Tracy Press

A commentary by Robert Ovetz of Seaflow.

Imagine if someone put a superhighway through Yosemite National Park.

That’s exactly what’s happening just outside the Golden Gate. Our Yosemites on the sea are being used as on-ramps to the global economy. And as long as they continued to be used this way we can only expect more and worse Cosco Busan spills.

The Bay Area is home to three contiguous national marine sanctuaries: the Cordell Bank, Monterrey Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries. The federal government has a system of 13 national marine sanctuaries — the ocean equivalent to our national park system — that protect the most sensitive and biologically diverse of our national waters. California has four, including one in the Channel Islands. There are also dozens of state marine protected areas along the central and north central California coast.

Running shipping lanes through these sanctuaries undermines the intent of the 1972 Sanctuaries Act to protect these biologically rich areas.

Running these shipping lanes through or near newly proposed marine protected areas also threatens to undermine the number one goal of the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act — protecting the integrity of critical marine habitats including areas like Pt. Bonita, Duxbury Reef and Pt. Reyes, all three of which have been polluted by the Cosco Busan spill.

The deadly little secret of the Cosco Busan spill is that our sanctuaries and state marine protected areas are in danger. Every cargo vessel and oil tanker that enters San Francisco Bay passes right through at least one of our three contiguous national marine sanctuaries. The approximately 3,600 vessels that annually enter San Francisco Bay are threatening the very integrity of these invaluable marine habitats and the bay.

This year, the state Department of Fish and Game began working to establish a new network of marine protected areas along the north central California coast. One of the critically important areas in the region, Pt. Bonita in the Marin Headlands, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is contaminated by the Cosco Busan spill. Every vessel entering the bay passes right through Pt. Bonita and one of the northbound lane runs right through Pt. Reyes.

Attention to the threat from shipping in the north central coastal region has been mostly missing in the Marine Life Protection Act planning process. Hopefully, the oil spill and a recent stranding of a humpback whale in Pt. Reyes National Seashore, which was reportedly struck by a large ship, will serve as a wake-up call to the stakeholders involved.

As devastating as oil spills are, large cargo vessels and oil tankers present a wide-ranging threat to the environment. They contribute to global warming by burning bunker fuel like that spilt by the Cosco Busan.

Large ships and oil tankers also emit intense low-frequency noise at the same frequency used by baleen whales — the biggest source of ocean noise pollution, which is on the rise locally and globally. In some areas, scientists have documented that underwater noise levels have doubled every decade for the past 40 years. Ocean noise pollution has a range of impacts on marine life. At worst, it can be deadly. Studies show that fish, including commercially important species, are dramatically impacted by noise pollution. Hearing loss, changes in migration and schooling along with serious reduction in catch rates have all been documented.

The problem of large vessel traffic into San Francisco Bay is increasing rapidly and is not going to go away unless action is taken immediately. The Port of Oakland, already plaguing local communities with toxic emissions from both the vessels and semi-trucks that service them, is the fourth busiest container port in the U.S. and 20th busiest in the world. The global large commercial vessel fleet nearly tripled from about 30,000 vessels in 1950 to more than 85,000 vessels in 1998. The number of large vessels in the global fleet is expected to nearly double in the next 20 to 30 years. About two oil tankers already visit San Francisco Bay each day.

The Cosco Busan spill can be a lesson that our national marine sanctuaries and new state marine protection areas must be insulated from the rising threat of large cargo vessels and oil tankers. Federal and state agencies responsible for protecting these marine habitats and managing vessel traffic must work together as well as with industry and environmental groups to address this urgent problem.

The number one goal of the Marine Life Protection Act is to protect the integrity of these proposed marine protected areas. That cannot be achieved if we continue to ignore the risk of more Cosco Busan spills, ship emissions, ship strikes and rising ocean noise pollution.

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written by scott hurban , November 28, 2007

I guess we can just shut down all oil shipments to the state and go back to horses! Protecting the environment is important, but there is always a certain amount of risk if we care to have an industrialized economy and support a U.S. population of 300 million people.

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written by Mark Davis , November 28, 2007

It's worth taking a look at the long-term consequences of environmental change in books like Jared Diamond's Collapse. The question is how to balance the risk while acknowledging the remarkable impact almost all development has on the common environment. Personally, I think the dialectic between environmental concerns and industrial interests largely works in all of our favor.

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written by Dave Hardesty , November 29, 2007

Mark

On your last statement I can agree, it does largely work in all of our favor.

The problem I have with this article, the same problem I have with many writers, is it simply parrots problems an offers no viable solutions.

It's relatively easy for everyone to see that shipping on the high seas, uncontrolled, can be a serious problem for all conserned.

But handling shipping traffic in a safe manner so as not to cause eco-biological problems without disturbing the balance of the national economy is a much different thing.

But to simply leave it as Scott has and not do anything about it, even though he was attempting to illustrate the problem, isn't enough either.

Personally I am tired of complaints from all sides of the issue. What I would really like to hear are some well thought out viable solutions to the problem that will benefit everyone.

I support the writers comment, "The number one goal of the Marine Life Protection Act is to protect the integrity of these proposed marine protected areas." But it is of paramont importance to understand the Act would have no meaning to anyone if there isn't an economy to support it.

Shutting down shipping traffic on our west coast, or any of our three coastlines, isn't going to solve any problems. In fact it will most likely make the problem worse, if you take a look at the nations who don't have the same laws protecting their shores and rivers that we do.

Do any swimming in the Seine or the Tamise recently? How about the Mekong, Yellow, Yangtze or Ganges? If you have then you should be able to see what I am trying to get at here.

Without an economic infrastructure to support laws like Marine Life Protection Act, the laws are toothless.