Tokyo Electric Power Company, via Reuters In an image provided by Tokyo Electric Power Company, contaminated water from the crippled No. 2 reactor drains into the ocean at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Saturday.

As I read reports about the release of more than 11,000 tons of radiation-laced water into the sea from the damaged nuclear plant in Japan, I recalled reporting I did more than a decade ago on the many uses of silt barriers — essentially curtains suspended in water — to hold back everything from oil slicks to the bursts of polluted runoff flowing into coastal waters from city storm drains after heavy storms (the water can be pumped and treated once the system is not overloaded).

Here’s a diagram from the company Gunderboom that shows how such curtains work:

I asked Andy McCusker, vice president for technical services for the company, about whether the basic situation at the Fukushima plant complex appeared tractable using this well established technology. You can read his thoughts below.

As it turns out, officials at the Tokyo Electric Power Company – three weeks into the emergency at Fukushima — have just started considering deploying such devices, according to a government official quoted in the Mainichi Daily News: Read more…

April 4, 9:50 a.m. | Updated
Federal fisheries officials, after field studies and public debate, have issued a new rule requiring commercial fishing boats deploying long lines of fish hooks in the Gulf of Mexico to use “weak hooks” that hold smaller, abundant species like yellowfin tuna but, in theory, will allow depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna and other rare large species to escape. Here’s background in a news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (The photo above is from NOAA, as well.)

My initial reaction, after reviewing arguments by the agency and environmental and sport-fishing groups, is that this move is far too little, considering the plight of the Atlantic bluefin, which is slow to mature and reproduce and thus particularly vulnerable. (Here’s my overview, from 2005; things have not improved.) Bluefin face deep trouble on both sides of the Atlantic, with the sushi trade creating extraordinarily high prices for the ocean-roaming giants. Read more…

One of the worst experiences at sea is hitting bottom where you expect deep water. The photo above shows the aftermath of an awful night for me in 1980. I was at the helm of the circumnavigating sailboat Wanderlust when, around 1 a.m., a gale blew up and drove me off course into shallow waters off Messolonghi, Greece. (There’s a long, mostly happy story about what happened next.)

But this was in warm waters and the bottom was a sand bar, not rock. In far less hospitable waters along the Antarctic peninsula, a cruise ship, the MV Polar Star, became the latest in a string of vessels getting into trouble way down south, in this case hitting an uncharted rock yesterday near Detaille Island. The outer of the ship’s twin hulls was slightly breached and the vessel is now slowly making its way up the Antarctic Peninsula enroute to Ushuaia, Argentina, according to a news release from the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (the excerpt below has to be preceded by a euphemism alert because of the phrase I’ve italicized):

Polar Star Expeditions reports that following yesterday’s incident when the double-hulled ship touched a rock that resulted in a minor breach of the outer hull, officers and crew spent the day assessing damage, taking corrective measures, and consulting with the Halifax home office, flag state and classification society officials. Last evening at approximately 2100 local time, the MV Polar Star departed its location near Detaille Island and is currently heading north-northeast at approximately 10 knots toward Arctowski Station, a Polish research facility on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands. There, as an added precaution, station divers will make an underwater inspection to confirm that the vessel is fit to return to Ushuaia,

Thanks, Jon Bowermaster, for alerting me to this latest development in the increasingly busy waters at both ends of the earth.

Having stood on the shifting sea ice near the North Pole once, I do feel the desire to be bipolar and go to Antarctic waters someday, despite conditions that will always make trips there adventure travel in the purest sense of that word.

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Dec. 9, 9:12 a.m. | Updated
My friend Jon Bowermaster, a peripatetic kayaking filmmaker and travel writer, alerted me overnight to a post he wrote on an unfolding maritime emergency as the cruise ship Clelia II struggled* with limited power in extraordinarily violent seas halfway between the Antarctic Peninsula and Cape Horn.

The truly scary video above was shot by Fiona Stewart and Garett McIntosh from the National Geographic Explorer, which stood by for hours to provide aid if need be.

