Back in 2010, President Obama announced the creation of the National Ocean Policy (NOP), a landmark effort to safeguard our oceans and coasts, and the jobs and communities that depend on them. For the first time ever, the 20 federal agencies that govern our oceans are now working together, rather than in conflict, to manage our marine resources and activities. This common-sense principle has such clear rewards that it was recommended by two separate bipartisan commissions during George W. Bush’s presidency. 

The latest report from the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative (JOCI) shows how far we’ve come in just two years under the National Ocean Policy. After decades of uncoordinated ocean management, federal agencies are now communicating more efficiently and effectively under the National Ocean Council. By coordinating more closely with states, tribes, and local governments, federal agencies are working to cut waste while preserving resources important to local economies that depend on fishing, tourism, and clean energy development.

And at the regional level, under the National Ocean Policy, multi-state partnerships are facilitating greater engagement among stakeholders, fostering ocean science and research, and using improved tools like regional ocean planning to map out a sustainable future for our oceans.

Despite these gains, the National Ocean Policy has a long way to go, especially with obstructionist politics standing in its way. As JOCI’s report card emphasizes, Congressional attacks on the National Ocean Policy threaten to hurt its effectiveness and contribute to the bad grade given for national-level implementation.

In the most recent round of partisan attacks on this common-sense policy, Republican leaders in Congress are trying to gut the National Ocean Policy all together.

Just last month, House Republicans passed through an amendment to a critical government spending bill, prohibiting any federal funding for National Ocean Policy efforts. With this misguided vote, leaders of the House aimed to stop agencies from working together to address critical problems, like contaminated beachwater, marine debris, loss of valuable coastal habitat, and future oil spills like the 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The Joint Ocean Commission rightfully urges Congress to reject such efforts to restrict or prohibit funds from being used to implement the National Ocean Policy.

Now our senators have the chance to stand up for smart ocean management when a companion bill comes to the floor of the Senate as early as this month.

We can’t afford to let backdoor attacks jeopardize the future of our oceans. From coast to coast—and everywhere in between—we depend on our ocean resources for food, jobs, and recreation. It’s time for Congress to step above the partisan bickering, get serious about protecting the health of our oceans, and move the National Ocean Policy forward.

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

We demand a lot from our oceans. From fishing and tourism to shipping and energy development, we expect our oceans to deliver valuable resources for generations to come. However, with all these different human activities currently handled on an ad hoc basis -- it’s a first-come, first-served system for industries like fishing and oil-extraction -- it’s not surprising that our seas are suffering under a barrage of problems. Pollution, overfishing, ocean acidification, and loss of wildlife habitat are putting our food sources, ocean-related jobs, and important marine ecosystems in jeopardy.

Comprehensive ocean planning, also known as marine spatial planning (MSP), offers a common sense solution through smart planning. It allocates space in the oceans for various uses, balancing multiple demands and the need to protect ocean ecosystems and habitats. It identifies and can help quantify the trade-offs among different siting options. In other words, this smart planning strategy can identify the most efficient solution, minimizing conflicts between different industries, while protecting the marine environment and wildlife.

The Massachusetts study shows clearly how our economy can benefit from such spatial planning.  New wind energy zones, off Massachusetts and other coastal areas, could contain hundreds of turbines that—if located incorrectly—could harm fish habitat, alter commercial fishing patterns, and displace endangered whale species. The study assesses the potential conflicts among offshore wind energy, commercial fishing, and whale-watching sectors and identifies and quantifies the value of choosing optimal wind farm locations that minimize conflicts among these sectors. The study concludes that optimal siting of offshore wind zones could generate more than $10 billion in extra value to the energy sector and prevent more than $1 million in losses to the fishery and whale-watching sectors, as contrasted to the status quo.

It’s this same emphasis on finding efficient, win-win solutions that forms the backbone of our nation’s first National Ocean Policy, established by President Obama in 2010. Up until now, some 140 laws and 20 agencies have governed our seas, each with their own agendas and often conflicting mandates. The National Ocean Policy requires that all agencies that play a role in ocean-related work finally coordinate their efforts. 

