JUNK makes it to Hawaii!!

The environmental duo who sailed across the Pacific Ocean at a snails pace aboard a raft made of 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna 310, have landed at their destination: Hawaii.
After 2,600 miles of open ocean that they crossed in 87 days from the Long Beach harbor, Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal, arrived today, "safely, to a throng of cheering supporters, journalists, and videographers," according to their blog site.
The team that works with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, an environmental non-profit that conducts regular tests of plastic in the ocean and its effects on sea life, took off on the journey in June as a way to help spread the word about doing away with single-use and disposable plastic entirely.
Here is what the two had to say about their excursion:
"From our first week of sinking hopes on a sinking raft, through four hurricanes that swept under us, to the unbelievable chance meeting with Roz Savage in the middle of nowhere, we have had quite an adventure. We’ve collected 10 ocean surface samples using our marine debris trawl, managed to snatch a few large pieces of plastic debris that floated under us, and caught fish with stomachs filled with particles of plastic. Plastic is forever, and it’s everywhere."

Catalina bald eagles, foxes make comeback

Catalina's bald eagle and fox populations continue to make strides in survival.
This season produced six young eagles that hatched on their own. The eaglets now join four other baby balds that hatched without human help last year for the first time in more than 50 years, according to the Catalina Island Conservancy.
But the endangered birds aren't out of the woods just yet.
The conservancy states that the protected species still has to deal with potential natural hazards, along with the Island's fox population.
"Last week, two fishermen spotted a 4 1/2-month-old eaglet struggling in the waters at Empire Landing and notified the Bay Watch Patrol, who called the Conservancy. Arriving at the scene, a Bay Watch crewmember jumped into the water and made gentle waves to push the bird ashore.
Conservancy Ranger Dave Skoff received the call from Bay Watch and alerted his supervisor Lenny Altherr, who notified Steffani Jijon, research assistant for the Wildlife Institute.
Meanwhile, Conservancy Ranger Phil Lopez happened to overhear the radio transmission about an eagle in trouble. He called and Gilbert and Sherry Hernandez, who opened the gate so that Skoff and Jijon could get down to the beach where the bird had washed ashore and was being dive-bombed by seagulls," according to an article published this week by Kathy August in the Catalina Islander newspaper.
Bald eagles had disappeared from the Island in the early 1970s.
Their eggs, damaged by DDT residue in the San Pedro Channel, were too brittle to hatch naturally. And the Island fox population plummeted from 1,300 to about 100 in 1999 due to a virulent case of canine distemper, according to the CIC.
However, both species are making a comeback thanks to the efforts of the Catalina Island Conservancy and its partner, the Institute for Wildlife Studies.
Between 1999 and 2004, the Conservancy and the IWS, through the Island Fox Recovery Program, were able to save the species from possible extinction because of a particularly nasty bout of canine distemper virus that had infected the fox population.
Now, eight years later, nearly 600 animals roam the Island. Despite the success, the Conservancy keeps a vigilant eye on the fox population.
It is possible that the disastrous event that threatened the population in 2000 may have caused a “genetic bottleneck” increasing the chances of malformations or sensitivity to diseases in the recovering population.
Also possible—and a topic of current research—is sensitivity to factors such as ear mite parasites, or other yet-to-be-discovered cause.
Nevertheless, the Conservancy continues to be committed to the protection and restoration of these endangered and threatened species. Catalina’s unique plants and animals make the Island’s ecosystem especially sensitive to disturbances and catastrophes.

