Beach Adopters Wanted!

We've had a great week in our Adopt-a-Beach program - two new groups have joined!  Thanks to the Greengard Center for Autism for adopting Rye Harbor State Park and Medtronic Advanced Energy for adopting the north end of Foss Beach!  I did a cleanup with folks from Greengard today and we had a beautiful morning at Rye Harbor State Park, where we picked up 10 pounds of litter on the Rye Harbor jetty and nearby beach. Thanks to Kristen, Melissa and Elliot for their help today!

I'm looking forward to meeting up with folks from Medtronic this week also, to get them started with cleanup supplies. Would YOU like to join our Adopt-a-Beach Program? We have many beaches available, and all you need to do is commit to cleaning your site once each month, filling out a data card during the cleanup, and sending it to us so that we can use the data to learn about marine debris and target our pollution prevention programs.  We provide all supplies!

Here are the beaches available for adoption:

• Sections of Hampton Beach-Hampton, NH
• Foss Beach, Rye (1 section)
• Pirate's Cove, Rye
• Hilton Park, Dover Point
• North Beach, Hampton
• Beane Farm, Greenland
• Great Bay Farms, Greenland
• Goat Island, Piscataqua River
• Peirce Island, Portsmouth
• Sections of Salisbury Beach-Salisbury, MA
• Short Sands Beach - York, ME

For more information, check out our web site or e-mail jen(at)blueoceansociety.org. 

Is this what you want all of our beaches to look like?

"Un desastre ecologico-an ecological disaster"

On Monday June 18, my husband, myself and two young boys woke up excited to meet up with my sisters and their families for our annual "at the beach" vacation on the North Coast of Honduras.  Usually we go to Tela, Honduras but this year we decided to try something different and instead head a bit more west to the town of Omoa, Honduras.

Omoa, Honduras- "A" marks the spot.

Now, as a Honduran, I am aware of the horrible poverty and corruption that rules this country and that the lack of funding for ecological and environmental health is really non-existent so I was under no delusions that what we would encounter would be pristine by any stretch of the imagination, but what we actually found was beyond my wildest imagination.

As we were driving from our hotel in San Pedro Sula,  I was getting a review of the house that we had rented and so far so good. A good sized, clean, swimming pool that would be perfect for the kids and enough room for all 12 of us to fit comfortably. The drawbacks were an infestation of ants and only one room had air conditioning- which was not what we had been led to believe- but really- who cares?  Then my sister got a text from her husband. He and the kids had ventured out to the beach which had been portrayed in the brochure as nice and clean and essentially private.  His text said this "Tenemos un desastre ecologico!" "We have an ecological disaster".  I thought he was kidding. My sister did not show me the picture he had attached. Let me say again...I thought he was kidding. At the very least I thought he was making fun of what my reaction would be knowing that I work on marine debris and that I would be aghast with the condition of the beach which in my past experience has been somewhat dirty. Unacceptable by my standards and most Americans but then you get over it and enjoy it nonetheless.

We finally got to the house and it is typical humid, hot, tropical weather and I loved it! We unpacked but  we decided it would be better to hit the pool which was right there than to hit the beach that day.  We'll save that for tomorrow.  I asked my brothers in law about the condition of the beach.  Was it really that bad? Were you just exaggerating?  Their answer was a resounding no and that in fact it was so bad that there was no way we could or should go swimming in the water.  If the beach was that bad- the water had to be worse. Sigh... so much for the beach vacation.  I resigned myself to the inevitable discovery of a trashy beach.  The next day, I decided to brave it and went down to the beach with my sister and some of the kids just to see how bad it really was.  I really thought I was prepared for what I would find. In fact, although I was disappointed, I also was not surprised that this would happen here- well because they have other more pressing priorities- like 60% unemployment and hunger.

When I reached the beach, at first I couldn't wrap my head around what my eyes were seeing and the when I did- my eyes filled up with tears and there was a pit in my stomach- because even if I wanted to spend my vacation picking up a beach- there was no way I could do it because this is what I found...

The first pile of trash. Notice the number of PLASTIC shoes,utensils, bottles, bottle caps etc...

More shoes and more plastic. Plastic everywhere.

It went the entire length of the beach. A bit more exploration and I discovered that even beyond the massive piles of garbage, in the areas that were less trashed, if you looked at the sand, initially, you would think that there were a lot of shell fragments, but upon closer inspection you realized that it was just more bits of plastic mixed in with the sand.  in fact, this was the strategy that they used to " clean up" the trash several days later. Instead of bringing in machinery to scoop it up an haul it away which was the only way to deal with this amount of trash, they instead brought in a dump truck of sand and dumped it on the piles of garbage and then essentially rototilled it until it was a nice mix of plastic bits and sand.