In 1980, when I was first mate on a circumnavigating 60-foot sailboat, the Wanderlust, we spent a horrendous night being pummeled by powerful seas after I ran her aground on a sandbar in a wild gale (moral of the story; invest in detailed charts). But that was in Greece, with two tugs soon hovering nearby hoping to claim salvage rights. To be in similar conditions in the Southern Ocean takes things to a more unnerving place. (To learn more about the forces that generate such waves, I suggest you read “The Power of the Sea,” a fascinating exploration of the subject by Bruce Parker.)

According to a news release posted today on the Web site of the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, the ship, which got in trouble after a rogue wave smashed a window on the bridge, is back up to full speed making its way to its scheduled port, Ushuaia, Argentina. Here’s a short excerpt from Bowermaster’s post and a link to the rest: Read more…

Andrew C. Revkin Tourists watch a fin whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. The species is being heavily hunted in waters off Iceland.

The Obama administration has strongly criticized Iceland for resuming international trade in the meat from its expanding hunt for fin whales, the second largest whale species and one still listed as endangered under the United States Endangered Species Act. Here’s a summary and statement issued this week by the Department of Commerce:

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued the following statement on Iceland’s decision to resume international trade in fin whale meat, and its escalation of commercial whaling outside of the control of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Iceland killed 273 endangered fin whales in the last two years. IWC scientists fear removing more than 46 fin whales per year from the population is unsustainable. There is currently a global moratorium on commercial whaling, and a ban on international trade in fin whale meat.

“The United States strongly opposes Iceland’s defiance of the commercial whaling ban. We urge Iceland to cease international trade of whale meat and work with the international community to safeguard whale species,” said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. “It is troubling that Iceland continues to pursue commercial whaling outside the boundaries of the IWC, without member oversight or analysis by the Commission’s scientific committee.”

This video, shot by Greenpeace last year, shows the fin whale harvest:

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There’s more on Iceland’s expanded commercial whaling efforts in earlier Dot Earth posts.

A powerful and innovative international journalistic effort has revealed the web of interests — from boat captains to European government agencies to fish auctions — behind the devastation of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

I encourage you to explore the reporting by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a companion documentary by Television for the Environment. (Also known by its lower-case acronym, tve, the nonprofit documentary unit was created in 1984 by WWF, known in the United States as the World Wildlife Fund, the United Nations Environment Program and the Britain’s Central TV). Here’s a video summary:

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There’s been plenty of fine reporting on the assault on this extraordinary ocean-roaming predator, which has become a coveted delicacy that often has a six-figure price tag attached once prized specimens are delivered to auctioneers in Tokyo.

But I haven’t seen a report anywhere that lays out so clearly the full sequence of steps in the chain: from boats to “ranches” where illegally caught fish are fattened for market before they had a chance to reproduce to government offices in France, Spain and other countries eager to prop up the fishing industry despite the ecological cost.

The online package is also notable for its design, using Treesaver, a flexible and highly effective presentation technology. It also confirms that compelling investigative reporting can be undertaken even as conventional media go through a turbulent transition to whatever comes next.

The relationship of the television production to a United Nations agency and an environmental group can prompt questions about objectivity, but the package, over all, appears robust. (At the bottom of this post you can read a comment from WWF on the limits of the group’s relationship to the production. I’m seeking responses from European officials and the treaty organization responsible for conserving Atlantic tunas.)

Here are some highlights from the summary: Read more…

10:43 p.m. | Updated
The Center for Biological Diversity is known for creative public relations stunts, like deploying one of its lawyers in a polar bear suit at climate talks in Copenhagen last December:

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But the group is even better at filing lawsuits using novel arguments under existing laws to try to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases.

As a longtime observer of a wide range of efforts to limit global warming, I see this as one of the least likely to succeed — and a bad match of tool and task — if the goal is, in fact, to limit warming, which would require global cuts in emissions.