Long Beach rolls out bio-diesel fleet

The city of Long Beach stepped up its efforts to reduce the amount of smog in the air last week by launching the preliminary stage of using bio-diesel blends for a portion of its vehicle fleet.
Mayor Bob Foster and First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal, who helped spearhead the program, both announced the plan last Tuesday aboard one of the city’s John Deere tractors that replenishes sand daily by raking the beach.
For a city flagged for having poor air quality over the years, ten total vehicles, including all of the city’s tractors and skip loaders and a portion of bulldozers and dump trucks, will now be fueled with B20, which is made of 20 percent vegetable oil and 80 percent petroleum diesel.
The blend is most common for cities now using cleaner alternative fuels such as Santa Monica, which has used the blend for its vehicles for years, city officials said.
Larry Rich, sustainability coordinator of the Sustainable City Commission, said using bio-diesel will reduce particulate emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and smoke particulates.
Air quality has long been a problem in Los Angeles County because of port trucks and container ships that inundate the harbor and freeways.
“Using just the B20 reduces the amount we see,” Rich said. “That is a positive reduction, at very little cost differential not having to mechanically upgrade.”
Rich said the first step is to see if there are any problems with using the bio-diesel blend and then possibly using the fuel for all of its 250 addition diesel vehicles.
"The City of Long Beach is launching this bio-diesel program as part of our ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability. We are proud of our environmental record, and we are always looking for ways to expand it," Foster said before pumping bio-diesel fuel into a tractor and taking it for a demonstration spin up and down the Belmont Shore area.
Bio-diesel is a cleaner-burning alternative to petroleum diesel, and testing shows that bio-diesel poses significantly less of a risk to human health than petroleum diesel.
"The City of Long Beach was looking for better sources of fuel to improve the area’s air quality and health. Using bio-diesel is also the City’s way of taking the next step toward using more renewable resources," said Lowenthal. "It’s only been a short time since I brought the agenda item forward that initiated this bio-diesel project. I am eager for the results as a validation of its worth in terms of improving the air and, thus, the health of our community."
In using B20, it is more cost effective because there is no engine conversion needed and the vehicles can switch back and forth with either diesel or bio-diesel. He said using B100, or pure vegetable oil, would mean all of the vehicles’ engines would have to be converted.
If everything goes well, in the next few years, the next step commonly considered is using B50, a 50/50 blend.
Rich said the supplier of the city’s first batch of bio-diesel is Merrimack Energy Group, a broker of all fuels, and gets its bio-diesel mainly made from soy beans from US domestic sources from the Midwest and possibly Canada.
“As we go through this pilot program, we may be using bio-diesel from different sources,” he said.
The city council requested in January to start using the alternative fuel and city officials spent seven months trying to get a parameter, figuring out a way to use bio-diesel in one location.
The Port of Long Beach, however, is going a different route requiring new equipment, newer modern engines to clean up the fuel conditions. While the state is planning on regulating the type of trucks and the engines, to slowly be replaced with Liquid Natural Gas. The city will still have some diesel engines that can use bio-diesel at a cheaper cost.
The city is also increasing use of Compressed Natural Gas, propane, electrical and hybrids.

Wildlife service to further protect bald eagles

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published an environmental assessment last week regarding a permit program, designed to protect bald and golden eagle populations while working with property owners and businesses.
"This program would allow issuance of permits under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act authorizing activities that may disturb eagles, require nest removal, or otherwise result in the death of or injury to a bird," according to a USFWS press release."While the bald eagle was protected under the Endangered Species Act, the Service had the authority to allow landowners, under certain limited conditions, to undertake otherwise lawful activities on their property that could result in death or injury to eagles." A Notice of Availability regarding the draft environmental assessment appeared in the August 14, 2008, edition of the Federal Register. "The draft environmental assessment lays out the biological foundation for a proposed nationwide permit program, and examines the impacts of the new permit proposal within the context of all threats to eagles," the release states. "It proposes upper limits to how many eagles can be taken conditioned on increasing or stable populations."
Last year, two bald eagle chicks hatched on Santa Catalina Island on their own, without the help of humans for the first time since the 40s.
The eagles on Catalina at Two Harbors are taken care of as part of the Channel Islands Bald Eagle Restoration Project conducted by the Institute for Wildlife Studies and funded by the Montrose Settlements Restorations Program and donations, according to the Catalina Island Conservancy. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Long Beach reopened after sewage spill!

It's safe to go swimming at Long Beach, if you dare, according to the city.
At about 1:45 today, Friday, Aug. 15, a near 4-mile stretch of Long Beach was reopened after a 20,000-gallon sewage spill closed off the various beaches earlier in the week.
“Beaches are now open and there are no advisories in effect,” said a voice message on hotline recording for the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services.
The beach, from 1st Street to 72nd street, remained closed for about three days after a sewer line broke in Watts, leaving sewage to flow into the Los Angeles River and out into the ocean.
The city's health officer, Dr. Helene Calvet issued a beach closure on Tuesday, Aug. 12, and was waiting for a second round of test results for state standards on Friday before opening the beach again.
The sewage spill that closed such "chronically polluted" beaches such as Mother's Beach, was the fifth time Long Beach has experienced a sewage spill since January. It was the second largest spill recorded this year as well.
For more information, call the Department’s Water Quality Information Line, 570.4199, or visit www.longbeach.gov/health and click on "Services" and then "Recreational Water Quality."

