This presentation has a number of graphics which show the details of where the expected increase in tanker traffic is to come from on the NW Pacific Coast:
Oil transportation and spill risk in Washington State
Below are a few exampleds of the slides form that site:
A major concern here in Metchosin is the incremental increase in Ship Traffic projected in the next few years. This reference shows the added impact from the Pacific Gateway Terminal Development.
Reference:Gateway Pacific Terminal Vessel Traffic Assessment
In April, 2014 I attended the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in Seattle. One of the presentations which surprized me showed the risk to the Southern resident Killer Whale populations from Noise Imapcts in the Salish Sra under Commercial shipping growth Scenarios. Following is a reference to Beam Reach which carries a summary presentation of this. — Scott Veirs, Beam Reach Marine Science & Sustainability; Val Veirs, Colorado College; Jason Wood, Sea Mammal Research Unit
Emazing talk on fossil fuel ship noise & killer whalesThis afternoon I’m giving a talk at the 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in which I present our estimates of sound pressure levels from commercial ships in Haro Strait, the core of the summertime critical habitat for the Southern Resident killer whales. I also take a first look at noise impacts of the current tanker and bulk carrier fleets and ask how those impacts may change if a suite of proposed fossil fuel export facilities are added to the Salish Sea.
– See more at: http://www.beamreach.org/2014/04/30/emaze-talk-fossil-fuel-ship-noise-killer-whales
This organization has assisted in the production of several studies on Oil Spill Issues which affect Juan de Fuca Strait and the Salish Sea.
http://www.psp.wa.gov/oilspills.php
The 2009 Washington State Legislature directed the Puget Sound Partnership to provide independent advice and assessment of Washington State’s oil spill programs and make recommendations for any necessary improvements. In late summer 2010 the Partnership assembled a Cross-Partnership Oil Spill Work Group to help assist the Leadership Council carry out this responsibility.
The 2012 Action Agenda outlines the priorities identified by the Work Group in May 2011. Since then the Partnership has promoted activites that concentrate on:
Dr. J.Rene van Doop and Dr. Jason R.W. Merrick developed a vessel traffic movement baseline based on 2010 data and used that to model predictions for the future given the following projected inceases per year in Tanker Traffic:
487 gateway Bulk Carriers
348 Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (Kinder Morgan)
348 Delta Port Carriers
67 Delta Port Container Ships +Bunkering Barges
1250= Total projected increase per year
This morning’s walk on the beach showed a different pattern of macroalgal drift on the shore.
Alex gathers a rich mix of brown, red and green algae for enriching the garden mulch.
East winds of the last two weeks have torn up most of the immediately offshore red and brown algae and have produced drifts of biomass on the beach.
The local organic farmers have had a good stretch of seaweed gathering as a result.
The tangled mass of stipes of Nereocystis leutkeana
Today however, there were rolls of both Macrocystis pyrifera (Giant Kelp) and Nereocystis leutkeana. (our common Bull kelp.)
The Macrocystis prefers growing in water of higher salinity than we have inside the Salish sea, so it supposedly arrives here by coming down the Strait from the West Coast and then ending up on our beaches. I have seen it growing off Bamfield and it certainly grows down as far as California and was harvested experimentally for Biogas extraction.
Reference From Biotechnology for Biofuels: “Macroalgae as a source of bioenergy first received intensive scrutiny as part of the US Ocean Food and Energy Farm project as proposed by Wilcox [10], initiated in 1973 and lasting over a decade [11]. It resulted in the construction of ocean farms for cultivation of the giant kelp Macrocystis[12]; reviewed by Kelly and Dworjanyn, [13]. While farming this species of seaweed in this truly offshore environment presented many technical challenges, the biogasification of macroalgal biomass gave excellent results [10,12,14,15]. This and subsequent research highlights some of the major advantages of macroalgae over other sources of biofuels (see Table 1).”
A roll of the complete plants of Macrocystis pyrifera
The more usual macroalgae that we get on Taylor Beach is Nereocystis leutkeana. In the 1980’s there was research done on the volumes of biomass that could be derived for energy extraction from kelp around Vancouver Island, but since kelp beds are such a valuable habitat and fish nursery, fortunately those plans have been put on hold.
The small floats. or Pneumatocysts of macroalgae often become detached and turn up on the beach . Here is a comparison of pneumatocysts of three Brown algae species.
Pneumatocysts of egregia menziesii on the left, Nereocytis leutkeana in the middle and two floats of Macrocystis pyrifera on the right.
The arrival of these macroalgae on the beach starts the process of decomposition which is really the first time that the energy fixed by these rapidly growing macroalgae, with very high rates of productivity, is passed on in the food web.