles.

A spokesman for the fisheries service, which regulates commercial fishing and protection of marine endangered species, said the new rules balance both concerns.

"We've worked hard over the last five years to find ways to reduce interactions between fishers and sea turtles," said Sam Pooley, acting director of the fisheries service's Pacific Islands Region.

Fisheries service experiments in the Atlantic Ocean showed that longline fishers using "circle" hooks and mackerel-type bait were able to reduce the number of sea turtles they accidentally hooked.

The agency will closely monitor Pacific results, Pooley said.

Fisheries service data estimate that between 1994 and 1999, before court-ordered bans on swordfish longlining by Hawaii-based boats:

112 leatherback turtles were caught in longline fishing gear and nine died.

418 loggerhead turtles were caught and 73 died.

Under rules to take effect Thursday:

Hawaii-based longliners would be allowed a total of 2,120 swordfish fishing days per year, half the amount allowed in 2000. The fishing time is to be divided evenly among all qualified applicants.

If a total of either 16 leatherback turtles or 17 loggerhead turtles are hooked, even if the turtles survive, the swordfish fishery will be closed for the remainder of the year. These limits will be enforced by fisheries service observers on every swordfishing vessel.

If turtle interaction limits aren't reached in a year's time, more swordfishing could be allowed in future years. If the limits are reached quickly, swordfishing will be reassessed.

Fisheries scientists have determined that longlining for swordfish hooks more sea turtles than longlining for tuna because the hooks are shallower in the water.

But the new rules don't satisfy EarthJustice attorney Paul Achitoff.

"Our position and the position of our clients for years has not changed: that the leatherback and loggerhead turtles are in jeopardy of extinction and that any increase in the number of turtles killed is unjustified both biologically and legally," Achitoff said yesterday. "And that's exactly what's going to happen with this reopening of the swordfish fishery."

The California-based turtle island restoration network, one of earthjustice's clients, is part of a coalition of conservation organizations and scientists seeking a united nations international ban on longline fishing.

Fishermen yesterday at a meeting of the Hawaii Longline Association said they don't expect all 154 Hawaii longline boats to apply to the fisheries service for swordfish certificates.

Most will continue tuna fishing, said Tom Hahn, president of the Hawaii Korean Longline Boat Owners Association.

It would cost $15,000 to re-outfit a boat now fishing for tuna to pursue swordfish, said Minh Dang, secretary of the Vietnamese Longline Association. Dang said he would only undertake that expense if certificates are good for at least 45 days, preferably more.

Scott Barrows, director of the Hawaii Longline Association, called the new fisheries service rules "good for the turtle and good for the fisherman."

If they work for Hawaii's 3 percent share of Pacific longlining, Barrows said, they will be a model for international fleets that fish the same waters and hook the same turtles.

Pooley said observers on swordfish boats this year will cost about $2 million and those on tuna boats will cost up to $3 million.

The agency also is spending $1.2 million for sea turtle conservation projects at nesting beaches in Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, Mexico and Japan, he said.

Shearwaters finding refuge in Kihei park
Maui News, March 25, 2004

Wedge-tailed shearwaters, an indigenous Hawaiian bird that has been killed by predators in some areas of Maui, have found refuge in a sanctuary set up at Kamaole Point in Kihei. Buck Joiner, a Kihei community activist, has established the sanctuary, roping off about a quarter of an acre at the beachfront parcel to protect the birds and their nesting area.

"I think it's really great," state wildlife biologist Fern Duvall said about Joiner's efforts.

On Tuesday, Duvall reported he had recovered the carcasses of 15 adult wedge-tailed shearwaters, or uau kani, killed Tuesday in their nesting area near Spreckelsville. He said it was clearly a dog attack, with the heads, wings and feet of the birds crushed or torn off.

It was only the most recent of a number of bird kills involving the shearwater on Maui. Others have occurred at the Spreckelsville nesting area, on a bluff near Hookipa Beach Park and at Pauwela Point. The worst incident reported was in September 2002 when 93 mostly young birds were killed by feral cats at Hookipa.

Duvall said it takes a minimum of four to five years for a bird to reach sexual maturity, so losses of adult birds as occurred in Spreckelsville are considered an especially tragic loss to the population.

Joiner wants to avoid the same type of tragedy in Kihei. His efforts to help the shearwaters started several years ago when he began restoring the overgrown vegetation on the 2-acre site situated between Kamaole Beach parks II and III.

Joiner had led a fight against development plans for the area and pushed the county to purchase the beachfront property. The county bought the land for $6.3 million in July 1998. Joiner pledged he would organize cleanups and spearheaded the Kamaole Point Volunteers who turned the state beach reserve into a groomed public park shortly thereafter.

During cleanup efforts in 1999, Joiner came across a shearwater's nesting hole and quickly consulted with a botanist who confirmed that the shearwaters were in the area.

The birds feed at sea during the day, gliding on sea breezes and air currents with wings that spread more than three feet across, and then come into Kamaole Point sometime after sunset to 3- to 4-foot-deep nesting holes they dig out of the sand.

Duvall said he found four burrows in 1999, and now estimates there are at least 17 active ones today.

"Each year more and more of them come back," Joiner said.

Duvall said the birds are attracted to the native vegetation that the Kamaole Point Volunteers have planted in the sandy dune that overlooks a rocky point between the two beach parks. The shearwaters' tunnels are delicate, and both Duvall and Joiner fear that people walking along the beachside may inadvertently step on a burrow and crush the birds.

