News Archive: October-December 2007

Guam Receives Full Approval of its Coastal Nonpoint Program

On September 26th, OCRM, in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, fully approved Guams’s Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program.  The Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program was established by Congress in 1990 to encourage better coordination between state coastal zone managers and water quality experts to reduce polluted runoff in the coastal zone. Coastal states must develop programs, backed by enforceable authorities, to implement a suite of management measures that will control runoff from six main sources: forestry, agriculture, urban areas, marinas, hydromodification (shoreline and stream channel modification), and wetlands and riparian areas.  Guam is the 19th coastal state or territory to receive full approval for their Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program.

Contact: Allison.Castellan@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (CPD)

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Hudson River NERR Celebrates Three Times Over

Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve in New York observed National Estuaries Day with a triple celebration on Saturday, Sept. 29 in Staatsburg, NY.

National Ocean Service Assistant Administrator John H. Dunnigan joined state officials, reserve partners, staff and volunteers to help the reserve celebrate its 25th anniversary and the dedicate the Norrie Point Environmental Center, the reserve’s new headquarters, built with more than $1.3 million in NOAA grants.

In addition, NY Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis announced that the 1,722-acre Tivoli Bays component of the Hudson River reserve is the first state Natural Heritage Area in a new program designed to protect rare animals, plants and habitats in the state.

Dunnigan praised the strong partnership between NOAA and the state of New York for its role in managing the reserve and protecting estuarine habitats for research, education and stewardship. He also called attention to a newly installed National Geodetic Survey marker adjacent the reserve's new weather station at the Norrie Point Environmental Center.

Following the ceremony and a lunch for invited guests, the reserve staff hosted an open house, featuring a bald eagle, laboratory demonstrations, fish printing and hand-built wooden kayaks, as well as a birthday cake.

The 4,838-acre Hudson River Reserve is in four components spread along 100 miles of the tidal Hudson River in New York State. NOAA’s partner in the reserve is the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.

Contact: George.Cathcart@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (ERD)

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National Data Buoy Center Adds NERRS Water Quality Data

NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center, which started serving real-time NERRS meteorological observations via its Website in July, is now also serving the reserve system’s real-time water quality data.

The weather and water quality observations are made by instruments that are part of the System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP), which has provided long-term data to scientists and educators since 1995. With support from the NOAA through the Integrated Ocean Observing System program, the reserves installed telemetering equipment and began sending real-time data by satellite last year.

Weather forecasters have been using the data for about a year, and it is available on several Web sites, including the NERRS’ Centralized Data Management Office and the National Weather Service’s Hydrometeorological Automated Data System.

The addition of reserve monitoring data to the NDBC Web site further expands the audience for SWMP data to include traditional NDBC users like mariners, first responders, and some weather forecast offices.  Water quality data includes water temperature, conductivity, salinity, oxygen levels, turbidity and pH levels. In addition to the most recent readings, the Web site provides a graph of each parameter showing readings over the previous five days.
Similar tables and graphs also report wind direction and speed, atmospheric pressure, air temperature and dew point.

Contact: Whitley.Saumweber@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (ERD)

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Sally Morehead Named Manager of Mission-Aransas Reserve

Sally Morehead, who has been assistant manager and stewardship coordinator of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve in Texas for more than a year, has been named manager of the reserve.  Among other experiences, Sally has worked on total maximum daily load (TMDL) programs and hypoxia in estuarine environments.

Morehead received a B.S. in marine biology from the University of Rhode Island and a M.S. in marine science from the University of Texas in 2001. Her master’s project involved the assessment of anthropogenic impacts on the marine communities at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.  After receiving her master’s degree, Morehead worked in Bergen, Norway on analysis of Sebastes spp. population structures using genetic techniques. She returned to the University of Texas in 2002 and worked on securing the designation of the Mission-Aransas NERR in 2006.

