A red tide, or harmful algal bloom, is the rapid growth of microscopic algae, Florida. Captions and Photo source: NOAA
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Fort Lauderdale officials say 211.6m gallons of sewage has spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways in the past few months. That’s enough to fill 320 Olympic-sized pools.
Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care
By NOAA;
If you arrived at your dream beach only to find it littered with plastic and other rubbish, would you stay and play — or be on your way?
A recent NOAA-funded study found that when the amount of marine debris normally on beaches is doubled, coastal economies could experience a substantial negative impact due to a decrease in beach visits and loss of economic activity in those communities.
For example: The largest potential economic loss was calculated for Orange County, California, where a doubling of the typical amount of debris was estimated to cause a $414 million decrease in local tourism-related spending and a loss of nearly 4,300 jobs.
Conversely, along Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline, a reduction of marine debris to near zero was estimated to add $217 million in local, tourism-related spending and more than 3,700 jobs.
The outcomes from this study further our understanding of how marine debris can affect the financial health of coastal communities that depend on beach recreation. Preventing marine debris before it enters our ocean, Great Lakes and waterways, can protect and help sustain a thriving coastal tourism economy.
To learn more, see our Story Mapoffsite link and NOAA’s Marine Debris Program website.
As many as five sand mines operated along the shoreline of the Monterey bay, CA, throughout the last century, scraping sand directly off of the beach. CEMEX extracted about 200,000 yds3 of sand from this back beach pond every year. Captions and Photograph courtesy of: © Gary Griggs
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Neighbors to the mining site known as the “Triangle Property,” on Bainbridge Island, WA, have been concerned that the sand-mining operation has been out of compliance with a permit issued by the DNR in 2009…
Read Full Article, Bainbridge Review (02-07-2020)
Demand for sand: the largest mining industry no one talks about; Inhabitat (05-23-2019)
The world’s largest and perhaps most destructive mining industry is rarely discussed. Approximately 85 percent of all material mined from the earth is a simple and widely available resource: sand. Because it is so cheap and readily available, it is mined by everyone from guy with a shovel, to multi-million dollar machine operations.
Corporate Sand Mining In SF Bay Sparks ‘Sand Wars’; CBS Bay Area (11-13-2018)
Six years ago, nonprofit environmental advocacy organization San Francisco Baykeeper sued sand-mining firm Hanson Marine Operations and the State Lands Commission to stop sand mining in the Bay. However, in November, an appeals court judge sided with the State Lands Commission and the sand mining company…
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report (GEA-March 2014)
Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.
In March 2014 The United Nations released its first Report about Sand Mining: “Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks.”
“Sand Wars” film documentary by Denis Delestrac – first broadcasted on the european Arte Channel, May 28th, 2013 in its french version: “Le Sable: enquête sur une disparition”, where it became the highest rated documentary for 2013 – expressly inspired the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to publish this 2014-Global Environmental Alert.
Sand Wars, An Investigation Documentary, By Award-Winning Filmmaker Denis Delestrac (©-2013)
“Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource…”— Denis Delestrac (©-2013).
Refugio Beach, oil along the coastline, May 2015. External corrosion on an oil pipeline was the root cause of a leak that spilled more than 140,000 gallons of crude on the Santa Barbara coast in May, federal regulators reported Wednesday. This oil spill was the state’s largest coastal oil spill in 25 years affecting Santa Barbara County. Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care.
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The 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline could soon slice across Appalachia. If completed, the hundreds of miles of 42- and 36-inch diameter steel would carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day…
Read Full Article; Grist (12-03-2019)
Trump Lawyers Defend Pipeline’s Route Across Appalachian Trail; Bloomberg News (12-02-2019)
Environmental groups opposed to the pipeline have until Jan. 15 to respond to the briefs. Oral argument is set for Feb. 24…
Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care
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Sections of Venice Beach in Los Angeles were blocked off Sunday after authorities discovered needles and other medical supplies had washed up on shore.
Lifeguards found a “large amount” of medical supplies, and authorities said they did not know where the medical supplies and needles came from…
Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care
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Sea-level rise makes wastewater planning even more important, writes scientist Rob Young…
Svalbard, Arctic region. Photo source: ©© Bjorn Alfthan / UNEP
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The Arctic is emerging as a potential geopolitical flashpoint for the U.S., Russia and China as shipping routes get unblocked…
Read Full Article; Bloomberg (10-11-2019)
Marine mammals most at risk from increased Arctic ship traffic; Science Daily (07-02-2018)
The first comprehensive survey of Arctic marine mammal populations’ vulnerability to shipping along two main routes finds which face the most risks from heavier traffic in the region…
“FREIGHTENED – The Real Price of Shipping,” a movie by multi award-winning filmmaker Denis Delestrac-©-2016; (03-31-2016)
90% of the goods we consume in the West are manufactured in far-off lands and brought to us by ship. The cargo shipping industry is a key player in world economy and forms the basis of our very model of modern civilisation; without it, it would be impossible to fulfil the ever-increasing demands of our societies. Yet the functioning and regulations of this business remain largely obscure to many, and its hidden costs affect us all. Due to their size, freight ships no longer fit in traditional city harbours; they have moved out of the public’s eye, behind barriers and check points…
Miramar Beach, California. Heavy pollution, overflowing trash bins, dog sanitary plastic bags left pilling up all around, at Miramar Beach’s access.
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Half the beaches in the U.S. have at least one day per summer season in which it’s not safe to swim because of elevated bacteria levels in the water, according to new research from Environment America and the Frontier Group…
Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care
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A new analysis details widespread bacterial contamination at U.S. beaches, with more than half of the tested sites exceeding a federal safety threshold at least once in 2018.
Nearly 60% of the more than 4,500 beaches sampled in 2018 had at least one day of unsafe bacteria levels…