Joiner said he already has found one bird hole that was filled with trash, apparently by someone thinking they were cleaning the beach.

During the 2003 nesting season, Joiner put up a makeshift fence with chicken wire. But a fence could pose a hazard to the birds flying in after dark.

This year, he's set up low ropes along the ground and put up signs with pictures of the birds and information about them. The signs ask people to be cautious in the area and to put their pets on leashes when visiting the site.

"It's still evolving," Joiner said about his sanctuary effort.

Duvall said Joiner's efforts to protect the shearwaters has allowed his office to keep track of the bird population in the area. Duvall was especially impressed with Joiner's laminated signs and his efforts to disseminate accurate information about the birds.

According to Joiner, the shearwaters are named for the way they feed, skimming close to the surface of the water as they hunt for fish, squid and other small marine animals.

The birds are about 16 to 18 inches long; with a wingspan that can run up to 41 inches across. Their average life span runs 10 to 11 years. Their nesting season runs from about March when they start building their burrows until late July through early August when the chicks hatch.

After the chicks are hatched, the parents feed regurgitated squid and stomach oil to their chicks. Feeding takes place every 24 hours during brief visits in their first week of life.

The chicks fledge in approximately 100 to 115 days, leaving the nest to take off on their own usually in late October or November. The parents desert the nest, forcing the fledged chick to leave the burrow and take flight - but while the fledgling learns to take to the air is when it is most vulnerable to predators.

Duvall said he's not discouraging people from trying to observe the shearwaters, but he cautions those in the Kamaole Point area to stand outside of the roped area.

The birds can be heard at night making loud groans, moans and wails which gave then their Hawaiian name. Uau is a name given to another indigenous seabird, the dark-rumped petrel. Uau kani means "calling uau."

"It sounds like ghosts wailing. It's really amazing," Duvall said.

Wedge-tail shearwaters feed during the day, and fishermen have been known to look for bird flocks because it's a good sign that a school of tuna is close by. Joiner asks that visitors in the Kamaole Point area report any stray animals near the nesting area by calling 874-BUCK

Near-shore fishing remains free-for-all as bills die
Pacific Business News, March 22, 2004

Fishing in Hawaiian waters continues to be a near free-for-all despite legislative attempts to fix the problem.

Isle conservationists claim Hawaii's near-shore waters are being overfished and stocks are dwindling. But legislative bills this year and last offering to further regulate fishing were defeated by a vocal group of commercial and recreational fishermen, who insist their views are not being represented.

Meanwhile, fishing regulations currently on the books are not adequately enforced because there are only 100 conservation officers statewide to enforce state fish and game laws. Those regulations limit the type, size and number of fish that can be caught, depending on the season.

"There's a practical challenge -- our officers can't be everywhere at once," said Peter Young, chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, charged with enforcing fish and game laws.

Critics of overfishing say lax enforcement is part of the problem.

Marine Life Conservation Districts comprise less than 1 percent of all inshore waters in Hawaii, far below the 20 percent many marine scientists view as the minimum amount of inshore waters that should be highly protected.

Part of the problem is fishermen misunderstanding what the laws are trying to accomplish, said Rep. Hermina Morita, D-Kapaa-Hanalei.

Fishermen view laws to regulate fishing as a threat, said Morita, who introduced two bills in the past two legislative sessions, both of which died. She maintains that current laws regulating catch size aren't enough to rebuild Hawaii's depleted fisheries.

The community must become involved for fisheries management to succeed, she said.

"This is a community issue that must be solved on that level, not from the top down," Morita said.

Legislators hoped educating fishermen and the community would help, which was what the latest bill sought to do.

This year's House bill was basically the same as last year's with the language toned down, said Rep. Blake Oshiro, D-Aiea-Pearlridge, who helped introduce the measure. But changing the language did little to assuage opponents, who questioned whether there was true community involvement and felt blindsided by last year's bill.

"They came out in full force to oppose it," Oshiro said.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources has found that public meetings don't necessarily reflect the whole community's views.

Young was assured fishermen supported a similar bill last year, but was surprised when he went to a hearing filled with fishermen complaining they weren't part of the process.

"It was clear to me we need better communication," he said.

Passing a new statewide law to manage declining nearshore fisheries may prove too difficult because of conflicting views. Smaller, community-managed areas may be the answer. They already have proved successful on the Big Island.

The West Hawaii Regional Fishery Management Area was created in 1998 and extends along 147 miles of shoreline there. The zone, which designates no-fishing areas, was created at the community's urging in response to the aquarium trade's adverse impact on the area's coral reefs.

It's proof fish in managed areas grow bigger and are more productive and help populate adjoining areas, Morita said.

West Hawaii's program is working, said Sarah Peck, University of Hawaii Sea Grant extension agent for West Hawaii. People with diverse opinions and levels of interest now advise the state's Division of Aquatic Resources on managing the area, she said.

Getting the community involved was key to making the process work.

"The igniting reason was, there grew to be quite a bit of conflict along the whole West Hawaii shoreline," Peck said.

For 20 years it was viewed as a conflict between aquarium fish collectors and the dive/snorkel industry.

"But then the community as a whole became aware the fish were disappearing," Peck said, adding that, for the first time, people who had not been involved directly -- took action. "They banded together," she said. "They were the ones who got the legislators to create this regional fishery management area."

