The latest assault on the ocean and marine life comes in plan for seismic testing 15 miles off Barnegat Inlet for 30 days starting in June. Decibel levels well above 200 (dB) will be blasted into the ocean every 5-10 seconds 24/7 for thirty days. Rocket takeoff is 184 (dB).
The alleged purpose is to examine deep rocks (11,500 feet) to assess sea level and climate change, but tacked onto the end of the proposal is the ominous "Results may have relevance to the hydrocarbon exploration industry".
As divers, we know better than most how sound travels underwater. The impact on marine life of this "study" could be devastating. The public has only until May 16th to submit comments.
Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of over 100 organizations that has been fighting for and cleaning up our ocean for thirty years is interested in diver's views on this issue. Divers are the eyes (and ears!) of the undersea world.
For more info go to www.CleanOceanAction.org
Also, COA is holding a meeting to discuss the issues and threats from this proposal and steps we can take to protect our coast. The meeting is Wednesday, April 30th at 7:00PM in the Manahawkin municipal building at 260 East Bay Avenue in Manahawkin.
I think it's pretty cool that our country is investing in SCIENCE - geology and geophysics - and doing it right off the coast of New Jersey. If you read the proposal, it's the National Science Foundation and LaMont-Doherty mapping the coast and learning about the geologic history of our country to better understand Earth processes.
So on that note, I am all for it.
P.S. Re: this balony about "Protecting our coast"...once this mapping project is complete, you'll better understand what exactly you are protecting
Clean Ocean Action is misleading
Posted by Michael Drake on 11/17/2014, 5:13 pm, in reply to "This is cool"
Tom Fagan,
as a union leader, you are a master of coalition organizing; we all like that, and there is a lot to say in praise of this kind of thinking.
However, as president of Clean Ocean Action's Board of Trustees, I am alarmed. With your post here, you reveal yourself as a leader in COA fanning the false rumor that the work of Rutgers Geologists, to follow-up on the New Jersey Shallow Shelf Expedition 313 subsea area to learn about sea level and ancient climate change, was really a plot to find oil & gas off New Jersey's artificial beaches.
"If you think our country is investing in science to better understand climate change, you are being naive," you wrote, detailing how supporters of the Rutgers study, now postponed to next year, included institutions associated with energy interests, including BOEM, and the University of Texas.You also observed that University of Texas also studies "energy geosciences" as a research field (in addition to the poetry of Walt Whitman).
"This testing [sic] is a disquise [sic] for the oil and gas industry to get into our backyard," calling this a "backdoor, bogus science experiment."
There are real issues associated with anthropogenic ensonification of the water column, including shipping and dredging and pile driving in addition to acoustic research. There are real issues of pollution in the ocean that implicate fishing industry (by catch) and beach nourishment, both of which kill marine life-- neither of which Clean Ocean Action addresses.
As you wrote, I suggest you "Read up. Learn more. Look deeper at what this is really all about, Follow the money."
The Rutgers project that your organization is trying to destroy with a public campaign shot full of misleading innuendo, is in fact exactly what it is stated to be: real science.
By contrast, you are Board president of a real-estate-sponsored organization that forgot about its mission. COA in this respect "is not cool at all!"
Michael Drake
Re: This is cool
Posted by Tom Fagan on 11/18/2014, 9:04 pm, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
I suppose nuts can fall out of trees anytime, but you do realize you're replying to a six month old post right? Obviously you have put in effort to determine my background even though it is only a part of who I am, but I note that you do not identify yourself or what your vested interest in this is. Your facebook page, with its awesome total of four (4) likes is a confusing mess of contradictions that I'm sure only a superior "scientific" brain like yours could understand.
I also note that you did not actually address any of the facts concerning the decibel levels effect on marine life or who is behind this sonic survey except to try and downplay the University of Texas interest in oil and gas exploration as a "Primary" research field.
Why is Texas interested in the Jersey Shore and what you derisively refer to as our "artificial beaches"?
You also ignorantly mischaracterize Clean Ocean Action as a "real estate sponsored" organization when in fact it is a coalition of 100+ groups of fishermen, divers, surfers, business & labor that is not sponsored by any one organization.
Even if we pretend you and your four facebook friends are right and every one of the wide assortment of groups, politicians and the DEP are wrong, why the insistance on sonic blasting in the middle of the scientifically proven migration times and routes?
Can't handle going out there in January and February?
