Jane Lubchenco reflects on her term as NOAA chief

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Jane LubchencoNEWPORT – Oregon State University scientist Jane Lubchenco will look back on her four years at the helm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for this Thursday’s edition of the weekly Hatfield Marine Science Center Seminar, starting at 3:30 pm in the HMSC Visitor Center auditorium.

Dr. Lubchenco will draw on her term as NOAA Administrator for the talk, “Science Serving Society: Reflections on My Four Years in D.C.” She plans to share tales and reflections about her experiences with the federal agency in charge of weather forecasts and warnings, climate records and outlooks, nautical charts, stewardship of oceans and fisheries management in US waters, and the research, satellites and education that support those activities. The talk with draw on examples dealing with scientific integrity, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, weather forecasts and warnings, satellites, fisheries and climate change.

The talk is free and open to the public, and will be preceded by refreshments in the HMSC Staff Lounge starting at 3 pm. (No food or drink is allowed in the auditorium)

The seminar will also be available as a live Internet broadcast  via Adobe Connect at http://oregonstate.adobeconnect.com/hmsc-fw407/

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HMSC Visitor Center gets creative to boost donations

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Feeding Time, HMSC Visitor Center

NEWPORT – Oregon Sea Grant’s Visitor Center at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is popular, but over time, donations – the only admission we ask people to pay – have been on the decline.

When staff and volunteers realized the problem – that few people carry cash these days – they decided to install a kiosk to accept donations via debit and credit cards. But things got complicated; as a government entity, the center isn’t allowed to operate a wireless payment kiosk, and other state laws prevent universities from piggybacking on contracts the state has with companies that provide the service.

But Sea Grant’s Mark Farley, who manages the Visitor Center, didn’t give up. With help from Dee Wendler of the University Administration Business Center and Wallace Rogers, State of Oregon manager of e-Government and Voice Services, the Center was able to contract with e-Government company NIC-USA, a company already under contract to the state, thus meeting state requirements without taking on additional legal and financial risk. Rogers’ office also  got the Department of Justice to review the proposed HMSC project for compliance with state and federal law.

The new kiosk is expected to be in place in January – and the arrangement could pave the way for others, including OSU Extension agents, to sell publications and other items at events outside their own county offices.

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OSG communicator off to ScienceOnline Oceans

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Pat Kight, who handles Oregon Sea Grant’s Web and social media presence, is among some 200 science communicators and scientists who will be taking part in Science Online Oceans Oct. 11-13 in Miami, FL, for intensive “unworkshops” exploring the use of online technology and social media to communicate with and engage the public on issues of ocean science and conservation.

For reporting and commentary during and after the conference, follow her on Twitter, @kightpat.

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New publication discusses effective stakeholder engagement in marine planning

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A new publication from Oregon Sea Grant, Knowledge, Capacity, and Needs for Effective Stakeholder Engagement in Marine Planning, examines the key findings from a study of marine spatial planning efforts on the west coast.

In response to the many existing and emerging demands on coastal and ocean resources, President Obama established by Executive Order the National Ocean Policy (NOP) in 2010, identifying marine spatial planning (MSP) as a mechanism to reduce conflicts and improve management. On the west coast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was designated as a federal co-lead for implementation. NOAA’s Western Regional Collaboration Team (NOAA West), a cross-cutting line office team, and the west coast Sea Grant programs initiated assessment of NOAA’s knowledge, capacity, and needs related to MSP through focus groups and a survey.

This 39-page publication reveals the results of this study and makes recommendations for improvements in the MSP process. You can download a PDF of the publication free of charge here.

New fact sheet describes different types of wave-energy devices

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Wave-Energy-Devices-coverToday about 87 percent of the world’s energy consumption relies on nonrenewable energy sources such as oil, natural gas, and coal. The burning of these fossil fuels releases pollutants into the atmosphere and can result in environmental damage. An abundant and promising source of renewable energy exists in the forms of wave, tidal, marine current, ocean thermal energy conversion, and salinity.

This two-page fact sheet, A Primer on Wave Energy: Wave-Energy Devices, describes nine different types of wave-energy devices currently under development or nearing completion.

You can download the publication for free here.

Register-Guard: Changing ocean chemistry threatens marine life

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The Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery on the state’s north coast watched oyster larvae die en masse for three years in a row in the mid-2000s — depriving oyster farms along the entire West Coast of seed oysters.

Florence crabber Al Pazar saw baby octopuses, an inch or two long, climb up his crab lines to escape the sea waters in the 2005 season. When he pulled up his pots, the crab were dead.

Eugene fisherman Ryan Rogers, who drags in great piles of salmon on an Alaska purse seiner, has instead brought up nets full of jellyfish in recent years.

“Sometimes we’ll catch 4,000 or 5,000 pounds of jellyfish. They spray all around. We get stung,” he said. “It makes it difficult to bring your net in. You have to let it go and lose the salmon that are in your net.”

Scientists — including many at Oregon State University — are beginning to define the cause of these events. They call it ocean acidification and hypoxia.

Wind, currents and ocean chemistry conspire to create pools of corrosive waters that can be lethal to key commercial species in Northwest waters — and favorable to some nuisance species, such as jellyfish. …

The Eugene Register-Guard examines what OSU scientists – some of them working with Oregon Sea Grant funding – are learning about the causes and consequences of ocean acidification.

