Breaking Waves

“Firewood Buddy,” a smart-phone application developed by Oregon Sea Grant to inform campers about the risks of bring invasive insects into Oregon forests on imported firewood, is going national.

Developed last year in collaboration with the Oregon Invasive Species Council, the free application not only educates users about how potentially invasive, forest-damaging species can hitch rides on firewood brought to campsites from outside areas, but also includes links to local firewood vendors on the Oregon coast and in Washington, Idaho and northern California. The app also features tips about the burning characteristics of different kinds of wood, building campfires, camping checklists and other information.

This week, the council announced that the application has migrated to DontMoveFirewood.org for national use and distribution. The state of California and the Bureau of Land Management will soon begin downloading lists of firewood vendors to the application, and plans are to continue expanding the database to cover all regions of the US.

The new national application is expected to be added to the iPhone and Android app  stores in time for Memorial Day weekend. The original  version covering Oregon, Washington and northern California, meanwhile, remains available (see links below) for free download.

Sam Chan, Oregon Sea Grant’s invasive species specialist, called the expansion timely. “The Memorial Day weekend is typically the start of a busy camping season,” Chan said. “One of the most important things we can do to protect our forests and landscapes from damage caused by invasive pests and diseases that hitchhike on firewood is to not move firewood to new areas.

“It’s really that simple: Don’t move firewood. Buy it local, and burn it local.”

The mobile application resulted from a 2009-11 research and education campaign Sea Grant undertook with invasive species councils in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. A joint “buy it where you burn it” education campaign ensued to encourage people not to buy or gather firewood near their campouts, picnics and other outdoor activities rather than bringing it along from elsewhere. Surveys before and after the campaign showed that, while nearly 40% of campers surveyed said they regularly brought firewood with them from outside the area, two-thirds of those who’d seen the educational material said they would change their behavior, including buying firewood locally. The research and education project was funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the application is being incorporated into a growing set of resources and tools by the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, a public-private partnership covering Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta.

Download the original Firewood Buddy

• For iPhones
• For Android phones

BEND – Oregon Sea Grant’s invasive species specialist, Sam Chan, is the featured speaker for the OSU Cascades Science Pub event on Tuesday, May 21 at McMenamins Old St. Francis School in Bend. The informal event runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m and features a full pub menu and no-host bar.

Chan, a Sea Grant Extension specialist and biologist with the OSU Institute for Water and Watersheds, will talk about how invasive species arrive in Oregon via land, air and sea, and can cause serious harm to our economy and environment.  Learn how these invaders arrive in ways we would never anticipate – through innocent classroom projects, gardening, and on floating tsunami debris – and what you can do to prevent and minimize their impact.  Chan’s research guided the creation of the award-winning statewide “Silent Invasion” program.

Use this online form to reserve a seat for Hitchhikers from Afar: Aquatic Invasive Species & You. Science Pubs are free but due to their popularity, reservations are required no later than 5:00 p.m. the day prior to each lecture.

EUGENE -  The Fern Ridge Reservoir just west of Eugene, Ore., is a popular recreation spot for boaters and swimmers during the spring and summer months. The marina attracts freshwater sailors and provides ample fishing opportunities for anglers. There’s only one problem: An invasive species is steadily taking over the lake, and the worse it gets, the less welcoming the lake becomes.

The invader, known as Eurasian watermilfoil, is an aquatic plant that forms tangled mats as it grows. Eurasian watermilfoil tends to show up in shallow waters where it can access sunlight. These thick tangles are obstructive enough to stop boat motors from working, and they can prevent kayakers from maneuvering through the water.

Not only is the milfoil an obstacle, but it also saps oxygen from the water and can cause fish to suffocate. As the fish decay at the bottom of the lake, the smell can get pretty strong.

For boaters  like Scott Coleman, the owner of Underway LLC and manager for the Orchard Point Marina, it’s a worrying problem. “Specifically in this marina, if this plant really got going and clogged up the marina, then you wouldn’t be able to get your boat through here,” Coleman says. “And, it would be no fun to swim in.”