This is a major step to reduce waste, inefficiency, and delay in our government. The National Ocean Policy calls for agencies, together with states and Tribes, and with stakeholder and public input, to develop comprehensive regional ocean plans. As shown in the Massachusetts Bay example, such planning can mean a stronger economy and more jobs for hardworking Americans.

With our oceans contributing more to our nation’s economic output than the entire U.S. farm sector, we can’t afford to just cross our fingers and hope for the best. The National Ocean Policy will help us efficiently protect our ocean resources and our economy for generations to come.

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Today the Obama administration released its draft Environmental Impact Statement on its proposed plan to allow areas offshore the Mid and South Atlantic to be surveyed for their energy development potential. This would allow seismic surveying, which uses air guns (i.e. high decibel acoustic energy pulses blasted from ships) to map the ocean floor. Seismic surveys can be catastrophic to ocean life, including endangered whales and commercial fishing stocks.

In the ocean, animals communicate by sound. The sound impact from seismic surveys can displace marine mammals, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, away from nurseries and foraging, mating, spawning, and migratory corridors. Seismic airgun surveys also have been shown to damage or kill fish and fish larvae and have been implicated in whale beaching and stranding incidents.

And these surveys will be occurring at and around some of the Atlantic’s most amazing submarine canyons. (“Ocean Oases” is a short NRDC film about the urgent need to protect the Atlantic Coast’s underwater canyons and seamounts.)

Cut into the Atlantic’s continental shelf is a series of vast undersea canyons, starting just north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and running up past Cape Cod. The canyons dive down thousands of feet over clay and stone cliffs before reaching the deep ocean bottom. The canyons host an amazing variety and abundance of marine life. Their hard foundations have allowed deep sea corals, rare sponges, and vivid anemones to grow and a bevy of fish and shellfish find food and shelter in these complex and dynamic environments. Endangered sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals feed on congregating schools of squid and small fish. Commercial and recreational fishermen enjoy fishing the waters around the canyons. The types of coral and sponge communities in the seamounts and canyons have even yielded scientific and technological advances, including compounds for cancer treatments, models for artificial synthesis of human bone, and elements for constructing more durable optic cables.The canyons that would be impacted by seismic surveys in the Mid and South Atlantic include Baltimore, Accomac, Washington, and Norfolk.

The oil and gas industry has not been allowed in these areas since drilling exploratory wells near several of the canyons in the early 1980s; Salazar’s announcement changes this. 

We do need to plan ahead for our energy needs.  Well-sited renewable energy shows much promise to help us keep the lights on at home. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we know the widespread ecological and economic devastation that can result from an offshore oil well blow-out. Even small oil spills can kill marine organisms and disrupt marine ecosystems. Properly sited offshore wind offers us a cleaner and safer way forward.

Our oceans support a host of jobs, food and recreation and we need to protect our ocean resources and allow these important services to continue into the future.

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Shortly before the National Ocean Policy was established, a firestorm broke out when a columnist for ESPN.com spread the unfounded rumor that the policy would close off large swaths of the ocean to fishing. Almost immediately, columnists from around the country proclaimed that President Obama was trying to ban fishing, except the rumor was false. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association issued a response stating in no uncertain terms “The Ocean Policy Task Force has not recommended a ban on recreational fishing.” ESPN, after severe criticism from other outdoor columnists, ran a clarification that it was an opinion piece.

The truth is the National Ocean Policy will be GOOD for fishing. Agencies are tasked with helping preserve and restore important fish habitat, not to ban or curtail recreational fishing. Comprehensive ocean planning helps us address various stressors on fish populations – from habitat loss to pollution – in a comprehensive manner and puts fishermen at the table so that their voice is heard at the start of the planning process. 

The National Ocean Policy is a landmark policy that calls on us to evaluate all of the uses of the ocean –fishing, tourism, industry, military, energy – and identify how to manage these uses more sustainably. Instead of the current first-come, first-served approach to using our ocean waters, it calls for the development of regional ocean plans that would benefit us all.