Want some sand with that plastic?

To be fair- this beach- is dirty like many other beaches in Honduras. That is a fact.  However, it is normally not this bad.  The owners of the house blamed it on the rains. They blamed everything on the rains and sort of shrugged unapologetically when we complained. But something still didn't seem right. How could there be so much debris on this one beach and it wasn't even that big of a beach? Semana Santa -Holy week- in April is THE party holiday in Honduras.  My sisters said that in general the ocean is the peoples garbage can and that especially that time of year- everything goes into it- but it was hard to believe that two months after the holiday that all of this garbage would show up.  As it turns out, while some of the garbage could definitely be traced back to Semana Santa festivities, the rest seems to have originated from Utila, one of the Bay Islands off of the North Coast.  According to my brother in law- there was some sort of "Jam" music festival a short while before and the ship that was carrying all of the garbage from Utila had its motor break.  Now I have no idea why on earth they couldn't fix it or why it couldn't have been pushed back to land or whatever- as I have no idea of the size of the ship- but in any case orders came from the owners of the ship to dump all of the trash in to the water. So they did.  I have searched for corroboration of this story online but can find nothing, although that is not surprising either, so I am putting this out there with the warning that this is speculation only.  But whatever the reason for why the beach was in this condition- it is heartbreaking and really unacceptable regardless.  What is worse for me though is the apathy and the so what attitude the locals have. Just add this to the rest of the other stuff in their lives that they can't do anything about.  Sadly, even if they could, I am not sure they would do anything more than dump more sand on top of it.

Honduras could be so beautiful if the people in charge would let it. Not sure if that is in the cards for them.

In short- here in New Hampshire we CAN do something about it. learn from this and use it as a motivator to keep our oceans clean and healthy and garbage and plastic free. Don't let our beaches turn into seaside garbage dumps. Care.

Appledore Cleanup: 5 Hours, 5 People, 557 Pounds

Click here to watch the video on Youtube

This year, we're working on surveying and cleaning-up marine debris in places we haven't looked for trash (at least officially) before, including the Isles of Shoals—9 islands about 5 miles off the coast of NH and ME.  A recent post reported on a scouting trip to Appledore Island—the largest island, at 95 acres. This island lies in Maine and is the home of the Shoals Marine Lab, run by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire.  We work closely with UNH (primarily NH Sea Grant and UNH Cooperative Extension) on our Marine Debris to Energy Project, so these existing relationships made Appledore a logical first choice for a survey and cleanup.

On Monday, June 11, we took the fishing vessel Yesterday’s Storm, captained by Lee Schatvet, out to the island. Five of us picked up 557 pounds of debris over about 1/2 mile of coastline. We focused on 4 areas that were relatively accessible and could be cleaned-up with minimal disturbance to nesting gulls, although the gulls nest everywhere - next to the boat dock, near the dining hall, and in the shrubs along the paths, so they often surprised  us!  The island is also crawling with poison ivy, which made the day even that much  more of an adventure.

We cleaned Smith Cove, took a break at the pre-arranged lunchtime for a delicious meal provided by Shoals Marine Lab, and then cleaned Broad Cove, where we found a huge amount of plastic bottles, along with a full, unopened case of bottled water.  We tried to clean at Larus Ledge, but only managed to pick up a plastic bottle, crushed lobster trap and piece of wood before the swooping gulls made us decide to re-visit this area in September, when we plan to come back to re-survey and clean again.  Then we cleaned at the Swimming Hole, where we again found lots of debris - much of it near a gull who threatened us by picking up a dried crab claw, but in the end, did no harm as we removed nearby plastic, rope, and a bait bag.

After a long, successful (depending on how you look at it - who wants to go out to an island 5 miles offshore and find that much trash?), we had found 323 pieces of debris, including 46 plastic bottles, 9 balloons, 12 lobster traps (10 were deemed unfishable, 2 were still usable and their owners were called by Officer Dave Testaverde of Maine Dept. of Marine Resources), many pieces of plastic and Styrofoam and 3 disks from the Hooksett wastewater treatment plant spill on 3/6/11.      

Thanks to NOAA and the Fishing for Energy Partnership, Shoals Marine Lab, Lee Schatvet and the Yesterday's Storm and ME Dept. of Marine Resources for their help!  We are now planning a cleanup for Star Island later in the summer, and hopefully will get to some of the other islands this year, as well as revisiting Appledore in the fall.  