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Heceta Head registration open

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Registration is open for this year’s Heceta Head Coastal Conference, Oct. 25 and 26 at the Florence Events Center.

With a theme of “Oregon’s Oceans: So Many Fish In the Sea!”, the conference features a keynote by Kerry Coughlin of the Marine Stewardship Council, panels exploring what “sustainability” means for fish and fishermen, and a poster session highlighting the research of graduate and undergraduate marine scientists.

Full program details and registration information can be found on our Website.

New publication offers insights from a NOAA-Sea Grant project

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A new publication from Oregon Sea Grant, Climate Field Notes, distills the results of a multi-year, multi-state SARP-Report-coverproject funded by the NOAA Climate Program Office Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP).

Oregon Sea Grant led this project, which used a risk-communication framework to help coastal communities respond to the effects of a changing climate. Climate Field Notes documents the results of projects in eight states, including Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

The report includes discussion of social science methodologies, definitions and usefulness of resilience, the roles of leadership and boundary organizations, user-centered communication approaches, and lessons learned from practitioners in the field.

Primary authors of the report are Joe Cone, Pat Corcoran, Miriah Russo Kelly, and Kirsten Winters.

You can download Climate Field Notes here.

 

“Stone Soup” draws on Sea Grant expert for help on invasives strips

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Stone Soup Comic

Click to enlarge.
(STONE SOUP © 2013 Jan Eliot. Used courtesy of the creator and Universal Uclick. All rights reserved.)

When Oregon cartoonist Jan Eliot, who draws the popular “Stone Soup” comic strip, wanted to feature a storyline about how animals common in one place can become invasive species in another, she turned to Oregon Sea Grant’s Sam Chan for advice.

The result, which runs newspapers nationwide starting tomorrow (Sept. 4), is an engaging – and scientifically accurate – story about a 9-year-old, a crawdad found on a camping trip, and an educational moment featuring a science teacher.

She contacted Chan, our watershed health and aquatic invasive species specialist, with questions about the species she wanted to feature (Procambarus clarkii, the red swamp crayfish), its invasive potential (highly invasive in areas without harsh, cold winters), and whether it was OK to call it a “crawdad” as opposed to “crayfish” (yes, the terms are regional but interchangeable).

Chan was happy to help, and calls the cartoon series “very timely for teachers, parents, students and pet owners. “It can be a revelation that releasing ‘pets’ is often not the kindest alternative.”

The Sea Grant specialist and his team are leading a nationwide study on a related topic: The spread of non-native species that are released from classrooms after being used for school science projects.

Eliot, who lives in Eugene but grew up tromping around Midwestern lakes and creeks, says she once considered studying marine biology at Oregon State University, but “chickened out and followed the easy path of Art and English.” Now, she says, she’s enjoying as Alix, the Stone Soup character featured in the new strips, grows into a budding biologist. “I can live the path I didn’t choose through her.”

It’s not the first time “Stone Soup” has delved into marine science. Her ongoing science teacher character, Erma, is modeled after former NOAA administrator and OSU zoologist Jane Lubchenco and Eliot’s friend Dr. Kathy Sullivan (now Lubchenco’s successor at the agency’s helm). The character is named after ERMA (Emergency Response Management Application), a web-based NOAA tool, available to the public, for managing information in oil spill crises.

Follow as the story unfolds over the next two weeks in your local newspaper, or at http://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup

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New study examines potential marine renewable energy conflicts and mitigation strategies

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Marker buoys ready for deployment on R/V Pacific Storm

Marker buoys read for recent deployment at the wave-energy test site off Newport

A recent study with participation from multiple Sea Grant programs takes a deep look at potential space-use conflicts in siting alternative energy along the US Outer Continental Shelf – and offers strategies for reducing those conflicts.

In the search for renewable energy sources, the potential to harness the clean power of wind, wave, and tide can seem irresistible. The long US coastlines offer what appears to be virgin territory for new energy producing facilities. But a closer look reveals that coastal and offshore areas are already teeming with productive activity – activity that could suffer if ignored in the quest for marine energy.

In 2011 and 2012, Oregon Sea Grant’s Flaxen Conway worked with Madeleine Hall-Arber of MIT Sea Grant, Carry Pomeroy of California Sea Grant and Industrial Economics, Inc., plus collaborators from the Urban Harbors Institute and  Virginia Sea Grant to identify, and develop strategies to avoid and reduce, potential space-use conflicts on the Outer Continental Shelf in the context of alternative energy development. Funding was from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The study documents the characteristics of existing ocean uses including transportation and shipping, commercial and recreational fishing, sailing and boating, military operations, sand and gravel excavation, oil and gas facilities, and scientific research, and the cooperation and conflict negotiation that arise among such users.

New uses, such as aquaculture and marine renewable energy, with their demand for extensive, exclusive space, may engender additional serious conflicts. The authors note when two users want exclusive access to an area, it puts pressure on federal, state and regional agencies or organizations to try to manage the offshore space equitably.

The research team used ethnographic research techniques to interview stakeholders on both coasts, from commercial fishermen to cruise lines, port managers and  trade industry groups, as well as academic and government organizations. They conducted formal interviews, informal conversations and group meetings to identify conflicts among the various uses, and existing and new strategies for solving – or avoiding – those conflicts.

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