Author Archives: kightp

About kightp

Pat Kight is the web and digital media specialist for Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University.

Drug Take-Back keeps old pills out of the waterways

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Part of the haul at Corvallis prescription drug TakeBack Event

Part of the haul

CORVALLIS – Oregon Sea Grant Scholars have helped Corvallis  police and public works and Allied Waste  employees collect more than 550 pounds of old, unused and expired prescription drugs for safe disposal – drugs which otherwise might have wound up in the hands of abusers, or poisoning local waterways.

Student interns and research assistants who work with Sea Grant water quality specialist Sam Chan volunteered for the third National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, Oct. 29, which netted more than 188 tons of unwanted or expired medications at 5,327 collection sites across the country.

The event is sponsored by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, primarily to keep drugs out of the the crime and drug abuse stream.

But the Sea Grant students were interested in different streams: The ones that receive the outflow from local sewage plants, and seepage from local landfills.

According to the Association of Clean Water Agencies in Oregon, a San Francisco study showed that nearly 40 per cent of medications purchased in that city go unused. Many get tossed in the trash or flushed down toilets, making their way into the environment where they pose both environmental and human hazards.

The student interns participated in the Corvallis event to learn about drug take-back programs as part of a Sea Grant needs-assessment that meant to guide future investments in research, outreach and public education. Pharmaceuticals are becoming a growing issue for water quality and ocean health, and are increasingly emphasized as areas of concern by Sea Grant’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Sea Grant Extension teamed with Corvallis Public works to inform those who dropped off medications about how proper drug disposal can protect the drinking water supply and the aquatic environment.

“It was great to be able to engage and educate people on why Sea Grant was at the event,” said Jennifer Lam, a Sea Grant professional intern. “People were interested in learning that disposing of their medication properly not only protects their families from accidental poisoning, but also prevents these drugs from affecting fish and other aquatic organisms.”

 

Sea Grant Scholars with Corvallis police and public works employees

Sea Grant Scholars with Corvallis police and public works employees

Interactive tsunami inundation maps online

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NANOOs Tsunami Evacuation pageNew, interactive maps pinpointing how and where a tsunami might flood the Oregon and Washington coastlines – and the closest uphill evacuation spots – are online now at NANOOS, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems.

The new Tsunami Evacuation Zone portal is a joint project of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Washington Department of Natural Resources, and  the NANOOS Visualization System team.

The new maps allow users to enter an address, or click on the map, and see if their location is in a danger zone. Users can create multiple places, and if they sign up for a free myNANOOS account, save their own personalized maps for future use.

The maps show areas projected to be at risk of flooding by close and distant tsunamis, and the approximate time residents would have to evacuate those areas before the waves arrive. They also show nearby areas of high ground where residents and visitors can expect to be out of the reach of the incoming water.

All low-lying coastal areas, harbors, streams, and rivers in Oregon are vulnerable to tsunami inundation.  While the waves from distant earthquakes like the one that struck Japan in March 2011 can take several hours to arrive, a sea-floor earthquake in the seismically active Cascadia Subduction Zone, just off the coast, could generate devastating waves in a matter of minutes. Undersea landslides can also generate powerful, localized tsunamis.

Recent research suggests that powerful near-shore quakes have occurred off the Oregon coast at relatively regular intervals; scientists now put the chance of a magnitude 8-9 earthquake striking the region  at 37% within the next 50 years.

The new NANOOS site is tied to NOAA’s  West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, and displays earthquake and tsunami alerts in real time. It also contains printable PDF versions of local tsunami evacuation brochures for specific coastal communities in Oregon and Washington. The brochures are also widely available in printed form at visitor centers, motels and other locations on the coast.

A powerful nearshore earthquake could disrupt communications, including Internet service, on the coast. The site emphasizes preparing in advance:  Developing family and workplace evacuation plans, obtaining or printing out evacuation brochures, walking local evacuation routes, and figuring out how you will reconnect with family members once the immediate danger has passed.

For more information about tsunami preparedness, visit Oregon Sea Grant’s Coastal Natural Hazards page.

 

Climate writer/activist kicks off new OSU lecture series

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CORVALLIS  -A new Oregon State University speaker series kicks off this month  with a Nov. 17 appearance by writer/activist Bill McKibben, author of the groundbreaking 1989 work “The End of Nature,” the first general audience book on global warming.