'Aquatic insects' thrive on Catalina Island

Fleas, ticks, and ants are common in households during the summer, and with the hot weather today, they might be making you mad, along with your cats and dogs.
But another world of insects also exists on the surface of the ocean, in small ponds, estuaries, lakes and reserves.
Don't worry, most of them don't bite.
These insects feed off of algae and floating organisms found in stagnant waters.
They are a little more colorful, and have been around for a long time— more than 100 million years, since the age of the dinosaurs.
Although they looked a little different back then, the insects haven't changed much, after all, most insects breed in water anyway, such as mosquitoes that can carry disease and West Nile virus.
"Aquatic insects" can be found off of Catalina Island, according to Carlos de la Rosa, a biologist for the Catalina Island Conservancy who posted a detailed slide show on the conservancy's Web site.
De la Rosa says insects in general have a short life spans and "live fast and die young."
Most butterflies, for example, live only a few weeks to a few months.
However, there are insects, like an African queen termite, that can live up to 50 years.
Among the short-lifers, "aquatic insects" are the champions.
Some, like mayflies, caddisflies and non-biting Mosquito-like midges that come out during the night, only live for a few hours as adults – barely enough time to find a mate and produce the next generation. These aquatic insects live dual lives, though, de la Rosa wrote.
Known scientifically as Chironomidae, the non-biting midges have differences in the sexes, like most insects, where the male has feathery antennas and external organs and the female has a rounder body.
Most of these common aquatic insects are well-known to fly-fishermen who use fake rubber lures that look like the real thing to reel in fresh-water fish.
Besides occasional fish, other species that feed off of aquatic insects are frogs, spiders and birds.
Other aquatic insect species that breathe air and then dive into the water include diving beetles and water boatmans.

20,000-gallon sewage spill closes Long Beach

An exceeding 20,000-gallon sewage spill closed almost 4 miles of beach on Tuesday, city officials warned, which is the fifth and second largest sewage spill for Long Beach this year.
This time, a broken sewer line near Watts out poured sewage that flows down the Los Angeles River from Compton Creeks, affecting the beach from 1st place to 72nd place, according to the Long Beach Health Department press release.
The spill was reported by the Los Angeles County Health Department at about 3:10 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.
Dr. Helene Calvet, the city's health officer, closed the beach to water-based recreational activities "to protect the public from serious illness due to exposure from untreated sewage," according to a city statement.
The water will be tested by the Health Department to determine its bacterial content and when the levels are low enough for the beaches to be reopened.
For further information, call the water department hotline at 562-570-4199 or go to www.longbeach.gov/health.

California brown pelicans take flight

My trip to Two Harbors Catalina last weekend was a safe voyage.
We had fare winds, a nice breeze, and little or no white caps out on the seas. Despite a few jolts in the night, the rocking wakes just put us right to sleep, for the most part.
Although we didn't spot any dolphins, one thing that was interesting was an enormous amount of California brown pelicans this year, to go along with the overabundance reported recently since the government banned the use of DDT, a chemical used as a pesticide that depleted the already thin shells of pelicans and other birds.
Here is a story about this reported in the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
Also, I spotted about three bat rays this time, which seem to be breeding over from the natural habitat sanctuary reserve at the USC Marine Lab.
Overall, a stellar vacation...as usual.

Aftershocks still rock Southern California

Nearly two days after the southland experienced what was thought to be the "big one," Orange County residents felt something go bump in the night last night.
A 3.5 earthquake centered west of Petrolia rumbled the area Wednesday night, July 31, at about 7:30 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey that lists a number of quakes in Southern California and Nevada. A 4.2 had hit the same area on Tuesday.
An aftershock of 3.0 near Yorba Linda occurred on Tuesday, caused by the Chino Hills 5.4 earthquake that rattled Southern California that same day.
According to the site, there have been 15 small-size earthquakes starting at 3.0 from July 25.