Pacific Whale Foundation report on green sea turtles published in Marine Turtle Newsletter

Results of a study conducted by Dwayne Meadows, former Director of Research for PWF, were published in the latest issue of the Marine Turtle Newsletter (No. 103, pgs. 1-5). The report is on the behavior of green sea turtles in the presence and absence of recreational snorkellers, and was conducted with the assistance of many Pacific Whale Foundation naturalists. Way to go, guys!

The report can be downloaded from:
http://www.seaturtle.org/mtn/PDF/MTN103.pdf

Honoring one dolphin's legacy
[Op-Ed piece by Adam Pack regarding dolphin deaths at Kewalo]
Honolulu Advertiser, March 10, 2004

Early in the morning of Feb. 24 Hiapo, our male dolphin, passed away. His death was unexpected and the staff, students and friends of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory are deeply grieved and mourning the loss of their collaborator and companion.

After the earlier passing of 27-year-old dolphins Akeakamai and Phoenix from cancer (both had been with the lab for 25 years) the lab's plan was to find Hiapo a temporary home at another facility. This plan would allow Hiapo to
have new dolphin companions while the lab's nonprofit arm, the Dolphin Institute, created a new and expanded habitat and research and education facility.

Unfortunately, during this transition period the University of Hawai'i administration decided to replace Hiapo's closest human companions (our staff) and his familiar routines and tasks with their own unfamiliar staff and training regimen. Having been associated with the lab since 1983, I knew and worked with Hiapo for most of his years.

The university's actions distressed me and my staff, and I can only imagine how it was for Hiapo. Although filled with grief and working to move the lab forward, I am left to address the comments of Cathy Goeggel in The Advertiser's Feb. 27 article "Lab under fire after latest dolphin death." Goeggel, who is closely associated with those individuals who, in 1977, stole our dolphins Puka and Kea and released them into the wild where they met certain death, unjustly smears the laboratory's name and record.

The truth is that the lab, under the direction of Dr. Louis Herman, has an unparalleled record of accomplishment in scientific studies of dolphin sensory perception, cognition, and communication. The lab has produced over 80 journal articles, books, book chapters, masters theses, and doctoral dissertations on dolphins and another 60 scientific articles on humpback whales.

This productivity has earned the laboratory a world-renowned reputation of excellence in the scientific community. In addition, scores of television documentaries by National Geographic, NOVA and the BBC; articles in magazines such as National Wildlife and Time; and two IMAX films have heightened the public's awareness, respect and understanding of dolphins as well as the challenges dolphins face in the wild at the hands of humans.

Finally, thousands of elementary and high school students in Hawai'i have learned about and fallen in love with dolphins and whales through the laboratory's marine mammal outreach programs. In short, the lab has contributed a great deal to the understanding of dolphins and has highlighted Hawai'i as a place of excellence for the study of marine mammal science.

The passing of Akeakamai, Phoenix and Hiapo is tragic and has affected thousands of individuals locally, on the Mainland and abroad who came to the lab over the years to work with these extraordinary dolphins. Hawai'i should be proud of its laboratory and should honor the incredible legacy of knowledge that Akeakamai, Phoenix and Hiapo have left the world community. Let the record speak for itself.

Adam A. Pack, Ph.D.
Associate director, Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory
Vice president, The Dolphin Institute

Fleet returns after killing 440 whales
March 30, 2004, AFP

Japan's research whaling fleet has returned to port after killing a self-imposed quota of 440 minke whales in Antarctic waters, officials said.

Two vessels arrived at Shimonoseki port, 800 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, while another ship returned to a port in Innoshima, east of Shimonoseki, said an official at the Fisheries Agency.

The factory ship, carrying most of the whale carcasses on board, and another vessel are to arrive in Hakodate, 700 kilometres north of the capital, on Wednesday after five months in the Antarctic Ocean, south-west of Australia.

"This mission was designed to gather data such as eating habits of whale populations," the agency official said, adding that the whalemeat would be sold in Japan "in line with international rules".

No anti-whaling protests greeted the boats at the two ports yesterday. A spokeswoman for environmental group Greenpeace said that no rallies or statements were planned to oppose their return.

Japan argues that the research backs up its claims that whale populations are thriving, and provides data showing whales are consuming valuable fish stocks. Opponents argue it is just commercial whaling in disguise.

Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1988 after withdrawing its objection to the global moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission.

Red tide suspected in Panhandle dolphin die-off
Associated Press, Mar. 27, 2004

Red tide is suspected in a Panhandle bottlenose dolphin die-off that has killed 97 of the marine mammals.

Two more dolphins washed ashore Friday on Rosemary Beach and in St. Joe Bay. All the dolphins have washed up between Franklin and Santa Rosa counties.

Officials believe red tide or a related biotoxin is to blame, although scientists have yet to make a final determination.

Red tide is a toxic alga bloom known to kill sea life. Test results returned recently from samples of fish carcasses in the area also show evidence of red tide, officials said.

A similar dolphin die-off between 1999 and 2000 also totaled about 100 and remains under investigation. The National Marine Fisheries Service Web site reports that a harmful algae bloom is suspected to be the cause of that die-off.