But they have every right to try. And they’ve had some success, including prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to consider if carbon dioxide should be restricted under the Clean Water Act — because it’s lowering the pH of seawater in ways that could harm corals and plankton.

They’ve also tried to test the greenhouse value of the Endangered Species Act by asserting that wildlife including several sea turtle species and, of course, polar bears faced extinction through global warming.

They’ve had the most success with polar bears, forcing the Bush administration in December 2006 to acknowledge the connection between greenhouse-driven warming and harm to wildlife and prompting the listing of the species as threatened.

In the wake of a hearing last month on this and several related lawsuits, a Federal District Court judge in Washington, D.C., this week ordered the Interior Department to explain its decision not to seek the greatest protection.

The news release issued by the biodiversity center following the judge’s order clearly shows the long-term game plan of the group. Along with the threatened listing for polar bears, the Bush administration was able to issue a related special rule exempting greenhouse-gas emissions from being affected by the species law. But such special rules cannot be issued if a species is listed as endangered.

Watch for the Obama administration response some time in late December.

There’s just one problem. As this legal saga plays out, no one in Asia — where nearly all of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is coming in the next few decades — will blink an eye.

Postscript:

Coincidentally, newly published research on changing dietary habits of polar bears around the southern shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay reveals the species’ adaptability in the face of shifting climate patterns. The bears there have had to leave the sea ice behind, along with their normal diet of ringed seal pups, earlier in the year because of warming. But now they find themselves onshore just as vast flocks of snow geese are nesting, providing an abundant supply of eggs and birds.

Here’s the keystone conclusion from the paper, which is being published in the journal Oikos:

Climate change driven advances in the date of sea ice breakup will increasingly lead to a loss of spring polar bear foraging opportunities on ringed seal pups creating a phenological trophic ‘mismatch.’ However, the same shift will lead to a new ‘match’ between polar bears and ground nesting birds.

I first wrote on this research, led by biologists affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, when the field work was in its early stages. Another paper on the work was published last year.

Paul Watson, the charismatic and controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd campaign against Japanese whale hunts, has offered a potent rebuttal tonight to allegations that he ordered the scuttling of the Ady Gil, a million-dollar anti-whaling patrol boat damaged after a collision with a Japanese ship in the southern ocean early this year. Here’s one video view of the collision:

Watson defended himself in a long statement submitted as a comment on an earlier post rounding up coverage of accusations made by Pete Bethune, the skipper of the wrecked vessel: Read more…

The Atlantic sturgeon, an armored, ancient, kayak-size denizen of eastern rivers and coasts, is still ailing despite strict fishing limits, so federal officials on Tuesday proposed giving it protection under the Endangered Species Act. The plan, after a period of public comment, would give endangered or threatened status to five populations of the species grew out of a petition last year by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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A particular threat to the sturgeon these days is offshore netting of dogfish and monkfish, in which nets set on the sea bottom, where sturgeon tend to feed, Kim Damon-Randall, a federal fisheries biologist, told me in an interview on Tuesday. She added that significant numbers of sturgeon — often the most important large fish, which produce the most eggs — are being struck by vessels in the Delaware River.

The sturgeon, in decades long past, commonly exceeded 14 feet and 800 pounds. In the late 1800s, the fish were so abundant in the Hudson River that they were stacked like logs on sloop decks and the smoked flesh gained the nickname Albany beef. But they suffered two great population crashes, first toward the end of the 19th century and again in the last years of the 20th century.

Starting in 1996, all fishing of the New York sturgeon population was stopped under a moratorium that persists today. I was out on the river that year with scientists, aided by former commercial fishermen, trying to assess the remaining fish. In late June this year, I was out again, and shot the video above of the single seven-foot male that was netted near Poughkeepsie. (A new study using special tags that separate from the fish after awhile has provided insights into how far the sturgeon roam when at sea.)

I’ll be writing more shortly on the challenges attending efforts to conserve this remarkable species and its kin in rivers like China’s Yangtze, where fishing and shipping pose a similar threat and biologists are calling for a moratorium on catching the giants.