McKibben is the debut speaker in the “Discovery Lecture Series,” a project aimed at bringing prominent scientists, acclaimed writers and key policymakers to OSU to present on matters of national and international importance. The series is a project of the offices of the Provost and Vice President for Research.

McKibben will deliver the Discovery Lecture at 7 p.m. at CH2M HILL Alumni Center Ballroom on the OSU campus. The event is free and open to the public. He will also speak the following morning at the Benton County Fairgrounds as part of a “Local Foods Breakfast with Bill McKibben,” and that evening at an event hosted by the OSU Spring Creek Project.

For more details about the events and the Discovery series, visit OSU News & Research Communications.

Volunteers sought for Whale Watch Week

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Gray Whale breaching (photo courtesy of NOAA)

Gray Whale breaching (photo courtesy of NOAA)

NEWPORT – If you love whales, enjoy meeting people and don’t mind spending some time outdoors on a blustery winter day, Oregon’s winter Whale Watch Week wants you.

Volunteers are being sought for training as interpreters and whale-spotting guides at state parks up and down the Oregon coast for the annual event, which takes place this year from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1.

Gray whales can be seen off the Oregon coast year-round, but their numbers peak during their twice-yearly migrations between feeding grounds in Alaska’s Bering Sea and calving lagoons in Baja California. The full round trip  is more than 10,000 miles (16,000 km), the longest known migration for any mammal.

During the peak of the southward migration each winter, as many as 30 whales an hour can be seen off coastal headlands and viewing areas. Gray whales can grow to 40 feet long and 70,000 pounds, and their migrations often bring them close enough to the coast to be spotted by the naked eye, if you know what to look for.

Whale Watch Weeks, started in the late 1970s by Oregon Sea Grant educators at the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, has grown to a twice-yearly program administered by Oregon State Parks from its Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay. During the winter and spring weeks, as many as 450 trained volunteers take turns at two dozen of the most popular coastal whale-watch sites, helping visitors spot whales and teaching them about the lives and habits of these giant marine mammals.

Volunteer training for Winter Whale Watch Week will take place on Sat., Dec. 10 at the HMSC Visitor Center in Newport. Dr. Bruce Mate, OSU marine mammal specialist, will preside. Additional training sessions for Spring Whale Watch Week will take place in January and February.

OSU merges ocean, geoscience programs to create new Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences college

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CORVALLIS – A new College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences has been formed with the merger of Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Geosciences.

The new college, dubbed CEOAS, will focus on the basic sciences of the Earth system. “The new name captures both the existing strengths of Geo and COAS and opens the door for new programs in research and education regarding our home planet,” wrote Rebecca Warner, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, in an email formally announcing the merger to the campus community on Friday.

CEOAS will house OSU undergraduate programs in Earth Science, Geography, Geology, and Environmental Sciences, as well as a new BS in Earth Sciences  with options in Earth Systems, Geology, and Geography, replacing the existing degrees in Earth Science, Geology and Geography.

Remaining unchanged are graduate programs in oceanic, earth and atmospheric sciences, geology, geography, and Marine Resource Management, as well as bachelor’s degree programs in environmental sciences.

Several Oregon Sea Grant faculty are affiliated with oceanic and atmospheric sciences, and Extension Sea Grant  Community Outreach specialist Flaxen Conway was recently named director of the Marine Resource Management program.

New HMSC exhibit highlights gear retrieval success

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New gear retrieval exhibit at HMSCNEWPORT – A new exhibit at the HMSC Visitor Center showcases the success of a two-year federal/state/industry partnership that employed fishermen to retrieve thousands of lost or abandoned crab pots off the Oregon coast.

Derelict Crab Gear Recovery: Oregon Fishing Industry Partnerships chronicles the outcomes of the partnership, which included a two-year, $690,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and involved commercial fishermen, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Sea Grant,  among others.

Fishermen involved in the project hauled in more than 3,000 lost crab pots, nearly all of which were returned to their owners for repair and re-use.

Lost fishing gear is an international problem; nets; lines, traps and other gear left in the ocean can foul ships, endanger wildlife and  disrupt seafloor habitats.