The facts are:

• The National Ocean Policy’s development benefitted from a robust stakeholder engagement process, which included hundreds of recreational and commercial fishermen and the organized sportfishing lobbies. 


• A representative from the Regional Fishery Management Councils (the federal-state bodies tasked with developing fisheries policies) will have a formal role in developing the relevant regional ocean plans. This is in addition to the impact that fishermen will continue to have through stakeholder and public engagement.


• The Obama Administration has commented that commercial and recreational fishing will continue to be managed under the same laws and regulations such as the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Regional Fishery Management Councils and all relevant state and federal laws. There will not be a ban on fishing. 

The whole point behind this policy is to promote cleaner water, along with healthier and more sustainable oceans. This can only help fishing.

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

For more than four decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has worked to manage fisheries, restore coastal areas, and support marine commerce. As NOAA officials know well, our oceans are vital to our national economic growth. In 2009 alone, ocean-related tourism and recreation generated more than 1.8 million jobs and contributed more than $61 billion to the nation’s GDP. That same year, the commercial fishing industry supported more than 1 million jobs.

In fact, compared with the entire U.S. farm sector, our ocean economy is larger and employs more Americans. 

Building a sustainable economy means keeping the resources we depend on healthy and thriving. And with our ocean resources facing an already turbulent future, protecting marine life, critical habitat, and ocean ecosystems is more important than ever.

Funding levels for many programs aimed at reversing this decline have been going down since FY 2010. Now the president’s budget proposal would deliver even more cuts to programs that protect and restore coastal and marine habitat, protect estuaries and coastal lands, and rehabilitate marine mammals. Programs that are being cut include:

• The Habitat Conservation and Restoration Program, which has restored more than 69,000 acres of coastal and marine habitat since 1996 and protected nearly 980 million acres of fish habitat from impacts of fishing gear since 2000. Currently the program is planning restoration in coastal areas affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.


• The National Estuarine Research Reserves System , which encompasses 28 estuarine research reserves nationwide that have been established for long-term research, education, and coastal stewardship.


• The Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELP), which protects coastal and estuarine lands considered important for their ecological, conservation, recreational, historical or aesthetic values. To date, the program has protected nearly 75,000 acres of coastal land.


• Marine Mammal Recovery Grants, which provide funding for the recovery and rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals.


• Marine Debris Program supports national and international efforts to research, prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine debris

It’s important to note that some projects under NOAA are not feeling the heat. The White House’s proposal includes major funding for NOAA’s satellite program, which aids in weather predictions and atmospheric monitoring. While this program is vital to our understanding of atmospheric changes, satellite funding should not come with the price tag of sacrificing our coastal and marine resources.

The proposed budget cuts represent a double- whammy for NOAA, coming on the heels of the administration’s earlier announcement that it wanted to move the agency to the Interior Department as part of a more general reorganization plan. 

In the interest of all Americans-- from Louisiana fishermen to hotel owners in California -- Congress should support a strong NOAA to effectively monitor and help manage our oceans, coasts, and fisheries. Achieving a sustainable, growing economy means ensuring that we have clean water, clean beaches, and abundant fish and wildlife, now and for generations to come.

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Any day now, the National Ocean Council -- a forum for federal agencies -- will release a draft blueprint of how we should best tackle the major threats facing ocean life, such as ocean acidification, habitat protection, water quality and pollution. We are looking forward to a robust public discussion of how we can help.

Putting a strong ocean action plan in place is one of the key deliverables of the national ocean policy set into motion by President Obama in 2010. The national ocean policy -- for the first time ever-- calls on agencies to coordinate their offshore work and ensure that our oceans will be healthy for this and future generations’ use.

The executive order that established this policy also called for comprehensive, regional ocean planning to evaluate the uses of our oceans -- recreation, fishing, tourism, industry, energy and conservation -- and identify ways to manage these uses sustainably so that future generations, as well as our own, can continue to enjoy the ocean’s vast resources. NRDC just developed a basic fact sheet on the value of this kind of smart ocean planning -- it’s exactly the sort of common sense process we need to get our watery home in order. And this short film narrated by Philippe Cousteau -- a tireless ocean advocate and grandson of the famed underwater explorer, Jacques Cousteau -- also helps explain how this kind of sensible ocean planning can improve the health of our seas.