Re: This is cool
Posted by Michael Drake on 11/19/2014, 6:42 pm, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
Dear Tom, Thank you for taking the time to address my message. There are no scientists on your board. There are no scientists on the Clean Ocean Action staff. There are no scientists among the active membership. Why? with best wishes, Michael
Re: This is cool
Posted by Tom Fagan on 11/20/2014, 11:04 am, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
That is a ridiculously false statement. Clearly you haven't done your due diligence and are making uninformed and untrue comments. And, you have failed to address any of valid points that have been made by the opponents of this testing. If you have nothing of substance to add, stop wasting your breath.
Re: This is cool
Posted by Michael Drake on 11/20/2014, 7:01 pm, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
On this tangent, Tom, I am unable to find any scientists who are also on the board of trustees. I am also unable to recognize any serious scientists in the paid staff. I realize that in the category of membership there are a lot of people, but even there, I can find no scientists who are active with Clean Ocean Action. Can you tell the public who I might have missed?
Thank you.
(no subject)
Posted by jerseydiver on 11/23/2014, 11:05 am, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
jerseydiver
Clean Ocean Action,Tom Fagan's specific questions
Posted by Michael Drake on 11/20/2014, 12:14 pm, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
Dear Tom Fagan of Clean Ocean Action,
I write again to address some of the specifics of your message.
"Concerning the decibel levels effect on marine life," like anyone should, I share the environmental concern about both Seismic and sonar on marine life; there is a lot to read and learn about noise in the ocean about which many are in active dialogue. Reading everything available on these subjects, I am not writing here to play up or down or in any way distort the risks of human activity that makes loud ocean noise-- that's for a separate discussion. I am taking specific issue with your insinuation that the Rutgers project somehow supports oil and gas exploitation.
Regarding "who is behind this sonic survey," the names of the people who have been exploring climate and sea level change have been published; regarding the stated concern that U Texas Austin is primarily interested in extractive industries, the backgrounds of the two Texas scientists involved are of geologists interested in climate science, not oil and gas.
There is no reason to downplay the roles of any of the participants, or to hide any aspect of it. Texas is "interested in the Jersey Shore" because people at that university are associated with a long term study of sea-level change, a lot of which is posted on line.
The use of FB (with the IODP 313 site) to present he background is probably a mistake. That is my own inexperienced effort to independently bridge the gap between hard science and social networking; the subjects are difficult, and it's hard to reduce the ideas in away that can be easily explained. When board members of Clean Ocean Action use that to make up imaginary conclusions that support your agenda, it just makes the problem of explaining science harder.
Regarding "artificial beaches," this is a reference to the expensive process of dredging for beach nourishment, a process that creates unnatural beaches that are, in the context of the natural state of the shore islands, artificial. Clean Ocean Action supports this dredging process--turns its back to the boats that monitor their work with a variety of high frequency sonar acoustics while they slurp up millions of tons of subsea sand before blowing it across New Jersey's shore. This kind of dredging kills marine life and destroys fish-spawning habitat on a massive scale.
Regarding Clean Ocean Action being "real estate sponsored," the real estate interests within the membership are there, among hundreds of others, including "fishermen, divers, surfers, business & labor" but there is a clear agenda regarding not just protecting the ocean from that which dirties it, but using activism's tools to protect coastal properties built on sand. It is not just my own observation that propertied interests limit Clean Ocean Action's activist activities; COA's director of 30 years, Cindy Zipf, has said as much.
To be sure, most of what that coalition does has been fantastic, particularly with sludge in the 1980s.
Regarding the timing of an oceanographic research project, it is really a question for the participants and the regulators, a process which is in place.
Regarding your post being six months ago, I'm reading everything about sandy hook science and activism going back to the 1960s when people very close to me were involved with both the Littoral Society and Sandy Hook Marine Laboratory.
I believe in community activism .I share your concern for the sea. But your misleading statements here about oil & gas need correcting: Otherwise you will continue to get away with propagating junk science.
You guys should get a hotel room
Posted by DaveF on 11/20/2014, 4:37 pm, in reply to "Re: This is cool"
Hi Dave! :-) The question to Tom Fagan...it has been made clear that his allegations about oil were wrong, what specific steps will Clean Ocean Action do to inform their membership that they were misled? Is this something to discuss in hotel room, or is there some better location? MD
I am not the moderator of this board; nor do I claim to posses any knowledge of the subject being debated. I do however follow this board. Neither of You are affiliated in any way with the Tunaseasure, Gypsy Blood or Lady GoDiver. This board is reserved for these three vessels to make factual and egzadurated claims of crystal clear visibility, bountiful coolers full of monster fish and lobster, lake like sea conditions and sauna like ocean temperatures. Occasionally the regular viewers of this board are held in wonderous awe by tales of daredevil plunges into the forbidden depths of an abandoned Mine, only to be kept suspense as to what might be in the trunk of the Monte Carlo.
