Ocean Mining Licks Its Chops

Gimme Gimme Gimme

Last year, deep ocean mining sounded an alarm by a woman who knows more about ocean life than most.  This week the New York Times gave us an unsettling update. 

Although the story appears balanced, the overall feel is like being blasted by some feverish gold rush bullhorn, hair blown back, ears ringing.

The undersea fire is stoked with talk of "trillions of dollars" and "bonanzas" and the gauntlet is thrown with comments like "It's first come, first get". 

The rush here is so palpable I can almost see the oceans already trampled.

When has surface mining ever favored nature?  How are mining companies going to treat the thousands of unknown species in a technologically-challenging undersea environment?

This isn't trace amounts either -- this is digging up thousands of tons of earth from the seabed, which serves as home to many creatures we hardly understand.  History shows that even the smallest creatures are important to the overall ecosystem and the health of the oceans.  It seems there are many questions.

What kind of mining wastes will be dumped back into the sea?  Will we even know what's really going on out there with underwater mining operations in international waters in the middle of the vast ocean?

Less Rush More Thought 

The Deep Sea Mining Campaign, a group putting the ocean before the gold, advocates for caution and full assessments before mining -- less rush more thought.  But their voice seems drowned out by the bullhorn.

Everyone is watching Nautilus mining company as they are the most aggressive, unfortunately aided by the people who found the Titanic, Odyssey Marine Exploration, and backed by the biggest economy in the world -- China.  They're going after places all over the planet starting with a site near Papua New Guinea; such sites are full of sea life.

Cindy Lee Van Dover,  a marine biologist at Duke University, asks us to hang on and apply the precautionary principle -- to defer "wholesale commercial mining" of the seabed until conservation plans are in place, according to the Vancouver Sun.

In the cross hairs

Seems like the big players cannot hear her voice over the rapacious sounds of collective chop licking.

The International Seabed Authority, which has jurisdiction over mineral resources in international waters, has also received applications for mining exploration of other sea-floor deposits.  The China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association has its sights on the Southwest Indian Ridge, and Russia has applied to work on the mid-Atlantic Ridge, according to the story.

This is a good fight. As Van Dover said, "There are creatures of extraordinary beauty down there, exquisitely adapted to their environment." 

Read the full Vancouver Sun story here.

Oceans Can Feed the World

A new tact (relatively speaking) for saving the oceans from Oceana at the World Oceans Summit -- feed people.

Frankly, these global events seem to generate a lot of talk but little action.  Amazing how many people like to hear themselves talk.

Maybe framing the oceans in terms of a solution to feed the world will spur some action.  It is no small idea, but with over a billion people going to bed hungry every day, it could resonate. 

Ted Danson explains the thinking here in the Huff Post:

"The reality is that there will be 9 billion of us by 2050. The planetary pressures of this 34-percent population increase over 2009 levels will be magnified by an expected, general rise in the standard of living. Experts estimate that people's demand for food will grow 70 percent over current levels. How are we going to feed everyone?

The oceans can play a big part of the solution. Wild seafood has huge advantages over terrestrial livestock. It is cheaper to produce per pound. It requires no land. It is much more CO2-efficient. It uses only trivial amounts of fresh water (in processing).

On a global basis, a fully productive ocean could provide the entire animal protein diet for a billion people, or 13 to 15 percent of the animal protein produced on the entire planet. However, too often, plans for how feed in the world in the future overlook the ocean's potential vital role in feeding humanity for many years to come."

Naturally, if the oceans are to feed the world, it would have be done sustainably.  The health of the oceans depends on it, and as the oceans go, we go.

Go Edith Widder

Today a shout out to Edith Widder, marine scientist and founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, for her work on BP's Gulf catastrophe. According to the Palm Beach Post, Edith is taking matters into her own capable hands. She is conducting independent research on the oil disaster while providing sobering insight into BP's involvement in the response effort.

From the story, here are two good quotes, one very informative and one hopeful:

"And she doesn’t want BP involved because after working as a consultant at an Alabama command post dealing with the oil spill, she has little confidence in the company’s leadership and sense of urgency when it comes to damage assessment.

'We cannot sit around and wait for BP to do the right thing,' said Widder, who created the conservation association ORCA in 2005 after 16 years at Harbor Branch. 'All of those oil command centers are completely under BP control and that’s the fox watching the henhouse.'"

And a simple and simply hopeful quote:

“We shouldn’t assume we can’t do anything,” Widder said.

Nice work and thank you Edith!



The full story by staff writer Kimberly Miller is here:

BP lacks sense of urgency, scientist says, taking testing into her own hands


Frustrated by BP’s control of the purse strings, and therefore the scientific efforts to monitor the largest oil spill in U.S. history, one South Florida researcher has launched her own effort to guard the state’s eastern shores.


Deep sea explorer Edith Widder, a former senior scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce and founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, began collecting sediment samples this week at inlets from Miami to Sebastian, including those in Palm Beach County.

She wants baseline data so that if the oil seeps through the Florida Straits and into the coast-hugging Gulf Stream there will be comparisons to gauge short-term effects and long-term damage. Widder also hopes to place real-time sensors developed by her organization into the Atlantic Ocean to detect when the oil is coming and in what form.

And she doesn’t want BP involved because after working as a consultant at an Alabama command post dealing with the oil spill, she has little confidence in the company’s leadership and sense of urgency when it comes to damage assessment.

“We cannot sit around and wait for BP to do the right thing,” said Widder, who created the conservation association ORCA in 2005 after 16 years at Harbor Branch. “All of those oil command centers are completely under BP control and that’s the fox watching the henhouse.”

Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion April 20 that caused the gusher now believed to be releasing as much as 2.5 million gallons of oil each day, BP has faced criticism for being stubborn to acknowledge the worst of the spill.

For weeks, BP executives have doubted discoveries by University of South Florida researchers who identified a huge underwater plume of oil that scientists worry could cause as much or more devastation as the surface oil slick.

In the May 27 edition of the journal Nature, scientists complained of a lack of baseline data gathering in the gulf, information that it is probably too late to collect. They also had concerns about not knowing what kind of studies already were under way.

Widder’s group has experienced the same thing. BP already approved plans to collect sediment and water samples in southeast Florida waters, data that was taken last week, said Florida Emergency Operations Center spokeswoman Amy Graham.

“The general consensus is there doesn’t seem to be any sharing of information,” said Warren Falls, ORCA’s managing director, who had spoken to Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection but said he didn’t know about the sampling.

Two other plans for sampling the waters off Martin County north to the Georgia state line await BP and Unified Command approval.

“The fact that it has to be approved by BP makes no sense. It’s scary,” said Widder, who acted as an oil consultant for the Department of Interior. “I wish I could report a strong, well-organized, science-driven oil spill response plan. Unfortunately, that is not the case.”

It may have improved this week with BP’s announcement of millions of dollars in grant money to scientists, including the University of South Florida-based Florida Institute of Oceanography.

The institute will receive $10 million of an expected $500 million that BP pledged during the next 10 years. ORCA is not a member of the institute.

Vickie Chachere, news manager for USF communications and marketing, said the institute was promised that BP will not interfere with the research and that all data will be made public.

“There are no strings attached,” said William Hogarth, acting director of the institute.

Still, Widder said she has to act. She’s collecting private donations to place about 10 solar-powered water-quality monitors along the east coast. Each monitor, called a Kilroy, can take readings every half hour.

Widder wants to raise up to $200,000 to set up the monitoring system, something she wants to be totally separate from BP.

“We shouldn’t assume we can’t do anything,” Widder said. “But doing something means having the knowledge of what we are fighting.”

For more information go to www.teamorca.org.