 

The ground-breaking new ocean policy will not only help preserve the wonder and beauty of our seas -- it will help nourish the economic engines they support. America’s oceans provide critical ecological and economic services and generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year for the nation; a significant amount of this economic value relies on healthy, functioning ocean ecosystems. Just look at these quick facts: 

• In 2009, ocean-related tourism and recreation alone contributed more than $61 billion to the nation’s GDP and was responsible for more than 1.8 million jobs. 


• In terms of ocean industry employment, more than 70 percent of all jobs were attributed to tourism and recreation. 


• A 2011 report exploring fisheries economics found that the commercial fishing industry generated over $116 billion in sales and $31.5 billion in income, and supported more than 1 million jobs in 2009.


• Expenditures by recreational fishermen generated nearly $50 billion in sales and supported more than 320,000 jobs. 

But our marine resources are under enormous strain from overexploitation, habitat degradation, coastal pollution and climate change -- putting their economic and environmental stability in jeopardy. A similar snapshot of facts paints a bleak picture of the current state of our seas: 

• Globally, 80 percent of the world’s fish stocks are either fully exploited or overexploited, and large predators like tunas, marlin and sharks have declined by as much as 90 percent worldwide.


• In U.S. waters, 16 percent of major fisheries are currently subject to overfishing and 23 percent are overfished.


• The number of "dead zones" -- oxygen-depleted regions devoid of life -- has increased exponentially since the 1970s. 


• In 2010 the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone was the fifth largest on record and covered an area the size of New Jersey. 


• Ocean waters have seen a 30 percent increase in acidity due to their intake of carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere.


• A third of all shallow-water corals -- which provide essential habitat to thousands of species -- are at risk of extinction.

It’s time to make protecting ocean health our new year’s resolution. Thankfully, our new national ocean policy offers a bright start for our ocean future. 

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

In an October 4th hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources, some witnesses tried to discredit the new National Ocean Policy. There's another hearing today at which Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Nancy Sutley, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, will defend the policy.

The very title of the House hearings -- "The President’s New National Ocean Policy: A Plan for Further Restrictions on Ocean, Coastal and Inland Activities” -- is grossly misleading, a bald attempt to derail the best-laid plans to date, when it comes to America’s oceans. Done right, the National Ocean Policy would protect our oceans for everyone.

At present, there are no fewer than 140 laws and 20 agencies that govern our seas, each with its own agendas and mandates. Such piecemeal governance is unwieldy and fails to effectively address many of the oceans’ problems, like plastic pollution, loss of valuable fish habitats, ailing corals and endangered marine mammals.

The U.S.’s marine area is larger than its land area and our ocean economy -- including tourism, recreation and fishing -- is more robust than the U.S. farm sector. We’re dependent on the ocean for food, jobs, recreation and for sustaining our life on Earth. We need to plan for its sustainable use and protection.

The National Ocean Policy created by President Obama calls for an ocean planning process in which federal agencies work closely with each other, and with states, to draw up guidelines for marine development, region by region.  As the demands on our oceans rapidly multiply, sound planning will prevent reckless use of our seas, or “ocean sprawl.”

Opponents of the National Ocean Policy wrongly claim that it would create more bureaucracy.  Actually, the National Ocean Policy will make the current bureaucratic maze more efficient.  As Jim Lanard, President of the Offshore Wind Development Coalition, testified at the October 4 hearing, “Better plans lead to road maps that can guide current and future users of the oceans about how to best achieve their business plans... [it] will help industry by providing us with more certainty about the rules of the road. Certainty leads to the avoidance of conflicts, improves efficiencies and minimizes competing uses.”

Healthy oceans and a strong ocean economy depend on smart planning. That’s what the National Ocean Policy will deliver and that’s why it needs our support.