Entangled whale heads out to sea, thwarting rescue attempt
The Virginian-Pilot, March 27, 2004

Kingfisher , the young right whale entangled in commercial fishing gear, outran would-be rescuers Thursday night, swimming quickly to the Cape Hatteras area and out of range of their Wilmington, N.C. -based vessels.

As a result, plans were shelved to sedate the year-old whale and remove thick ropes wrapped tightly around both fins.

Teri Rowles, lead veterinarian for NOAA Fisheries and head of the nation’s program to rescue stranded and endangered marine mammals, has said that the rapidly growing whale will die if the lines are not removed before they begin cutting into his flesh.

“We are not giving up on attempts to save this whale,” Rowles said in a NOAA news release, adding: “As long as the tracking device stays on the whale and functions correctly, we will continue to monitor his location and assess the situation. As you can imagine, we are very disappointed.”

The 34-foot-long male whale, one of only about 300 of its species left in the North Atlantic, was expected to swing out to sea as it passes the Outer Banks, basically following the Gulf Stream.

That would leave it too far from shore for rescuers, who had planned to use tranquilizers and divers to remove the lines and buoys on the whale. It was named Kingfisher after the Coast Guard cutter that first spotted it off St. Augustine, Fla., last week.

The whale appears still to be feeding, said Kent Laborde , a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesman. The scientists, who attached a satellite tracking device to the whale on March 17, expect it to come back to shore and be near enough for a rescue attempt again somewhere around Cape Cod, he said.

Right whales were among the most heavily hunted species for more than eight centuries. They swim slowly, live near the shore and float when dead, making them the “right” whale for seafarers going after blubber and baleen.

Right whales are on the Endangered Species List and have been protected since 1949 . Up to one-third of their deaths each year are the result of ship strikes or entanglement in fishing gear, NOAA said. They can live about 70 years, grow to 60 feet and weigh up to 80 tons.

Right whales have no teeth, feeding on krill and other small shrimp like creatures, which are trapped in the whale’s flexible baleen plates, which humans once used for corsets and umbrella ribs.

Individual whales are identified by patterns of thickened skin and whale lice that form white patches on their heads, over their eyes and around their mouths.

Seal hunt closely monitored
26 March 2004, Green consumer guide

Commercial hunting for seal pups in Eastern Canada, which began this week, is being monitored by the International Fund for Animal Welfare for incidents of abuse.

The hunting, which is subsidised by the Canadian government, lasts around three weeks and is expected to bring in around 350,000 seals. IFAW investigations into seal hunting in the region over the last five years have recorded evidence of over 600 possible breaches of Canada’s marine mammal legislation, yet the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has failed to act on a single incident.

Code of conduct violations such as skinning live seals, transporting live seals via hooks and prolonged killings via shooting, along with a widely reported failure by hunters to check if seals are dead, are among the abuses that take place during the hunt.

Whales' sound fishing trick
Scientists believe they may have solved one of the mysteries of how humpback whales successfully hunt - and their findings may help beat cancer in human beings.
BBC News, March 25, 2004

It has long been known that some species of whale hunt by creating a cylindrical column of bubbles in which fish are corralled. But until now, no-one knew why the fish had refused to swim out.

However, Professor Tim Leighton, of the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton, UK, has said he believes the whales use sound to scare the fish into staying put.

"If sound is propagating through water, the most potent, naturally occurring entity it can meet is a bubble," he told BBC World Service's Discovery programme.

The bubbles slow sound down - a beam of sound aimed towards the bubbles will be trapped, bouncing around within the column at a speed of 1km/s.

"If [the fish] ever try to leave the net, what they encounter is a very loud wall of sound," Professor Leighton added.

'Scary noise'

When humpbacks hunt, up to 30 of them will circle in the deep water, releasing bubbles. As these bubbles rise to the surface, they create a column, inside which fish congregate. The humpback whales will then swim up from beneath the cylinder and eat the fish.

"We know fish will swim through bubbly water quite happily," Professor Leighton explained. "I think what is happening is that while the whales are producing this net, they are making a very loud, scary noise. As these sounds get trapped within the cylinder of bubbles, the fish stay within the quiet region."

What is more, the startled fish form a tight school, and so make a compact meal for the whales when they rise up from beneath the trap with their mouths open.

There may now be many potential uses for these findings.

Specifically, Professor Leighton said there were many opportunities for using the acoustic effects of bubbles - especially in the arena of modern warfare.

"In the oceans, it is becoming very important because our naval scenarios have moved from being deepwater, where you're looking for nuclear subs underneath the ice caps, to shallow waters like the Gulf," he said.

"[There] are many waves breaking, many bubbles, in which you can hide objects like mines."

The research has potential benefits in medicine, too. Bubbles can be collapsed while inside the body using ultrasound. This makes them potentially very useful in seeking out and destroying dangerous cells.

"We might conceive of one day taking the bubbles and coating their outer surface, so that as they travel through the body they can track down particular types of cells," Professor Leighton explained.

"So we put these bubbles in, they spread though the body, they attach to particular types of cells - perhaps cancer cells - that you want to get rid of.

"Then if we hit these bubbles with ultrasound, we can collapse them."

The bubbles would then act like "little injectors", and whatever was contained within the bubbles would be injected into the dangerous cells to kill them.

Study: Manatees hear, dodge boats
Mar 24, FLORIDA TODAY

Manatees are not stupid. When a boat is within about 80 feet, the animals dart to deep water, according to a study by six South Florida scientists.