Please post accordingly
BTW. "I got a project"
Re: This is cool
Posted by Michael Drake on 11/17/2014, 5:00 pm, in reply to "This is cool"
Dear Kevlax2 Thank you very much for posting this comment. There are many in the marine science community who have been hit hard by the anti science rhetoric of the sort you have cheerfully confronted. I mention this, knowing that this situation will repeat again next year. I hope you will be around to speak your mind again, Best, Michael Drake
re: Not "cool" at all
Posted by tom on 5/9/2014, 5:47 pm, in reply to "This is cool"
If you think our country is "investing in science" to better understand climate change, you are being naive. Funders of this "study" include US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, The Gas Technology Institute and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and includes researchers from the University of Texas, which lists "energy geosciences" as a primary research field.
This testing is a disquise for the oil and gas industry to get into our backyard --- which we have been protecting from them for years. And it's not 'baloney', we know exactly what we are protecting thank you.
Our commercial fisherman have taken a lead role in fighting this backdoor, bogus science experiment. I'm pretty sure they know what they are protecting too.
Real science has already proven the detrimental effects of seismic testing on marine life of all kinds. This plan is akin to detonating a stick of dynamite underwater every 5-10 seconds for thirty days and likely longer.
Hurricane Sandy has told us pretty much all we need to know about climate change affecting the Jersey shore. But if this testing actually has some validity (doubtful) than it should be done in January or February and not in the middle of summer and at the height of whale, dolphin and numerous other species migrations through the targeted area.
Read up. Learn more. Look deeper at what this is really all about. Follow the money. It is not "cool" at all!
as a union leader, you are a master of coalition organizing; we all like that, and there is a lot to say in praise of this kind of thinking.
However, as you are president of Clean Ocean Action's Board of Trustees, I am alarmed. With your post here, you reveal yourself as a leader in COA fanning the flames of a false fable that the work of Rutgers Geologists, to follow-up on the New Jersey Shallow Shelf Expedition 313 subsea area to learn about sea level and ancient climate change, was really a plot to find oil & gas off New Jersey's artificial beaches.
"If you think our country is investing in science to better understand climate change, you are being naive," you wrote, detailing how supporters of the Rutgers study, now postponed to next year, included institutions associated with energy interests, including BOEM, and the University of Texas.You also observed that University of Texas studies "energy geosciences" as a research field (in addition to the poetry of Walt Whitman).
"This testing [sic] is a disquise [sic] for the oil and gas industry to get into our backyard," calling this a "backdoor, bogus science experiment."
There are real issues associated with anthropogenic ensonification of the water column, including shipping and dredging and pile driving in addition to acoustic research. There are real issues of pollution in the ocean that implicate fishing industry (by catch) and beach nourishment, both of which kill marine life-- neither of which Clean Ocean Action addresses.
As you wrote, I suggest you "Read up. Learn more. Look deeper at what this is really all about, Follow the money."
The Rutgers project, that your organization is trying to destroy with a public campaign shot full of misleading innuendo, is in fact exactly what it is stated to be: real science.
By contrast, you are Board president of a real- estate-sponsored organization that forgot about its mission; COA, in this respect, "is not cool at all!"
Interesting reading if you have the time. Take note of the approx. location. I know a number of wrecks in the proposed zone. Some well known and dove, others lesser known and not dove. Also appears their only concern is for marine mammals, never knew there were so many in our waters. Seems all other marine species are not a consideration.
It looks like the approved area for blasting extends roughly from Sea Hag down to the Offshore Tug and southeast. Not too sure what else is out that far. It does not look like the Resor will be directly affected, but depending on how far the sound travels, who knows?
This is for the entire month of June (possibly beyond if they have bad weather).
Has anyone heard anything else? Guess everyone will be diving up north this year
The navy did diver / sonar studies maybe 25 years ago. Don't have the paperwork here but someone could access that study. This study they are trying to do will directly help the petroleum companies.
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on 4/28/2014, 8:34 am