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

The Climate Reality Project kicks off, online, at 7 pm Central, live from Boulder, Colorado. From there, the show will travel around the world for 24 consecutive hours, stopping in every time zone for a multimedia presentation about climate change, each from a professional on its frontlines. They’ll highlight local and regional examples of our planet’s greatest challenge, but the Project “is guided by one simple truth: The climate crisis is real and we know how to solve it.”

From Boulder, the camera will head to Victoria, British Columbia, and it will continue to chase the sun, in different cities and languages, back to New York City, a day later, at 7 pm Eastern. There, Nobel Laureate and Former Vice President Al Gore, the Project’s founder, will give the final presentation on the Big Apple’s own challenges: “How do you get such a big, diverse and densely populated city ready for climate change? That’s what planners in New York are grappling with as they come to grips with preparing the city for sea level rise.”

But sea level rise, due to escalating temperatures and ice melt, isn’t the only impact our emissions are having on the world’s oceans. At least a quarter of the CO2 we send into the atmosphere is absorbed by our oceans, which is rapidly changing their chemistry. Called “ocean acidification,” the effect is climate change’s lesser known, but equally evil twin. It’s Earth’s other CO2 disaster. Not sure what it is, exactly? Check out NRDC’s short movie ACID TEST -- it’s narrated by Sigourney Weaver and is must-watch TV, also.

When CO2 mixes into the ocean, it forms carbonic acid, and since the industrial era began 150 years ago, the oceans’ acidity has increased by a daunting 30 percent. Researchers predict that if carbon emissions continue at their current rate, ocean acidity will more than double by 2100.This acidification poses serious danger to many sea creatures -- to coral reefs and crabs, to mollusks and plankton -- since, by the laws of basic chemistry, it reduces the availability of carbonate, which they use to build their shells. At a certain level of acidity, in fact, these shells will start to dissolve, to wash away.

The acidification of our oceans is the hidden side of the world’s carbon crisis and reinforces the need to make changes in how we fuel our world -- and to do it quickly.

So let’s tune in tonight. “24 Hours of Reality will focus the world’s attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis,” says Al Gore. Watch at http://climaterealityproject.org/, and tell a friend about ocean acidification.

So far, humans have hardly touched these deep canyons, which undoubtedly has allowed the life there to flourish. But that’s no guarantee they’ll stay safe. In a single pass, new “canyon buster” and “rock hopper” trawl fishing gear has the potential to destroy these fragile ocean landscapes, which nurture healthy fisheries. In addition, oil corporations are anxious to use seismic exploration to probe the canyons for undiscovered supplies. The noise from this seismic exploration can damage and confuse marine mammals, which are finely equipped to hear subtle vibrations in the ocean, in order to communicate with one another. And of course, any drilling in or near the canyons that could follow seismic testing risks a catastrophic spill affecting one of our most pristine and sensitive environments.

NRDC will continue fighting to protect this unique underwater world -- and the dolphins swimming through it, just off our shores.

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

1. All the biologists on this trip have an interest in keeping me alive, since they’ll never get their message out if I die here and fail to publish my work.


2. I’m among the skinniest folks on this outing, so surely I’m less appetizing than the chunkier divers.


3. As long as I act as if I know what I’m doing, and don’t deliberately pick fights with these hulking animals, they’ll leave me alone.

Her third rationale is probably the most scientific. But not only did Eilperin enjoy her swim, she became inspired to research and tell the larger tale of sharks in her book Demon Fish, just released this week. Wandering the world in search of “where humans mingle with sharks” took her beyond the sea to places like the street markets of Hong Kong and a genetic lab in Fort Lauderdale. On her journey, she discovered that sharks aren’t demons, though they “have dominated the human psyche for millennia, long before Jaws hit American movie screens in 1975.” Rather, it’s humans that now haunt sharks, aided by technology.

The fact is we kill an estimated 23 to 76 million sharks each year, almost entirely for the sake of shark fin soup, which is thought to be a delicacy in Chinese culture and has recently boomed in popularity. As Eilperin describes, however, neither finding and killing a shark, nor purchasing a few spoonfuls, truly harnesses its power and mystery. That’s myth, and even worse, all but the literal tip is wasted: The rest of a shark’s body is simply cast back to the ocean unused, and often still alive. As a result, up to a third of shark species now faces extinction.