The study suggests slow-speed boating zones allow the animals the time they need to avoid oncoming boats.

"It wasn't surprising," said Randall Wells, director of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. "We know that manatees are hit by boats, but nobody had looked systematically at how the manatees react when the boats approached them."

The two-year study focused on how 30 manatees reacted to 170 vessel passes in Sarasota Bay, just south of Mote Marine. Most of the boats were 15- to 25-feet long.

The researchers videotaped manatee reactions to approaching boats, using a camera propped to a 29-foot-long blimp, tethered 200 feet above a small houseboat.

"It did not matter whether the boat was moving slow or fast," said Douglas Nowacek, assistant professor of oceanography at Florida State University. "Fast is no better than slow, when it comes to manatees reacting."

That conclusion contradicts research by Ed Gerstein, a manatee biologist at Florida Atlantic University and Joe Blue, a retired Navy acoustics researcher.

They say manatees can't hear the low-frequency sounds most boats emit when going slow.

Underwater noise from dredges and barges, they say, can also mask the sound of approaching vessels.

Gerstein said he doubts manatees can hear boats from as far as 80 feet. "Many boats out there never reach the threshold for the animal's hearing," he said.

He and Blue built a device that sends a narrow underwater sound beam in front of boats to alert manatees. They're seeking a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit to test the device in Haulover Canal.

EU reveals new dolphin protection
24 March 2004, Green consumer guide

The European Union has unveiled new measures to protect dolphins and porpoises from harmful fishing practices in the region. The main regulatory changes are; driftnets will be phased out in the Baltic Sea by 2008; the use of ‘pingers’ or acoustic deterrent devices on fishing nets will become compulsory on vessels over 15m, and the monitoring of by-catches by an observer scheme.

All of the changes were introduced following scientific recommendations on cetacean protection, and will be implemented across member states fisheries. The measures will be closely monitored in order to improve success.

"This decision will better protect dolphins and porpoises against being accidentally trapped in fishing gear. Dolphins are not the only ones to benefit. Biodiversity will be strengthened and reduced by-catches of dolphins and porpoises will be positive for the image of the fishing sector, as fishermen never want to catch them in the first place,” said Franz Fischler, Commissioner responsible for Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Fisheries.

Ben Bradshaw, the UK Fisheries Minister welcomed the decision, commenting; “Today's agreement is an important step by the European Union as a whole to follow the UK's lead. The UK has been seeking Community action to address this problem for some time.”

Officials ask Natives to call off beluga hunt
The Associated Press, March 22, 2004

Biologists say so many beluga whales died last year in upper Cook Inlet that Alaska Natives should forgo a subsistence hunt next summer.

But representatives of two Cook Inlet Native whale-hunting organizations said they have misgivings about suspending the small annual hunt only four years after it resumed.

Last year, scientists confirmed the deaths of 20 whales, including five or six suspected to have died when 46 whales were stranded in Turnagain Arm on Aug. 28.

Under previous agreements between local Natives and the National Marine Fisheries Service, the harvest would stop if more than 18 whales die in a season.

Formal regulations, however, have not yet been published and made final, though they contain the same trigger of 18 whale deaths. As a result, the agency has asked Native groups to voluntarily suspend the hunt as part of a 2004 co-management agreement, said biologist Kaja Brix, chief of protected resources in Alaska.

"The decision does not wholly rest in our hands," Brix told the Anchorage Daily News. "We did some accounting, and we sent out a letter that we hit the trigger in our agreement. ... We're still trying to get some feedback from the parties."

Representatives of two Native whale-hunting organizations question whether the agency's biologists took into account a recent surge in baby belugas.

More belugas swim in Cook Inlet than scientists may realize, said Peter Merryman, head of the Cook Inlet Marine Mammal Council and traditional chief of the Athabascan village of Tyonek.

"Every spring we see more calves," he said. "It's not our fault that they died naturally (in 2003), and why should we suffer?"

The depleted whales are thought to number 350 to 400 in one of the smallest genetically isolated cetacean populations in the world. Once thought to number 1,300, the belugas plunged to an estimated 347 by 1998 in a decline federal biologists blamed on overhunting by Alaska Natives.

Killer Whales Mimic Each Other
March 18, 2004, Discovery News

High-tech underwater equipment has enabled researchers for the first time to ascribe sounds to individual killer whales, and the recordings reveal that whale families like to mimic each other when communicating.

Killer whale sounds have been captured on tape before, but only in group recordings where scientists could not identify the whales making sounds. The latest data suggests whales communicate with each other in ways that are similar to humans, other primates, dolphins and birds. The findings will be published in the upcoming issue of the journal Animal Behavior.

According to Patrick Miller, lead author of the paper and a scientist at the NERC Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he and his colleagues followed distinctively marked killer whales using a small boat that was towing a beam-forming hydrophone array. They used the beam to calculate the angle of sounds, and to identify whales that produced noises.

All captured sounds came from members of family groups. That is because whales live in very close-knit units. Killer whale sons and daughters generally do not leave their mothers until death.

The sounds were recorded when individuals were out of visual range of their families by at least 20 degrees. The scientists were able to identify individuals because of a publicly available photo identification catalog of whales that was created by scientists John Ford, the late Michael Bigg, Graeme Ellis and Ken Balcomb.