Contact: Matt.Chasse@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (ERD)

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Local Government Assistance Program Launched to Support Local Planning

Chesapeake NEMO (Network for Education of Municipal Officials), supported by a partnership between EPA, NOAA and NPS, launched one of its pilot local assistance programs in Mathews County Virginia in mid-October.  Mathews County officials are preparing for developing a new county comprehensive plan in the coming spring.  They requested help from Chesapeake NEMO for a series of public workshops on various issues surrounding growth and natural resources.

NEMO staff worked with the county and other NEMO partners (VA Department of Conservation & Recreation, Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission and Virginia Cooperative Extension) to develop a five part monthly series – “Talking About the Future – Second Tuesdays in Mathews” – plus a one day “citizen’s planning academy.”  On October 9th, the first session in the series hosted 65 citizens, planning commissioners and members of the board of supervisors – a good turnout in a small community. Jonathan Doherty presented “Linking Land, Water & Growth” describing how to integrate natural resources, low impact development techniques and other measure into local decision-making.  Todd Janeski (VA DCR) facilitated a public conversation.  Participants were very engaged and gave the presentation and the session very positive reviews. The series continues next month and runs through February, at which time, the formal aspects of the comprehensive planning process begin.  

Contact: Jonathan Doherty jdoherty@chesapeakebay.net, 410 295 3147

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New tool to track and map groundwater flow in coastal waters

In many coastal areas, groundwater is a major pathway for pollution transport that, until recently, has been hard to measure. With CICEET support, a research team from the University of South Florida has developed a tool to accelerate collection and analysis of groundwater location data, thereby providing a more efficient method to track and map groundwater discharge zones in coastal waters.

The Radon Seawater Analysis System uses radon as a proxy to track groundwater discharge. It works by extracting radon-enriched dry air from seawater and sending it through a series of high-sensitivity analyzers. Promising field tests conducted in the Apalachicola Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve led to a full-scale radon survey along the Bay’s coastline and to the eventual refinement and commercialization of the technology through Durridge, Inc., a private company specializing in instrumentation for environmental radon measurement.

The system has been used to map groundwater flows around the country by organizations that include the University of South Florida, Florida State University, Duke University, Stanford University, the U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, East Carolina State University, and Louisiana State University. It is also being used abroad in countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Israel, Azerbaijan, Thailand, India, Korea, the Philippines, Brazil, Japan, France, Jordan, Serbia, Montenegro, Georgia, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Armenia, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Poland, and East Germany.

Contact: dwight.trueblood@noaa.gov, UNH/NOAA Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET)

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Pacific Socioeconomic Monitoring Guidelines Drafted

After 2.5 years of discussion and collaboration, the Pacific region now has a draft set of socioeconomic monitoring guidelines that incorporates indicators used by the Global Socioeconomic Monitoring Initiative (SocMon) and the Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMA) Network into a user-friendly format. The guidelines and associated initiative, co-led by NOAA and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), are referred to as SEM-Pasifika to reflect the local culture.

The guidelines will be launched as a draft at the SPREP-organized Roundtable for Nature Conservation Conference on Friday, October 26 in Alotau, Papua New Guinea. Following the Conference, NOAA and SPREP have organized a field test and train-the-trainers workshop, which will be held on October 29 – November 2. Approximately 15 trainers are expected from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Hawaii, Micronesia, and Palau. The workshop will be filmed by a local videographer and made into a regional training video for conducting socioeconomic assessments.

This is an exciting milestone in being able to collect comparative data on human use of coral reef areas in the Pacific region. The final SEM-Pasifika guidelines will be launched in January 2008 to coincide with the International Year of the Reef.

Contact: Christy.Loper@noaa.gov, NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (Coral Program)

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New Technology Maps Habitat and Monitors Habitat Change in Tidal Waters

El Niño delivered a near knockout punch to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach in the late 1990s, stripping away dunes and prompting the city to build an emergency seawall. Beach erosion escalated along with community stakeholder tensions. In response, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a beach nourishment project that uses dredged sand to create a natural barrier to protect the beach.