But we haunt sharks in more ways than one, as Eilperin explains. Now we can track sharks using satellites, which has allowed us to locate the area of the Pacific between Baja California and Hawaii where great white sharks congregate, for example. Science also has revealed that these prehistoric predators are physiologically astounding, so much so that today some of our technology—everything from Speedo suits to robots—is being modeled after their efficient design, many millions of years old. Meanwhile, DNA analysis has allowed us to identify the species of the thousands of anonymous fins unloaded onto the wharves of the world’s cities.

Like many, Eilperin believes we should get to know sharks much better. “Sharks, and their surroundings, merit as much exploration as the moon, but we only devote a fraction of the same resources to them,” she writes in her introduction to Demon Fish. “Not for reasons of conquest, or even because our fate is in part linked to theirs. Sharks are worth understanding in their own right, a source of revelations about a foreign world that abuts ours.” She also notes that Earth’s surface is two-thirds ocean, but just half of 1 percent of it is protected.  

A good, long stretch of this world abuts California, and right now its State Senate is considering a bill, AB 376, that would end the fin trade there, following a precedent set by Washington and Hawaii. It passed the State Assembly already, with flying colors. But if you live in California, take action today (or call your State Senator) to show your support of the bill, which would help curb the fin trade in international waters, since California is a gateway for its distribution. Sharks don’t deserve to be demonized. They don’t deserve to be made into soup. The more we discover and learn about them, the more extraordinary they are.    

 

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

This is a huge development for marine life in the region, and it’s a testament to how far the water quality in New York’s surrounding bays and oceans has come over the past few decades.  But in truth, we don’t know much about these new neighbors, including how many there are, where they’re heading, or even how to safeguard them. Getting this data is absolutely critical and should be a priority for the state going forward.

What little we do know came from a now-defunct whale monitoring study Cornell University launched in 2008 to help protect the endangered right whale and other species from fatal ship strikes as they crossed paths with shipping lanes close to shore.  Scientists used a series of acoustic water buoys to record whale songs, which then helped them to determine the whales’ locations and analyze migration patterns.

Unfortunately, the study – which was supposed to last three years with federal funding – ended after only a year when former Gov. David Paterson slashed the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) a whopping 40 percent. When the worst was over, resources were so depleted the program couldn’t even afford to keep a project manager on board.

But now there’s good news for the whales, and it’s not just that New Yorkers are excited about them. The proposed 2011-2012 budget Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out last week includes $5 million for ocean conservation in the EPF – funding that could (and should) go toward Cornell’s study and other important ocean programs.  

Armed with complete data – a full three years’ worth – we can implement programs like the one in Massachusetts, where a system of buoys listens for whales in real-time and alerts ships in the area so they can slow down and avoid the whales.

And the data isn’t just useful for keeping tabs on these giants – it’s also a valuable resource for properly siting offshore energy outside of their migratory pathways and supporting a budding economic opportunity: whale tourism.  The New York Daily News recently caught up with the ferry boat operator, Tom Paladino, who started whale and seal watching tours once he realized he was seeing so many whales in New York’s waters. Take a look:

Dr. Christopher Clark, one of the lead scientists on the Cornell study, also told the Daily News that the buoys identified six whale species (at least 50 fin whales now live full-time in New York Bay) and that the numbers are "’far, far more than expected, even for me… I've been surprised elsewhere in the world, but off New York - yikes!’" Clark says he’s trying to raise at least $1 million to continue the work.

The EPF funding is essential to ensuring that the economic and environmental engines that are our oceans are healthy. NRDC is encouraged by the new money in Cuomo’s budget and hopes that this study at last gets the proper resources it needs. The whales – and Mr. Paladino – are counting on us.

