Breaking Waves

Welcome the newest member of the Oregon Sea Grant blogging family, WISE, the Watershed & Invasive Species Education blog.

Amy Schneider, a graduate student and science writer at the University of Oregon, is working with WISE program coordinator Tania Siemens to develop up-to-date, high-value content to help teachers learn about emerging watershed issues, which they can then use to engage their students in science learning and community action.

The blog is just the latest teacher tool to emerge from the WISE program, which enlists teachers across Oregon in teacher trainings, a STEM-based curriculum, and on-going engagement in a community for learning and teaching about emerging watershed issues.

Since the program started in 2007, more than 70 teachers have gone through WISE training, reaching more than 4,500 students who have completed at least 50 watershed stewardship projects.

Learn more:

• Invasive Species Toolkit – Classroom-developed and tested teaching tools from participating WISE teachers
• Read more about Oregon Sea Grant’s work educating Oregonians, from school children to resource managers, about the threat of aquatic invasive species, how they spread, and how they can be controlled

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.

Oregon Sea Grant is soliciting research proposals for one-year grants on two topics of high priority to Oregon’s ocean and coast: Water contaminants, and tsunami-related marine debris. The submission deadline is 5 pm Nov. 5, 2012.

Sea Grant  and its citizen advisory council have identified contaminants in Oregon waters – both ocean and freshwater – as an important research issue for the state. The recent and anticipated arrival of marine debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami also raises timely research and public engagement questions. As a result, Sea Grant has set aside funding for between one and  four single-year grant proposals addressing either of these issues. The total available funding is $80,000.

This special funding call seeks proposals that apply the best science and an innovative approach to address either: 1) a well-defined coastal or watershed research question addressing contaminants, or 2) research related to tsunami marine debris.

All Oregon Sea Grant research grants must include public outreach and engagement components.

For more information, visit our Website.

The causes and effects of hypoxia have been confounding marine scientists since the 1970s, when so-called “dead zones” first started appearing in oceans and large lakes. Currently there are more than 400 dead zones worldwide.

How did this happen, and how can it be fixed?

As Nathan Gilles, Oregon Sea Grant’s 2011 Science Communication Fellow, spent time with Sea Grant-funded researchers Francis Chan, Lorenzo Ciannelli, and Stephen Brandt, he uncovered a rich and complex story. That story is revealed in Oregon Sea Grant’s new publication, Hypoxia:How Is It Affecting Ocean Life, and Why?

The publication is available for purchase, and as a free download.

More on hypoxia from Oregon Sea Grant:

• Video: What is acidification? How does it affect marine animals and ecosystems? In three short videos, Dr. Richard Feely of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab discusses recent findings about ocean acidification and what it means for the future.
• Related Sea Grant research:
  • Understanding, Forecasting and Communicating the Linkages Between Hypoxia and Ocean Acidification in Oregon’s Coastal Ocean
  • Developing Realistic Metrics of Acidification Stress for Commercially Important Bivalves in Variable Habitats

Oregon Sea Grant’s Guillermo Giannico and his study of the role flooded farmlands can play in fish survival are the subject of a new episode of Oregon Field Guide, broadcast on on Oregon Public Television this week.

Giannico, a fisheries ecologist with OSU’s Department of Fisheries & Wildlife who also serves as Sea Grant Extension fisheries specialist, was part of a team that set out a few years ago to learn whether dry-all-summer ditches that criss-cross Willamette Valley agricultural lands might house fish during the wet winter months.

What they found surprised them – and some of the farmers, too: A thriving winter habitat for several species of native fish.

Watch the Oregon Field Guide video, Ditch Fish:

More information:

• The Life Aquatic in Flooded Fields (Oregon’s Agricultural Progress, 2006)
• Dr. Giannico’s profile at Oregon Sea Grant
• Dr. Giannico’s lab at the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

Part of the haul

CORVALLIS – Oregon Sea Grant Scholars have helped Corvallis  police and public works and Allied Waste  employees collect more than 550 pounds of old, unused and expired prescription drugs for safe disposal – drugs which otherwise might have wound up in the hands of abusers, or poisoning local waterways.

Student interns and research assistants who work with Sea Grant water quality specialist Sam Chan volunteered for the third National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, Oct. 29, which netted more than 188 tons of unwanted or expired medications at 5,327 collection sites across the country.

The event is sponsored by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, primarily to keep drugs out of the the crime and drug abuse stream.

But the Sea Grant students were interested in different streams: The ones that receive the outflow from local sewage plants, and seepage from local landfills.

According to the Association of Clean Water Agencies in Oregon, a San Francisco study showed that nearly 40 per cent of medications purchased in that city go unused. Many get tossed in the trash or flushed down toilets, making their way into the environment where they pose both environmental and human hazards.

The student interns participated in the Corvallis event to learn about drug take-back programs as part of a Sea Grant needs-assessment that meant to guide future investments in research, outreach and public education. Pharmaceuticals are becoming a growing issue for water quality and ocean health, and are increasingly emphasized as areas of concern by Sea Grant’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Sea Grant Extension teamed with Corvallis Public works to inform those who dropped off medications about how proper drug disposal can protect the drinking water supply and the aquatic environment.

“It was great to be able to engage and educate people on why Sea Grant was at the event,” said Jennifer Lam, a Sea Grant professional intern. “People were interested in learning that disposing of their medication properly not only protects their families from accidental poisoning, but also prevents these drugs from affecting fish and other aquatic organisms.”

Sea Grant Scholars with Corvallis police and public works employees

Oregon Sea Grant’s popular “Oregon Coast Quests” are the subject of an article in the October 28, 2011, edition of the weekly newspaper Oregon Coast Today.

Rob Emanuel, who for the past few years has been actively blogging from Tillamook about water, water quality and community on Oregon’s north coast, is leaving Oregon Sea Grant for a private-sector position in the Portland metro area.

Rob plans to continue blogging, however, at a new address: http://h2oncoast.wordpress.com

Rob plans to continue blogging about issues related to water, watersheds, climate, ecosystems and community, over a broader geographic area – roughly the region that stretches from the foothills of the Cascades to the coast.

Sea Grant will miss him, but we wish him the best in his new adventures.

A set of nine Oregon Sea Grant fact sheets about low impact development has won an Award of Excellence in the “Green” Electronic Media and Video category of the 2011 Apex Awards.

According to Apex, there were 3,329 entries in this year’s competition. Awards were based on “excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the success of the entry — in the opinion of the judges — in achieving overall communications effectiveness and excellence.”

The fact sheets, which cover low impact construction techniques to enhance water quality and quantity, were written by Derek Godwin and Marissa Sowles of Oregon Sea Grant Extension, along with Maria Cahill of Green Girl Development. Oregon Sea Grant’s Patricia Andersson designed the layout template, and Rick Cooper edited the publications and coordinated production.

All nine low impact development fact sheets are available for free download from Oregon Sea Grant at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs.html#new.