Last year, Coleman and a band of concerned marina users decided to take action. After consulting with Tania Siemens, WISE Program coordinator, and Sam Chan, invasive species specialist at Oregon Sea Grant, the boaters created a management plan that could correct their core problem: standing water.

Read more about their efforts in OSG’s Watershed and Invasive Species Education blog

(Photo by Roger Bailey)

The latest issue of Audubon, the magazine of the National Audobon Society, reports that in the 1970s an Alaskan high school science teacher purchased red-legged frogs from a supply house in the Pacific Northwest. Once the amphibians were no longer needed, the educator released them. Four decades later, studies show that frogs that have decimated local Alaskan amphibian populations have genetic ties to those found in Washington’s Columbia Basin. …

Oregon Sea Grant Extension specialist Sam Chan, a biologist who researches invasive species at Oregon State University, is leading a collaborative project with U.S. and Canadian researchers to educate teachers about the dangers of letting aliens loose. In one survey of nearly 2,000 teachers, Chan’s team found that schools had released dozens of well-known invasive species, like crayfish, waterweeds, mosquito fish, and red-eared slider turtles (above).

Learn more:

• Read a short version of the story at Audubon online
• Oregon Sea Grant’s Watersheds and Invasive Species Education program enlists teachers and their classrooms to discover how invasive species and other emerging watershed issues can be used as tools to engage students in science learning and community action
• Subscribe to our new WISE Blog

NEWPORT – Dan Bottom, fisheries biologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, steps up to the bar to talk about salmon at the next Science on Tap event on March 13 at Brewer’s on the Bay.

“Celebrating Diversity: Sustaining Pacific Salmon in a Changing World” is Bottom’s theme for the evening, which takes place in the downstairs Board room at Rogue Ale’s South Beach waterfront location. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the talk begins at 6; the event is free and open to the public. Appetizers will be served, and additional food and drinks available for purchase from the menu.

Bottom, editor and contributing author for Oregon Sea Grant’s 2011 book Pathways to Resilience: Sustaining Pacific Salmon in a Changing World, will discuss the importance of salmon diversity and the attributes of resilience. His talk will draw from the book’s 11 peer-reviewed articles, including case studies of salmon and salmon fisheries, and will explore management actions that draw on salmon life history and genetic diversity to maintain salmon populations into the future.

Bottom notes, “Salmon exhibit a wide variety of life history traits. These include salmon runs and populations that exhibit differences in migration timing, duration of estuary rearing and size when the salmon enter the ocean.” Healthy, diverse watersheds, says Bottom, provide habitat connections that not only sustain diverse salmon life histories but also provide diverse social and economic opportunities for people.

The 392-page, full-color book, with a prologue by Governor John Kitzhaber, will be available at the event for purchase and author signing. It can also be purchased online from Oregon Sea Grant.

Science on Tap is a regular program of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, co-sponsored by Oregon Sea Grant, NOAA, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, MidCoast Watersheds Council, Native Fish Society, and The Wetlands Conservancy. For more information about the event, call 541-867-0234.

NEWPORT – A new tsunami awareness exhibit, featuring a piece of the massive Japanese dock that washed ashore at Agate beach last year, will be dedicated at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in a public ceremony and grand opening on Sunday, March 10.

The public ceremony, which runs from 2-4 pm,  marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan. Sponsors include Oregon Sea Grant, the HMSC and the City of Newport.

The dock was among the first – and largest – fragments of debris to wash up on Pacific Northwest shores more than a year after the magnitude 9.03 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011. The dock’s arrival on Agate Beach last June, sparked concern over the potential spread of non-native plants and marine animals, thousands of which were found alive and clinging to the dock.

Teams of state Parks and Recreation workers, scientists and volunteers scoured the dock’s surface and scorched it with blow-torches to destroy the organisms – and also collected specimens for identification and analysis by researchers at the HMSC.

The dock, roughly the size of a railroad boxcar and weighing tons, was sawn into pieces for disposal, and one section was saved to be placed at the Hatfield Center as a memorial to the Japanese disaster – and to aid in educating visitors about the risks of similar tsunamis generated by subduction zone quakes off the Oregon coast.  On initial delivery, however, the concrete-and-steel segment was discovered to be too big for its site, and was hauled to the Port of Newport docks to be recut to fit the space.