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

During the recent threat to the Keys, DeQuattro, as sector commander, played the role of “the federal on-scene coordinator” within the Keys’ Unified Command. As the Keys nervously anticipated a landfall of oil—which, fortunately, never materialized—DeQuattro was charged with leading exercises and readying the Keys’ contingency plan for quick implementation. 

“A spill of this magnitude was beyond anything that we had planned for,” says DeQuattro. Though the Keys were prepared to respond to a nearby tanker spill, the threat posed by the gushing Deepwater Horizon oil well proved uncharted territory. As a result, one adaptation DeQuattro and others immediately instituted was a “sentry program,” which employed both federal and private boats, as well as aircraft, to scout for oil spreading from the upper Gulf. DeQuattro also oversaw the quick creation of a new “shoreline countermeasures matrix”—a document that recommends how to properly defend various habitats, whether sandy beach, mangrove or coral reef—for the possible arrival of tar balls, a form of weathered oil the Keys had never anticipated.

According to DeQuattro, the genuine threat of the Gulf disaster helped identify gaps like these in the Keys’ plan, and then close them, in part through the coordination of different agencies and facilities. As another example, some staging areas that would have been used to fight the arrival of oil had actually been developed for other uses—important knowledge in the event of a real spill. These lessons from the summer are being incorporated into a revised plan that highlights sensitive areas and how best to protect them. It seems a big scare can really whip a contingency plan into shape.

One of DeQuattro’s biggest challenges was keeping everyone well-informed as questions arose right alongside the summer’s tension. DeQuattro made sure to reach out to the community. “I was fortunate to brief a wide variety of organizations about what we were doing,” says DeQuattro. “Once you are out and sharing information, you’d be surprised at how many people want to hear it.” He hopes to further include locals into the planning for a major oil spill response, as well. Because like the Florida Keys environment itself, the contingency plan to protect it belongs to all.

Hear more directly from Captain Pat DeQuattro in our report and keep an eye out for more stories shared and lessons learned from the leaders of the Florida Keys response to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

 

This post was first published on NRDC’s Switchboard blog.

 Composed of 1,700 islands that stretch 200 miles, the Keys is host to the world’s third longest barrier reef, second only to Australia and Belize. Its coral and mangrove habitats are invaluable, both biologically and to regional tourism and fishing industries.

When the Gulf spill occurred, agencies and citizens in the Keys leapt to action. The unthinkable suddenly happened and had to be responded to fast! What did this harrowing summer teach us and those in the Keys?

NRDC helped answer this question in a new report released today, compiling interviews with 11 people who were on the frontlines in the Keys -- leaders from the Coastguard, the National Park Service, Marine Sanctuary Program, local businesses and environmental groups -- as many feared the oil was headed their way. The report explores how they handled the nerve-wracking times, and what they learned, so the region might be better prepared in the face of future oil spill threats.

Here’s just some of what was said and the advice they shared in NRDC’s report, “The Florida Keys Response to the Gulf Oil Disaster”:

• The Keys needs to be prepared for a spill of the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon that goes on for months, not just a spill from vessel grounding. (Everyone)


• When it comes to a spill, there needs to be a clear understanding of the hazard, the science and, importantly, the chain of command in the response. Reality needs to be parsed from rumor, and the ensuing reaction should be appropriate to the level of peril. (Capt. Pat DeQuattro, U.S. Coast Guard; Dan Kimball, National Park Service; Billy D. Causey, Ph.D., NOAA; Capt. Tad Burke, Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association)


• Face-to-face public meetings are essential to open channels of communication, and thus to a community’s trust in those heading up the response to the danger. (Capt. Pat DeQuattro, U.S. Coast Guard; Irene Toner, Monroe County Emergency Management Dept.)