The Oregon effort grew out of a 2006 pilot conceived by the Oregon Fishermen’s Cable Committee. Sea Grant helped the group win a modest proof-of-concept grant from NOAA, and monitored initial retrieval cruises to determine their success and check the recovered gear for dead or trapped marine life.

The broader project, launched in 2009, not only recovered tons of lost gear, but also advanced the understanding of the impact of derelict gear on marine resources. The new HMSC display includes a video documentary about the project intended to promote visitor awareness and stewardship of marine resources.

Read more about the gear retrieval project

Free-choice lab launches blog

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Welcome Oregon Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning Lab to the blogosphere!

The lab, based at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, employs cutting-edge research tools and technologies to study informal science learning. The knowledge will be put in practice in the form of  new and improved exhibits in the HMSC Visitor Center, which is managed by Sea Grant.

The blog,  launched last week, will to record the work of graduate research assistant Harrison Baker and other graduate students as they design, build, test and refine the new exhibits.

Under the direction of Dr. Shawn Rowe, Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning program specializes in conducting and applying  research on the  learning that happens when people choose to visit science museums, zoos, and aquariums in their leisure time, making specific and conscious choices about what they learn. The program was recently awarded a $2.6 million, five-year, National Science Foundation (NSF) grant – the largest ever received by Sea Grant –  toward the creation of  the new lab, which will employ the Visitor Center’s exhibits as tools for studying how people learn in a free-choice environment.

Debris from Japanese tsunami slowly making its way toward West Coast

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Debris from Japanese tsunami floats in Pacific in mid MarchA massive trail of debris from the devastating tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 is slowly making its way across the Pacific Ocean en route to the West Coast of the United States, where scientists are predicting it will arrive in the next two to three years – right on schedule.

The mass of debris, weighing millions of tons and forming a trail a thousand miles long, will likely strike Oregon and Washington, according to models based on winds and currents.

But new accounts of where the trail has progressed suggest that at least some of that debris may peel off and enter the infamous “Garbage Patch,” a huge gyre in the Pacific where plastic and other debris has accumulated over the years, according to Jack Barth, an Oregon State University oceanographer and an expert on Pacific Ocean currents and winds.

“Recent reports of debris are from farther south than the axis of the main ocean currents sweeping across the north Pacific toward Oregon,” said Barth, a professor in OSU’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. “This means a fair amount of debris may enter the patch. We should still see some of the effects in Oregon and Washington, but between some of the materials sinking, and others joining the garbage patch, it might not be as bad as was originally thought.”

Read more from OSU News & Research Communications

(Photo courtesy of  US Pacific Fleet gallery on Flickr)

Sea level rise, increasing storms and the Pacific coast

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Storm waves hitting central Oregon coastNEWPORT – Oregon State University geoscientist Peter Ruggiero will speak at the Hatfield Marine Science Center tonight (Oct. 25) on “The Role of Sea Level Rise and Increasing Storminess in PNW Coastal Change and Flood Hazards.”

The talk starts at 7 pm in the Hennings Auditorium at the HMSC Visitor Center.

Ruggiero is part of a team of scientists from OSU and the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries who have been studying increased storm activity and resulting wave height off the Oregon coast, and its effects on erosion, flooding and other hazards.

This past January, the team published an assessment suggesting that maximum heights could be as much as 40 percent higher than previous record levels, especially in the stormy winter months of December and January.  The report said that the cause of these dramatically higher waves is not completely certain, but “likely due to Earth’s changing climate.”

Combined with the effects of sea level rise, higher maximum waves could have implications for erosion, flood control, property damage and development regulations up and down the Pacific Northwest coast.

Ruggiero’s team has received support for its work from Oregon Sea Grant (2008-2010) and from the NOAA Climate Program.

Crayfish – native or invaders?

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American Signal CrayfishInvasive crayfish are spreading in Oregon, and Sea Grant’s Sam Chan has put together a handy photographic guide to distinguishing three common invasive varieties from American signal crayfish, which is native to the state.

A recent KTVZ report on the invaders prompted several commenters to ask for photos to distinguish them from the native species, so Chan, Sea Grant’s aquatic invasive species specialist and chair of the Oregon Invasive Species Council, is offering the guide as, developed this past summer by his student interns, as a printable .pdf.

Download the .pdf here.