Oceans

From the Brim to the Dregs.

by Liza Morris

We have all heard stories of abundant runs of salmon, innumerable towering old growth trees and frequent teeming pods of whales in and around the Georgia Strait. However, in the past decades, the serious decline in various species has become drastic.

by Dr. Irene Novaczek
from: "Environmental Impact of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry,"

During drilling and extraction of gas deposits from the sea floor, releases of gas into the marine environment are inevitable. Gas is dumped into the sea mixed in with produced water, may leak from pipelines, tankers and underwater storage tanks, or may be released during catastrophic well blowouts, explosions and smaller accidental spills. Spills and blowouts occur due to drilling equipment failure, corrosion of pipelines, human error, earthquakes, ice, storms, shipping accidents etc.

by Delores Broten

In 1986, nearly one quarter of the shellfish beaches in Puget Sound, a major portion of the great Salish Sea which separates Vancouver Island from Washington State and the BC mainland, were suddenly classified as contaminated with sewage pollution. That's a familiar story to residents of coastal Canada, whose cities and towns have an unpleasant habit of dumping raw or partially treated sewage into the ocean.

The proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) network consists of core no-take areas prohibiting fishing, exploration and extraction of oil, gas, and minerals, open net cage aquaculture, bottom trawling, dumping, and dredging.

by Shannon Cowan

The skipper of the Kumbaya slows the engine as we pass the eastern side of Sonora Island. Congregated topside, four artists brandishing cameras and sketchbooks rush to capture the seascape, transferring to film and paper the warm light peering over nearby mountains. Here on BC's south-central coast, the proposed site of the province's first network of "no-take" marine protected areas (MPAs), the fish are still jumping, the water is still sparkling, and over on the shores of the northern gulf islands, brightly painted houses take in the hulking vista of the Coast Mountains.

Steadily increasing levels of seawater acidity could re-shape strategic food chains in the polar and sub-Antarctic marine ecosystems earlier than predicted, according to research published in Nature.

 “Within 50 to 100 years, there could be severe consequences for marine calcifying organisms, which build their external skeletal material out of calcium carbonate, the basic building block of limestone,” says Australian scientist, Dr Richard Matear of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). 

50 Ways to Save the Ocean is a handbook which offers 50 actions which, directly or indirectly, have a great impact on the health of the oceans. This practical guide includes action steps and resources for any level of participation, from mindful home maintenance to global environmental activism, from reducing toxic

US Navy test fires munitions in Canadian waters. These munitions contain depleted uranium (DU) which releases radiation into atmosphere, and can cause serious medical effects and disease.

by G. Turnbull

Saturday morning, April 15, 2006, I was listen­ing to a favourite radio station, Malaspina College radio CHLY-FM, from Nanaimo. They were inter­viewing Leuren Moret, a geophysicist from Berkeley CA, who had worked at US nuclear labs.

She went on for 40 minutes about the horrors of de­pleted uranium (DU) in munitions, which releases radia­tion into the atmosphere and its medical effects on, for in­stance, the first Gulf War veterans, where it was first used in quantity. Over 500,000 out of 700,000 vets are now on disability for something called “Gulf War Syndrome,” a ‘disease’ with many symptoms identical to radiation sick­ness.

Or the test range off Vieques, Puerto Rica, where the