Cleanup Scheduled for Appledore Island

Appledore Island

A recent trip to Appledore Island, one of the Isles of Shoals, yielded more than just beautiful scenery. The trip’s goal was to scout for marine debris on the 95-acre island, and plenty of it was found, including broken lobster traps, rope and buoys, candy wrappers, Styrofoam, plastic bottles, and even a plastic Shrek toy.  The trash-finding mission was conducted by personnel from Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation and NH Sea Grant through our Marine Debris to Energy Project. Thanks to the help of the Shoals Marine Lab, a local fishing vessel, and the Maine Department of Marine Resources we'll return to the island this Monday, June 11 to retrieve the debris.

During our all-day cleanup on Monday, we'll retrieve the debris, look for identification tags on the fishing gear so that any usable gear can be returned to its owners, and bring any debris and unusable fishing gear back to the mainland for recycling and disposal.

Marine debris can be hazardous to wildlife through ingestion or entanglement, and can cause problems for boaters, fishermen and beachgoers.   The Isles of Shoals are close to important feeding grounds for whales and other marine life, making it especially crucial to rid them of debris.

This project is conducted with funding from the Fishing for Energy Partnership and NOAA that was granted to the Marine Debris to Energy Project, a partnership between Blue Ocean Society, NH Sea Grant, UNH Cooperative Extension and Dr. Jenna Jambeck at the University of Georgia. The goal of the project is to monitor and remove marine debris from the coastline and local waters from southern Maine to northern Massachusetts. With the help of local fishermen and volunteers, more than 115 tons of marine debris has been cleaned-up since 2008.   The Appledore cleanup is part of a recently-funded effort to to clean up accumulations of marine debris on the Isles of Shoals and later, underwater.

More information on the project:

• www.nhmarinedebris.org
• The Not-So-Pristine Isles of Shoals (article in The Wire)

Marine Debris- It is everywhere...

Part of Blue Ocean Society's work includes identifying and removing derelict fishing gear (DFG) or marine debris both in the ocean and on the coast. One of the current projects involves going around the 9 Isles of Shoals in the Gulf of Maine and using sonar and fishermen reports to locate areas of debris and DFG. In addition we are also attempting to do coastal clean-ups on each of the Islands.  This past Sunday, Mother's Day, Dianna Schulte (BOS Research Coordinator) and myself set foot upon Appledore Island, the home of UNH/Cornell's Shoals Marine Lab (SML), to get the Marine Debris, DFG party started.  This was a scouting mission to see what exactly we were dealing with in terms of accessibility, terrain and need.  Hal Weeks, Assistant Director of SML met us at the dock and we were treated to a very nice lunch before we began our trek around the island.

Appledore is the largest of the 9 Islands of the Isles of Shoals archipelago.  Since it is home to the Marine Lab it is also a green and sustainable campus meaning that the lab community is self- sufficient. Electricity is generated using a combination of wind, solar and diesel generated power, composting bathroom facilities and strict water conservation and composting and recycling systems. The island itself is considered to be in " near-pristine" condition and every effort is made to keep it as such.  Appledore is also well known for it's feathered inhabitants- Black Backed Gulls and Herring gulls which are all nesting currently and quite noisy, some what aggressive and on high alert! One has to walk around with a "gull stick" for protection from dive bombing animals!

Looks beautiful and pristine doesn't it?

Knowing the green and sustainable record and history of the SML, I was a little skeptical. I wasn't sure how much debris or DFG we would find out there.  From far away, the coastline indeed looks pristine and somewhat treacherous because of the jagged rocks and terrain.  However, as we got down onto the rocky beach at our first potential clean-up site we discovered that in fact there was a lot of debris and trash and derelict pots, rope, foam and even Shrek. Yes Shrek- even you are considered plastic, marine debris!

But a closer look...

A lot of ropes and lines...

Lobster pots...

It was shocking to see that even in a place that is diligent about maintaining the ecosystem as undisturbed and pristine as possible that all if this garbage and DFG could still be found on its shores.  The same was true for the other couple of sites that we investigated.  At the "best" site, where we found Shrek, we also found a plastic cooler lid, many, many bits of lobster pots, whole pots, ropes, bottles, styrofoam, a plastic bucket, candy wrappers and many of the usual suspects in the marine debris catalog.  I was excited because it would make our work here matter, but sad that even in a place that is well taken care of, this is still a problem.  It was also quite strange to be walking along (trying not to get pecked and pooped on by the giant gulls) and documenting everything we found and NOT pick it up.  I also wonder what the other 8 islands are going to look like.  I expect Star Island will be chockfull of trash treasure as there is a lot more human impact due to the presence of a hotel there, but what about the other, less visited islands. I have to say that I will not be surprised to find similar accumulations of DFG and marine debris on those either.  It will be very interesting as this project unfolds to see which Islands were better or worse off and how the type of debris that we collect and cart off will differ.

