Ocean Zone News Blog

While the rest of the Obama family relaxes in Martha’s Vineyard, the President must address an escalating battle over the fate of Cape Wind and the future of renewable energy
By Yael Borofsky, Breakthrough Fellow

Like any savvy tourist trap that knows the President of the United States will be dropping in, Martha’s Vineyard is prepared to play the gracious host to the Obama family this week. But a recent article in the National Journal highlights how local Cape Wind activists, including Breakthrough Senior Fellow Barbara Hill, the executive director of Clean Power Now, are intent on making sure President Obama addresses the offshore wind debate before he relaxes on the Cape Cod sand.

From a NOAA press release:

NOAA ships and scientists have returned to Alaska’s Kachemak Bay to kick off year two of Hydropalooza — a NOAA-led project to develop the most detailed seafloor and coastline maps ever generated of the area.

Kachemak Bay, one of south central Alaska’s most productive and ecologically diverse estuaries, supports maritime commerce, ferry transportation, fishing, and recreational boating from the nearby harbors of Homer and Seldovia. Up-to-date NOAA nautical charts, as well as sea bottom, water level, and shoreline information, are needed to ensure safe navigation, manage coastal resources, and support local planning.

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From: Maritza Barreto, Ph.D. Geological Oceanographer and Geographer
Geography Department, Social Science College, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Campus.
Date: August 6, 2009
Submitted to: Interagency Ocean Task Force
Recommendations related with issues set forth President’s Memorandum
Topic: Marine Spatial Planning
After reading 1) The President’s Memorandum; 2) web page documents from
Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force; and the 3) National Ocean Month, 2009
proclamation, I want to share some recommendations with the Ocean Interagency Task
Force focusing the topic Marine Spatial Planning as defining in your documents.
Based on my experience in coastal studies and outreach activities, I found that part of the
success of a coastal plan management may depend of the coastal data quality (spatial and
temporal) collected, improving design management plan based on specific coastal profile
and community participation. Based on this observation my specific recommendations
are:
• Identify and improve continuous coastal monitoring areas (different spatial and
time scales). This is due by:
o Coastal processes are dynamic. We need understand coastal behavior
changes in space and time scales.
o Coastal sites showed different geomorphic, oceanographic, social and
economic profiles by sites
o Coastal geomorphic characteristics are different in continental vs. island
systems
o Needs of additional continuous monitoring stations.
• Improve Coastal Databank for each coastal site (includes Human-natural system
variables)
o Data collected in the monitoring process should be includes detail physical
and social aspect of the coastal community.
o Be sure coastal databank is in a standard format that all members can use.
• Integrate federal and states agencies, universities and communities groups in the
data collection and databank preparation process.
o May use the model of Informal Science concept from National Science
Foundation (NSF) with the main purpose of engaging individuals from all
walks of life and with diverse profiles (age, gender, education, working
status, retired persons, etc. in science by bringing science to the
communities.(for more detail of this project see attach file related with
informal science project Understanding our Coast, Manatí, Puerto Rico
supported by Puerto Rico Conservation Trust and NSF)
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• Use data collected (Human-Natural system description) to enforce actual
management plans and if is necessary develop new local strategic plans.
• Underlying the impact of human activities as urban expansion and land use
changes, sea level rise, increase of temperature and changes in weather patterns in
management plans.
• Improve outreach activities. Community participants are important key in the
success of the coastal plan implementation. Especially when many geomorphic
changes in the coastal and marine areas are produced by pressure of human
activities. Community participants should be known in detail their real scenario in
coastal natural risk to be prepared based in their specific needs.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 7, 2009

Obama Administration Officials to Hold Ocean Policy Task Force Public
Meeting in Anchorage August 21, 2009

ANCHORAGE, AK — Obama Administration officials will hold their first Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska on August 21, 2009. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, consists of senior-level officials from Administration agencies, departments, and offices.

Environmental groups seek to prevent Columbia University from conducting seismic tests off Vancouver Island

VANCOUVER — From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail

A Federal Court judge in Vancouver will hear arguments tomorrow from environmental groups that have taken an American university and the Canadian government to court over a U.S. research project that plans to conduct seismic tests in a marine protected area.

Living Oceans Society, in partnership with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, launched the lawsuit against the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Minister of Foreign Affairs and New York’s Columbia University, seeking a court order preventing the federal government from issuing a clearance to the researchers to enter the protected area.