• The media needs easy access to areas potentially impacted by a spill; then it needs to accurately report on the situation. In the Keys, as everywhere, transparency is crucial.  (Capt. Pat DeQuattro, U.S. Coast Guard; Bob Holston, Operations Dive Key West; Capt. Lara Fox, Danger Charters, Key West; Capt. Tad Burke, Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association)


• The National Park Service and other agencies should continue table top exercises and drills in the field that rehearse cooperating with other agencies. The more practice, the better the response to the real thing. (Dan Kimball, National Park Service)


• More booms and other supplies used to combat encroaching oil should be on hand (Karl Lasard, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association; Dr. David Vaughn, Tropical Research Laboratory); however, it’s equally important not to hoard these resources, should they be needed elsewhere. (Billy D. Causey, Ph.D., NOAA)


• Agencies and nonprofits should be ready to quickly contain, examine and treat animals affected by an oil spill, especially birds and marine mammals. (Dr. Robert Lingenfelser, Marine Mammal Conservancy)


• In the event of a spill, the Coast Guard and other agencies should employ the help and advice of local guides and fishermen, who know the nearby ecology and waterways, and have a stake in protecting their homes and livelihoods. (Karl Lasard, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association; Irene Toner, Monroe County Emergency Management Dept.; Capt. Lara Fox, Danger Charters, Key West; Capt. Victoria Impallomeni-Spencer, Reef Relief)


• Because of the Loop Current and the Keys’ location at the bottom of the watershed for the Gulf of Mexico, effects from the spill could still be felt in the future. (Capt. Tad Burke, Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association)


• More research is needed on oil dispersants that aren’t toxic to coral; for example, the dispersant used in the Gulf may be more harmful to coral larvae than the oil itself. (Dan Kimball, National Park Service; Dr. David Vaughn, Tropical Research Laboratory; Capt. Lara Fox, Danger Charters, Key West)


• The government needs to take more protective measures to prevent spills like this from happening. (Capt. Tad Burke, Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association)

Read the complete stories from the people behind these lessons-learned, and how they arrived at them from their involvement in the Florida Keys’ response to the Gulf spill in our report here.

And stay tuned for a series of posts from me highlighting the individual stories. Their advice and their experience in the Keys have great implication for seaside communities and environmental disaster response the world over.

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Tomorrow evening at the Commonwealth Club of California, the Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco will be discussing the Obama administration's national ocean policy.

Just as we have the Clean Water Act for our water and the Clean Air Act for our air, we now have a bedrock environmental policy like this for our oceans. On July 19, President Obama signed an executive order that created a national ocean policy to protect and restore our oceans and that created a framework for coastal and marine spatial planning.

This is a huge step forward in ocean protection and a cause for hope for all who use and love our threatened oceans. We demand a lot from our oceans - from fishing to shipping and energy development - and we must develop better, more sustainable, ways to manage the increasing amount of industrial pressure and “ocean sprawl” on our seas so that they can continue to provide the food, jobs, and recreation we rely on. The national ocean policy will help coordinate efforts to reduce pollution and protect marine life, so that beaches are clean and fish and wildlife abundant. It will help us combat traditional stresses like nutrient pollution and overfishing and face serious new challenges like ocean acidification.

Thanks to this new policy, the more than 20 different federal agencies that oversee activities affecting the sea (which are governed by more than 140 laws), now have to coordinate their efforts to ensure protection of the oceans. Most Americans understandably think a basic policy like this already existed – just as so many believed companies knew how to safely drill off our shores – but there was no requirement that agencies work together to protect one of our greatest natural resources until now.

Under the executive order, federal and state government, businesses, fisheries managers and conservation groups will soon have the opportunity to work together on “coastal and marine spatial plans” – essentially regional blueprints of offshore areas where industrial uses make sense, and areas that should be set off limits. When marine spatial planning is based on environmental protection, it allows human uses of the ocean to co-exist, while protecting the environment.

Recently, NRDC sat down with famed oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle to discuss the importance of our oceans and the national ocean policy. She described the “blue heart of the planet” – our oceans – as our life support system. Her hope is that the new policy will help us transcend our old ways of thinking that the ocean is mainly a place for commodities and that we will learn to protect and restore the important ecologically essential hotspots in the ocean – like spawning areas and migration paths – that help keep the oceans, and us, alive.

As we begin planning the future of our offshore resources, it’s critical that we keep Dr. Earle’s words in mind. We must ensure that the foundation for all offshore planning is ocean protection because our oceans are the heart of our planet – and what keep us alive.