Analysis of the recordings revealed that when one killer whale family member would call out, another relative would mimic the sound. Random calling tests proved that such mimicry was greater than chance, meaning that the whales must be copying each other intentionally.

While Miller and his colleagues are not entirely certain about the meaning of the calls, they believe that the "conversations" help to preserve family togetherness.

Miller told Discovery News, "Humans are well known to match word choice and gestures of others in a form of social accommodation. The call type matching of killer whales may similarly be a way for fish-eating killer whales to show their willingness to act together with other group members."

Humans mimic each other for comparable reasons, as when someone says, "Good morning," to a friend or family member, who replies with, "Good morning." Prior research indicates that bottlenose dolphins engage in similar vocal matching.

Volker Deecke, a postdoctoral fellow at the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, and the Cetacean Research Lab at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center in Canada, has been studying killer whale vocal communication for over 10 years.

Deecke agrees that the vocal mimicry probably maintains killer whale family cohesion, and thinks Miller's paper "presents a powerful approach showing how scientists can use technology to gain insights into the lives, behavior, and communication of animals that live and function in an environment that is otherwise inaccessible to humans."

Deecke added, "Being able to consistently identify vocalizing individuals in the wild is a crucial first step towards determining the behavioral context when killer whales call, and ultimately determining the function of the calls themselves. Obtaining recordings from known individuals can also identify individual differences in the structure of calls and answer questions about how the calls are transmitted from generation to generation."

Group petitions to protect coral, restrict trawling
Seattle Times, March 25, 2004

Frustrated with what it calls regional foot-dragging to protect newly discovered deep-sea coral gardens, an international environmental group yesterday demanded strict federal rules to limit bottom fishing in wide areas of the oceans, including off Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

The group Oceana has requested that the Commerce Department bar bottom-trawling fisheries not only in all areas where the ancient coral and sea sponges have been found in abundance, but areas where they might possibly be discovered in the future.

Huge areas off the Alaskan coast and the Aleutian Islands could be among those cited for restrictions, as well as the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary of Washington and areas off the Oregon and California coasts.

But the bottom-fishing industry immediately criticized Oceana, based in Washington, D.C., of end-running existing regional negotiations and accused the group of inflating the abundance of the coral beds and the damage the industry inflicts on the undersea old-growth.

"It's very frustrating, because the fishing industry has been working hard on these issues for a lot of years, and what Oceana has done is completely circumvent the public process," said Ed Luttrell of the Groundfish Forum, a Seattle trade group representing several local trawling companies.

Oceana's move is the latest escalation of a fast-erupting environmental debate. The coral gardens, discovered in Alaska only recently, have become a rallying symbol in the fight over ocean-fishing practices, particularly bottom trawling, the dragging of weighted nets across the ocean floor to scoop up rockfish, cod and anything else in the way.

Scientists say the cold-water reefs are vital undersea habitats that are perhaps thousands of years in the making, akin to old-growth forests on shore. The scientists contend that trawling is essentially clear-cutting an irreplaceable resource.

"We don't want to make the same mistakes with our ocean environment that we have with our terrestrial environment," said Dave Allison, director of the campaign against bottom trawling for Oceana.

Oceana's petition to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans demands that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) search for areas with high concentrations of coral and designate them as "habitat areas of particular concern," which would close them to bottom trawling.

But the proposal, in an effort to protect coral gardens that have not been found, recommends that the government also close any parts of the oceans that haven't been dragged with bottom trawlers in the past three years, which potentially amounts to an expansive part of the oceans.

An NMFS spokeswoman yesterday acknowledged that it had received the petition, but said it was too early to say how it would be reviewed. Typically, the agency first reviews such petitions to determine whether a broader study is merited.

Meantime, Oceana is also trying to gain support in Congress to legislate coral-protection plans and won't rule out more lawsuits. It contends the coral should be protected under a 1996 law that requires protection of essential sea habitat.

Oceana already has been working with regional advisory groups in several parts of the country, including Alaska, after it won a lawsuit there to force stricter provisions to protect the coral beds.

Luttrell contends that Oceana's latest petition shows that it won't settle for compromise, and that it won't accept regional efforts to find ways to protect the coral beds without harming the fishing industry.

Contrary to Oceana's portrayals, Luttrell said, the industry is also interested in conservation and environmental protection.

In Alaska, Luttrell said, "we only impact 1 percent of the fishable bottom, outside areas that are already closed. We've been fishing that area for decades and decades, and the Northern Pacific has the healthiest fishery in the world. But we're the easy target."

But Oceana's Allison said the regional councils have so far been unwilling to do anything but promote the status quo by imposing impossible requirements for setting aside areas from trawling.

"The fish-management agencies are not designed to protect the ocean, they are designed to promote the fisheries," Allison said. "And time is running out for the corals."

White House Slashes Endangered Species Funding
Key Programs Face Cuts
National Wildlife Federation, April 2004

President Bush in his latest budget proposal is seeking to cut funding for the endangered species program by $7.6 million, or more than 5 percent. Of the four core endangered species programs, the species recovery program was hit the hardest, with cuts of more then 14 percent. Funding for candidate conservation, which is where species wait before being officially listed and provided all the protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and species consultation also face big cuts. All told, President Bush's $15.3 billion Department of Interior budget will allot only $129 million for endangered wildlife protection.