To assess the project’s progress, Corps engineers are using a CICEET-sponsored integrated remote sensing and multibeam sonar modeling system. The system is an innovative solution to the challenge of mapping seafloor and monitoring habitat change in turbulent and shallow tidal waters, and provides the equivalent of high-resolution snapshots of the ocean floor. The tool has been used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Sanctuary Program, California Coastal Conservancy, National Science Foundation, and the United States Geological Survey in the following California locations: San Francisco, San Pablo Bay, Monterey Submarine Canyon, Elkhorn Slough, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Contact: dwight.trueblood@noaa.gov, UNH/NOAA Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET)

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NERRS Honors Padilla Bay Reserve Manager

Terry Stevens, long-time manager of the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Washington State, last week received the second annual NERRS/NERRA Award for outstanding contributions to the system.

Outgoing NERRA President Paul Dest and Estuarine Reserves Division Chief Laurie McGilvray presented the crystal award to Stevens during a dinner ceremony Thursday night at the NERRS Annual Meeting in Shepherdstown, W.Va. Stevens was cited for his role in founding the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association and his success in building partnerships to support the Padilla Bay Reserve, among other things.

The award, established in 2006, is presented to a person who has ìdemonstrated exemplary leadership and sustained commitment to the mission of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System.î Nominations are solicited from staff and friends of the reserves, and the NERRA executive committee makes the final selection.

Contact: George.Cathcart@noaa.gov, NOAAís Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (ERD)

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OCRM Staff Contribute to National Geographic Study

OCRM participated in the National Geographic Islands Destination Stewardship survey, in which islands from around the world were rated using six criteria weighted according to importance: environmental and ecological quality; social and cultural integrity; condition of historic buildings and archaeological sites; aesthetic appeal; quality of tourism management; and outlook for the future. 

The survey was conducted by the National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations (CSD), whose mission is to help protect the world’s distinctive places through wisely managed tourism and enlightened destination stewardship.  CSD’s annual “Places Rated” Destination Scorecards are designed to highlight issues of stewardship, put them on the table for public discussion and facilitate ways for destinations to improve. 

Survey results and more information are now posted on National Geographic Traveler's website, at www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/.

Contact:  Kris.Wall@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (CPD)

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OCRM Releases Summary of Recent Coastal Zone Management Act Program Evaluations (December 07)

NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) has released a first-of-its-kind report discussing some of the most prominent coastal management issues tackled by state Coastal Zone Management (CZM) programs and National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs) in recent years. The report was developed by analyzing the findings of fiscal year 2006 Coastal Zone Management Act evaluations of CZM programs and NERRs, and includes brief case studies of innovative approaches to key issues. The report will be released annually hereafter.

Contact: Kim.Penn@noaa.gov, NOAA’s Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (NPED)

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Conservation and Estuarine Land Conservation Program Supports Acquisition of Significant Parcel in Hawaii (December 07)

On Saturday, December 8, NOAA representatives attended a dedication and blessing celebrating the acquisition of “Pupukea Paumalu.”  Almost $2M in Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP) funds helped support the purchase of this 1,229 acre property.

This unique property, located on the North shore of Oahu, runs from the K’oolau Mountains down to a 400-foot coastal bluff perched above Pupukea Beach, which fronts the world-famous Pipeline and Sunset surfing breaks.  The Trust for Public Land and the North Shore Community Land Trust (NSCLT) helped broker the purchase with Japanese corporation Obayashi, which had plans to develop the property for a residential subdivision.

The State of Hawaii (which holds title to the property now) is developing a management plan for the property with support from the NSCLT and others in the North Shore community. NMS Pacific Islands Regional Manager Allen Tom gave remarks on behalf of NOAA at the event, which was also attended by Governor Lingle, Congressman Abercrombie, Mayor Hannemann, and musician Jack Johnson among other distinguished guests. 

With the purchase of the Pupukea Paumalu property, the total land area protected with CELCP funds now exceeds 32,000 acres. 

Contact:  Elisabeth.Morgan@noaa.gov NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (CPD)

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