Learn more

• HMSC Event news release
• Earthquake and tsunami preparedness

TACOMA, Wash. -  Oregon and Washington Sea Grant are co-hosting the 2013 National Working Waterfronts & Waterways Symposium March 25-28 in Tacoma.

This is the third national symposium on issues faced by working waterfronts throughout the United States, where increased coastal population is generating increasing conflicts over access to and uses of waterfronts.

The symposium is expected to draw local, regional, tribal and national decision-makers; members of the commercial fishing, marine, and tourism industries, developers and property owners; business owners, community planners and waterfront advocates .

Session topics will include discussions about:

• Economic and social impacts of and on working waterfronts
• Successful local, regional, state and federal Strategies to address working waterfront issues
• The future of working waterfronts: Changing uses and changing climate
• Keeping waterfront industries commercially viable

For complete information about symposium sessions, field trips and registration, visit www.workingwaterfronts2013.org

The following publication is available as a free download from Oregon Sea Grant.

The print version may be purchased from Oregon Sea Grant’s e-commerce store.

Planning for Resilience in Oregon’s Coastal Drinking Water Systems

On Oregon’s rugged coast, large-scale infrastructure for public utilities is virtually nonexistent, meaning that drinking water must be obtained through small systems, domestic wells, or springs. While a portion of Oregon’s coastal population utilizes a domestic or private source, the vast majority of residents rely on small public systems for their drinking water. Unfortunately, risks associated with small drinking-water systems are not widely documented nor well understood.

Planning for Resilience in Oregon’s Coastal Drinking Water Systems is the result of case studies of 13 drinking-water sytems in coastal Oregon. It examines risks to these systems including infrastructure issues, contamination, climate change, earthquakes, and tsunamis, and explores actions to increase resilience, such as planning, backup supply, source water protection, infrastructure improvements, and communication. The publication will be of value to coastal water system managers, city planners, and coastal residents interested in water supply issues.

Washington state, the leading US producer of farmed shellfish, this week launched a 42-step plan to reduce ocean acidification. The initiative — detailed in a report by a governor-appointed panel of scientists, policy-makers and shellfish industry representatives — marks the first US state-funded effort to tackle ocean acidification, a growing problem for both the region and the globe.

The state governor Christine Gregoire,  says she will allocate $3.3 million to back the panel’s priority recommendations.

“Washington is clearly in the lead with respect to ocean acidification,” says Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

As growing carbon dioxide gas emissions have dissolved into the world’s oceans, the average acidity of the waters has increased by 30% since 1750. Washington, which produces farmed oysters, clams and mussels, is particularly vulnerable to acidification, for two reasons: seasonal, wind-driven upwelling events bring low-pH waters from the deep ocean towards the shore, and land-based nutrient runoff from farming fuels algal growth, which also lowers pH.

Read the full story in Nature.

Learn more:

• Study: Our Oceans Are So Acidic They’re Dissolving Snails (The Atlantic)
• OSU researchers link acidification to oyster hatchery collapse (OSU News & Research Communications)
• Current Oregon Sea Grant research on ocean acidification and commercial shellfish
• Oregon Sea Video: An ocean acidification primer, featuring Dr. Richard Feely of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

A newly published study by researchers at Oregon State University and two federal agencies concludes that high temperatures coupled with lower flows in many Northwest streams is creating increasingly extreme conditions that could spell trouble for salmon and other organisms.

The study, published in the professional journal Hydrobiologia, was funded and coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey and the research branch of the U.S. Forest Service. It points to climate change as the primary cause.

“The highest temperatures for streams generally occur in August, while lowest flows take place in the early fall,” said Ivan Arismendi, a research professor in OSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. “Each period is important because it is a time of potentially high stress on the organisms that live in the stream. If they occur closer in time – or together – they could create double trouble that may be greater than their combined singular effects.”

Learn more:

• Read the complete news release from OSU News & Research Communications
• Related Oregon Sea Grant research: Establishing Watershed Models for Predicting the Effects of Climate Change