"The Endangered Species Act is one of our landmark national environmental laws, and it is being starved of money, and I think it is a conscious effort," says John Kostyack, senior counsel for NWF. "Considering the amount of money in the federal budget, to dedicate so little to endangered species suggests a real hostility toward protecting vanishing wildlife."

The Bush cuts could affect hundreds of listed species on the verge of extinction, many of which remain listed precisely because of an historic lack of funds for protection, management and restoration. Examples include Hawaii's poouli, which numbers only three individuals, making it the world's rarest bird; the northern Rockies population of woodland caribou, which numbers only 35 animals; and the Mississippi gopher frog, limited to a single Mississippi pond. Wolf recovery in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming is also part of the 14 percent cut in the recovery program budget.

However, the administration has increased funds for Section 6 ESA grants by $8.4 million. These grants, which include traditional grants to states as well as Species Recovery Land Acquisition grants, are aimed at helping private landowners protect habitat for listed and unlisted species. They claim increasing these grants helps endangered wildlife, and that is probably true, says Kostyack. However, it is at the expense of the safety net for endangered species provided by the ESA.

U.N. Warns About Ocean 'Dead Zones'
Mar. 29, 2004, Associated Press

So-called "dead zones," oxygen-starved areas of the world's oceans that are devoid of fish, top the list of emerging environmental challenges, the United Nations Environment Program warned Monday in its global overview.

The spreading zones have doubled over the last decade and pose as big a threat to fish stocks as overfishing, UNEP said its Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2003, released at the opening of the agency's 8th summit for the world's environment ministers.

The new findings tally nearly 150 dead zones around the globe, double the number in 1990, with some stretching 27,000 square miles.

Dead zones have long afflicted the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay, but are now spreading to other bodies of water, such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, Gulf of Thailand and Yellow Sea, as other regions develop, UNEP said.

They are also appearing off South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The main cause is excess nitrogen run-off from farm fertilizers, sewage and industrial pollutants. The nitrogen triggers blooms of microscopic algae known as phytoplankton. As the algae die and rot, they consume oxygen, thereby suffocating everything from clams and lobsters to oysters and fish.

"Human kind is engaged in a gigantic, global, experiment as a result of inefficient and often overuse of fertilizers, the discharge of untreated sewage and the ever rising emissions from vehicles and factories," UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said in a statement.

"Unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly," Toepfer said.

UNEP urged nations to cooperate in reducing the amount of nitrogen discharged into their coastal waters, in part by cutting back on fertilizer use or planting more forests and grasslands along feeder rivers to soak up the excess nitrogen.

The announcement comes as environment ministers from more than 150 nations gathered on the South Korean resort island of Jeju at UNEP's 8th Special Session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum.

Increasingly frequent dust and sand storms and impending global water shortages will also headline the three-day summit.

UNEP warns that without concerted effort to improve access to safe drinking water, a third of the world's population is likely to suffer chronic water shortages within a few decades. About 1.1 billion people lacked access to safe drinking water in 2000, while another 2.4 billion lacked access to basic sanitation, UNEP said.

The growing frequency of dust and sand storms is another concern, especially storms caused by land degradation and desertification in Mongolia and northern China.

Scientists have recently linked similar storms, originating in the Sahara, with damage to coral reefs in the Caribbean, UNEP said.

Discussions in Jeju will form a basis for deliberations at the 12th meeting of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development to be held in New York next month.

That meeting will assess progress toward United Nations targets of halving the proportion of people with no access to safe drinking water or basic sanitation by 2015.

Exxon Penalties Could Rise as Valdez Oil Lingers
Reuters, March 24, 2004

Fifteen years after the Exxon Valdez supertanker split open on a submerged reef off Alaska, stubborn pockets of crude oil persist on once-pristine beaches and creatures ranging from sea otters to harlequin ducks and herring are still struggling.

But local residents and some government scientists are at odds on whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should be forced to pay an additional civil penalty for the spill.

The landmark $900 million civil settlement Exxon signed in 1991 to resolve federal and state environmental claims included a $100 million re-opener clause for damages that "could not reasonably have been known" or anticipated. Under the settlement terms, the re-opener may be asserted until 2006.

Doing so would be a legal decision, not a scientific one, say those studying the spill.

"I think it's pretty clear that there were adverse effects that were not anticipated. I think that's pretty well established. It doesn't make a case for the re-opener," said Jeff Short, a National Marine Fisheries Service scientist who studied the lingering oil spill's effects.

POISONING SEA LIFE

Experts assumed all the 11 million gallons (50 million liters) of crude from the March 24, 1989 spill would be gone by 1995, Short said at a recent conference in Anchorage. But 600 tonnes of oil remained on beaches in 1995, much of it still liquid, he said.

Sea otters digging into relatively fresh oil are still unleashing toxins, he said. And government studies indicate that oil causes harm at much lower concentrations than originally believed and that previously ignored chronic effects are long-lasting.

Even if those findings are surprising, the settlement requires more than that to enact the re-opener. It mandates specific restoration projects to address the unanticipated injuries.

Identifying such projects could be difficult, some scientists concede.

Ending all damages - such as the swollen and pale livers in sea otters loyal to the spill-struck beaches - could require a generational turnover, said Brenda Ballachey, an expert with the U.S. Geological Survey. "It may be that if there's liver damage, it's lifelong for animals," she said.