Seal Beach wildlife hangs on the balance

The sun peeked its way through the overcast skyline, as vacationers flocked to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station early in the morning last Saturday.
“I want to see how our tax dollars are being spent,” said one visitor.
Droves of onlookers expected to get an up-close glimpse of wildlife during the base’s free tour, held on the last Saturday of each month.
Volunteers wearing beige vests then went over a few rules: no smoking, no cameras and, most recently, no cell-phone cameras.
The security regulations are due to the wildlife’s relationship with the Navy base, used as a holding ground for ammunitions.
This hidden natural habitat, known as the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, which takes up one fifth of the 5,000-acre Navy base, is one of the last remaining protected areas for bird species.
Predators in peril
But some biologists and specialists say a declining amount of predators, such as red-tailed hawks, cooper’s hawks and American kestrels, throughout Southern California, could threaten the very existence of this vast ecosystem.
“It’s puzzling,” said Pete Bloom, a biologist for the Audubon California Starr Ranch Sanctuary. “Certain species have declined dramatically.”
Although no official numbers have been recorded, data shows the dwindling amounts of “Birds of Prey” could be caused by a variety of environmental concerns, Bloom said.
Fewer protected habitats because of fires and development, climate change caused by global warming, West Nile virus outbreaks and less prey are all factors in the shortened number of nests over the last few decades.
However, Navy biologist Bob Schallman said the problem is more of a regional issue.
“Open space at the Seal Beach refuge continues to provide suitable breeding and foraging areas for a wide variety of bird species, including raptors,” Schallman said. “The Navy and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service staff continue to work together to monitor the health of the station's bird population through regular surveys and studies.”
Schallman said this year has been a banner year for California least terns, small sand-dwelling birds that are currently on the endangered species list.
The count, about 207 nests, matched or exceeded the base’s all time high this year, he said. The increase in population is mainly due to more protection from volunteers and more small fish to feed off.
The nests are protected on an island formerly used as a testing sight for NASA projects.
Least terns are then expected to leave in August.
Prey also in danger
But, the Navy continues to have challenges with predators targeting these young birds, resulting in relatively low fledgling numbers compared to previous years, he said.
A number of potential predatory species on the base that feed on the terns likely include the great blue heron, northern harrier, common raven and American kestrel.
Volunteers from the Friends of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge's "Eyes on the Colony" program have provided assistance to the Navy and the USFWS staff in monitoring the tern-breeding site for these predators, providing quick notification when predators target the site.
Some of these predators are sometimes displaced or treated in the hands of veterinarian Scott Weldy, who works for a wildlife hospital in Lake Forest.
While he admits Seal Beach is not a good representation of sampling, Weldy has seen a difference in both the kinds of predators that are brought into his hospital and the amount.
“I can tell you the numbers are a general anecdote,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s not a representation of them dying, but in general, numbers have significantly dropped down.”
Weldy works with federal and state wildlife officials on birds of prey where he treats each one in cages until they can be re-released or relocated.
He said a better representation of whether predator birds are declining would be to take a survey from all of the biologists over the state, look at the nest sightings and see how many babies fledge out of that site.
In general, however, birds during this time of year aren’t as abundant as in other months.
“Winter is the best time to see a lot of birds,” said John Fitch, a volunteer who has been monitoring birds since 1988 and helps protect least terns on the base.
The marshland provides food and a way of life for almost 200,000 shore birds on a day-to-day basis during those times.
Predators, he said, add up to about 4,000.
Marsh lands disappearing
“We have only 2 to 5 percent of marsh left in Southern California,” he said. “We got more and more red tails that will start hunting in here.”
In addition, the Seal Beach wildlife refuge is home to one of the last remaining burrowing owls in Orange County. With about eight to 12 owls, the Navy has set up protected artificial burrows on the north side of the base.
Kristen Bender, president of the Friends of the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, said she considers the refuge a jewel for all types of wildlife in the midst of coastal development. She said without the shallow nutrient waters of the wetlands, local fish off the coast wouldn’t have a place to lay eggs.
“If the marshes go, then so goes the fish,” Bender said. “This is vastly more productive than a marina.”
To learn more about the Naval base wildlife tours log on to http://www.pelicanvan.org/ or call (562) 598-1024.