All Categories

Salish Sea Biological Opinion Provides Path for Nearshore Projects while Safeguarding Species

7/28/2022

NOAA Fisheries

Pending shoreline projects in the Salish Sea can now proceed under a new regulatory tool, a programmatic consultation. The tool provides for efficient Endangered Species Act reviews in nearshore habitat of the Salish Sea while also protecting some of the most important but imperiled habitat for threatened salmon and steelhead.

Department of the Interior Announces Environmental Review of First Proposed Wind Energy Project Offshore Maryland

6/13/2022

U.S. Department of the Interior

Continuing the momentum to achieve the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, the Department of the Interior today announced the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will conduct an environmental review of the first proposed wind energy project offshore Maryland.

This week, the Department will publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by US Wind, LLC (US Wind). This is the 10th offshore wind energy COP review initiated under the Biden-Harris administration.

Biden administration restores environmental review for major infrastructure projects

4/19/2022

NPR

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is restoring federal regulations that require rigorous environmental review of major infrastructure projects such as highways, pipelines and oil wells — including likely impacts on climate change and nearby communities. The longstanding reviews were scaled back by the Trump administration in a bid to fast-track projects and create jobs.

A rule finalized Tuesday will restore key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law designed to ensure community safeguards during reviews for a wide range of federal proposals, including roads, bridges and energy projects authorized in the $1 trillion infrastructure law Biden signed last fall, the White House said.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality said the new rule, which takes effect in late May, should resolve challenges created by the Trump-era policy and restore public confidence during environmental reviews.

Ocean Energy Needs a Lift to Go Mainstream

1/4/2022

Wall Street Journal

Technology to harvest energy from waves and tides has been proven to work, but costs need to come down.

Oceans contain energy that is both renewable and predictable—an appealing combination given the challenges posed by fluctuating wind and solar power. But the technologies for harvesting marine energy will need a boost if they are to go mainstream.

The COP26 summit to fight climate change has started. Here's what to expect

11/2/2021

NPR
A climate extravaganza got underway in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday. President Biden showed up. So have other world leaders and a small city's worth of diplomats, business executives and activists. It's billed as a potential turning point in the struggle to avert the worst effects of climate change, and it has a curious name: COP26.
Is it worth the hype? What might it accomplish? Here's what you need to know.

Q. What's a COP?
These climate meetings began in 1992, when countries signed a treaty promising to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and prevent dangerous changes to the climate. Almost every year since then, the parties to this agreement have met to talk about what still needs to be done. It's called a Conference of Parties, or COP. This is the 26th such meeting. So, COP26.

Genetic Analysis Shows Beluga Whale in Puget Sound Likely Arrived from Arctic Waters

10/28/2021

NOAA Fisheries
Scientists have collected genetic material from the beluga whale that was first sighted in Puget Sound in early October. It indicates that the whale is likely from a large population of beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska.

The whale appears to have traveled thousands of miles south around Alaska through the Bering Sea and south to Puget Sound. It was last sighted on October 20 near Tacoma. The whale does not appear to be from the small and endangered Cook Inlet beluga population near Anchorage, Alaska.

The genetic analysis involved sequencing DNA extracted from a water sample collected near the beluga whale in Puget Sound earlier this month. This material is known as environmental DNA, or eDNA, because it comes from skin, fecal, or other cellular debris found in the environment near the animal.

A major new facility in Oregon could help transform the prospects of wave energy

4/29/2021

CNBC

With snow-capped mountains, shimmering lakes and vast swathes of forest, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, does not lack for natural beauty.

In waters off its coastline, one project is attempting to harness nature’s power by testing and analyzing wave energy converters, a technology which could have an important role to play in a transition to renewables.

Known as PacWave, the project is based around two locations: PacWave North, “a test-site for small-scale, prototype, and maritime market technologies,” and PacWave South, which is under development and has received grants from the Department of Energy and the State of Oregon, among others.

More management measures lead to healthier fish populations

1/20/2021

UW News

Fish populations tend to do better in places where rigorous fisheries management practices are used, and the more measures employed, the better for fish populations and food production, according to a new paper published Jan. 11 in Nature Sustainability.

The study, led by Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, draws upon the expertise of more than two dozen researchers from 17 regions around the world. The research team analyzed the management practices of nearly 300 fish populations to tease out patterns that lead to healthier fisheries across different locations. Their findings confirmed, through extensive data analysis, what many researchers have argued for several years.

“In general, we found that more management attention devoted to fisheries is leading to better outcomes for fish and shellfish populations,” Melnychuk said. “While this won’t be surprising to some, the novelty of this work was in assembling the data required and then using statistical tools to reveal this pattern across hundreds of marine populations.”

Tire-related chemical is largely responsible for adult coho salmon deaths in urban streams

12/17/2020

UW News

Every fall more than half of the coho salmon that return to Puget Sound’s urban streams die before they can spawn. In some streams, all of them die. But scientists didn’t know why.

Now a team led by researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma, UW and Washington State University Puyallup have discovered the answer. When it rains, stormwater flushes bits of aging vehicle tires on roads into neighboring streams. The killer is in the mix of chemicals that leach from tire wear particles: a molecule related to a preservative that keeps tires from breaking down too quickly.

What’s Green, Soggy and Fights Climate Change?

10/11/2020

NY Times

You might be surprised: Protecting peat bogs could help the world avert the worst effects of global warming, a new study has found. Protecting intact peatlands and restoring degraded ones are crucial steps if the world is to counter climate change, European researchers said Friday.

In a study, they said peat bogs, wetlands that contain large amounts of carbon in the form of decaying vegetation that has built up over centuries, could help the world achieve climate goals like the limit of 2 degrees Celsius of postindustrial warming that is part of the 2015 Paris agreement.

<<Previous

Current Events