Some environmentalists fear that there will be no attempt by the Bush administration or Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski to secure the additional $100 million.

'COZY WITH THE OIL COMPANIES'

"If any case deserves a re-opener, this one does," said Rick Steiner, a marine biologist and environmental activist.

"I'm perfectly confident that the entire $100 million can and should be obtained. The fact that they haven't gone after it indicates that the two administrations are simply too cozy with the oil companies," he said.

The government settlement is a separate case from the class-action lawsuit filed by fishermen, Alaska Natives, property and business owners, and municipalities.

In that case, a jury in 1994 ruled that Exxon's actions leading to the spill were reckless and reprehensible, and the panel awarded a $5 billion punitive fine to the plaintiffs. After various appeals, a federal judge upheld a fine of $4.5 billion, plus interest.

"We have until 2006 to do this. We don't want to do it prematurely, and we don't want to do it ineffectively," said Assistant Alaska Attorney General Craig Tillery.

The re-opener was one of the most difficult parts of the 1991 settlement, said former Alaska Attorney General Charlie Cole, who represented the state in the settlement deal.

"We negotiated on that clause for two or three days. Each word was thoroughly discussed and carefully selected," he said. The government insisted on the provision despite Exxon's opposition, said Cole, who supports using the re-opener.

LONG-TERM DAMAGE?

Exxon Mobil, the successor to Exxon Corp., argues that there is no lingering harm from the 1989 spill.

"The environment in Prince William Sound is healthy, robust and thriving. That's evident to anyone who's been there, and it is also the conclusion of many scientists who have done extensive studies of the Prince William Sound ecosystem," Exxon Mobil said in a statement.

"What science has learned in Alaska and elsewhere is that while oil spills can have acute short-term effects, the environment has remarkable powers of recovery," it added.

Jerry Neff, a scientist who once worked for the company, said spilled oil takes a long time to dissipate and questioned assertions of long-term damage.

"In many cases, the so-called long-term effects are really due to natural changes in the environment," said Neff, a marine biologist and ecologist with the Massachusetts-based Battelle Memorial Institute. Trying to dig up the spilled oil would do more harm than good, he said.

"It would cause a lot of disturbances ... and set the recovery back several years," he said. "My feeling is, if it's not doing any harm, why not just leave it there?"

But scientists say the remaining oil is slowly poisoned sea life.

Government recommends children, some women, limit fish intake
Associated Press, Friday, March 19, 2004

Worried that mercury in fish poses a hazard to youngsters -- while still trying to stress the health benefits of seafood -- the government issued new guidelines Friday for eating fish.

Women who are pregnant, nursing or may become pregnant, and young children should not eat certain kinds of fish that tend to be high in mercury, said Lester Crawford, deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

While mercury can affect almost any organ in the body, "the most sensitive organ is the brain," said Crawford. "The concern is there could be a mental effect on a young child."

At the same time, the new guidelines emphasize that fish is a good source of protein and other nutrients and "can be important parts of a healthy and balanced diet."

Dr. David Acheson, an FDA scientist, said that for people other than pregnant women and young children, fish has many benefits and there is no specific guideline on limiting it in the diet. In fact, he added, eating fish has very important cardiovascular benefits.

Acheson said the way fish is prepared makes no difference as to the amount of mercury included in a serving.

In recent years fish has become increasingly popular because of the omega-3 compounds it contains that can benefit the heart.

The American Heart Association recommends that people eat a variety of fish at least twice a week, even more for those diagnosed with heart disease.

The problem is that mercury pollution from industry and other sources contaminates water. It pollutes small fish, which are then eaten by larger fish, concentrating the mercury which then may affect people who eat the fish.

So, questions have arisen about how best to protect human health.

Consumer's Union and other groups have been pressing the government to come up with a consumer-friendly list of low-mercury fish, since not all fish are polluted equally.

The new guidelines, issued jointly with the Environmental Protection Agency, do that.

They say the fish most likely to contain mercury are shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. These fish should be avoided by women in the groups that may be most affected, and also by small children, the guidelines say.

On the other hand, the guidelines suggest eating up to two meals a week, totaling 12 ounces, of fish known to be low in mercury such as shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish.

Albacore tuna has more mercury than light tuna, the agencies report, so it should be limited to one meal a week.

The trade association the National Fisheries Institute issued a statement stressing the health benefits of fish and expressing concern that the guidelines might alarm consumers and cause them to avoid fish.

But Crawford said that "by following these guidelines, we're confident that women and young children can safely include fish as an important part of a healthy diet."

New Investigation Finds Corps of Engineers Wastes Billions and Harms Environment
Highlights Most Wasteful Projects in the Nation
March 18, 2004

Defiant after four years of scandals that rocked the agency, the Corps of Engineers (Corps) is moving ahead with more than $12 billion in projects that harm the environment and waste taxpayer dollars, according to a two-year investigation that reveals a recipe of politics and pork that has led Congress to turn a blind eye to legislative fixes that could stop many of these projects in their tracks.

In conducting the investigative report Crossroads: Congress, the Corps of Engineers and the Future of America’s Water Resources, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) read through tens of thousands of pages of Corps documents and conducted dozens of interviews to rank the most environmentally and fiscally wasteful water projects in the nation. The report provides an action agenda for Congress and the Bush Administration to redirect the Corps toward more responsible, cost effective projects that protect the environment and use tax dollars wisely.