Although we spent the day focusing on trash, it was an absolutely gorgeous day on the water and on the Island and at least for me, it made me appreciate what Blue Ocean Society is trying to do even more because without their efforts who would be doing this?  

For more information on BOS/UNH Marine Debris program got to

 http://cecf1.unh.edu/debris/ and to http://www.blueoceansociety.org/Research/pollution_research.html

Beach Cleanup this Saturday!

Come out and join Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation for our monthly cleanup at Jenness Beach in Rye, NH this Saturday, 10:30 AM!

The cleanup will last about 1.5 hours and all supplies (including reusable bags and gloves donated by Shaw's and the NH Dept. of Environmental Services) will be provided. You can RSVP to info@blueoceansociety.org, by phone at 603-431-0260 or on Facebook. Hope to see you there!

Plastic Gets Personal

Last Wednesday, April 25, 2012 we hosted Karen Ristuben, an artist from Gloucester, MA. She gave a beautiful and eye-opening presentation called Just one Word.... It was full of information about plastics and what they have been doing to our planet since they came into every day use in the 50's.  I won't go into the details of her presentation. I hope you will click on the links we have provided so that you can go and look for yourselves at some of what she was talking about but let me just say that it moved me to tears and it has caused me to really think about my own consumption of plastic, convenience and how unbelievably careless and cavalier I have been.  Like many of us, I try to be conscious about my impact on my environment but Karen's presentation really brought it home to me (and I hope to others like me) that I say a lot but when it comes right down to it, I don't do enough. I thought I did. I really thought I did but in one hour I was forced to be honest and admit that I am not consistent and that sometimes the convenience that plastics afford my life often trumps the environment. We can all do more. How many times have we heard that and try to do just that? After listening to Karen's performance I realized that we HAVE to do more.  We have a lot to take care of.

7 billion tons. That's how much plastic is floating in our oceans. I'm sure you have all heard of the floating island of plastic that is the size of Texas.  Well it exists. And it isn't just one. It is at least five.  Plastic islands gather in the 5 gyres in each of the five oceans.  And it isn't just floating on the surface it is pervasive into the water column.  Plastics break down into smaller floating bits that outnumber plankton 5 to 1. And let's talk about all of the chemicals that also leach out of the plastic into the water column.  Bisphenol A (BPA) and polystyrene to name a few.  Plastic soup.  So all this plastic that was created to last forever, and it does, was created for convenience and usually to be used once.

These 7 billion tons of forever plastic doesn't just float indefinitely- it gets eaten by fish, turtles, whales, seals and ultimately us.  It gets into the guts of birds, around heads of animals and residual chemicals can even end up in breast milk -not in trace amounts- but in significant concentrations.  The most natural and "breast is best" idea can actually be a direct line to toxic exposure for your infant.  So just because we don't chew on plastic bags or mistake floating plastic bits as food we are still ingesting it in one form or another.

There is so much more information out there on this. But I have to admit that listening to this presentation made me realize how pervasive, and insidiously embedded in MY life (and possibly yours too) plastics are. When I got I home I noticed it EVERYWHERE IN MY HOUSE. Plastic gallon water bottles that I used to make my baby's plastic bottles with formula that is in plastic containers. I noticed that all of our medications are in plastic bottles. Soda bottles. Tupperware.  Plastic take out containers. Cups. Kids plates. A Bumbo and its tray. Toys. Utensils. And this was just in my kitchen.

Taking inventory of the plastic that is in my life and home I am overwhelmed.  How did I get here? How do I get out of it? I know that every little bit can help but where to start? So here is MY list of what I am going to do to curb my plastic consumption. It is not extensive- YET- but it is a starting point.

-I will try to not ever use another plastic bag again.

-Spend the money! I will get my water treated so I don't ever buy another plastic water bottle again.

-I will not buy another drink in a plastic container.

- Recycle as much as I can.

-Learn what plastics are truly recycle-able and try not to use the others.

-I will help clean up my beaches and my woods.

-I will donate toys and hope that the next owners will donate them when they are finished.

-I will decline a straw at restaurants.

-I will always have my travel mug or cup with me.

-I will bring my reusable bags everywhere.

- I am switching my baby to cloth diapers

-I will join the local effort to make Portsmouth, NH plastic bag free. If we can make places implement a non-smoking ban I am sure we can make them be plastic bag free.

-I haven't figured out what to do about other plastic containers and packaging- how do I avoid having to buy those?

This is hardly anything but it is a start.  

Anyone reading this- if you have other ideas- please comment and let me know. We can start a list and pass it around.

I want to leave this planet knowing I did as much as possible to keep it healthy and alive. And this is how I am starting.

How will you?