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Shorekeeper Dave Burden's Blog.

In the Event of An Oil Spill Off The Virginia Coast

By Ken Schultz

A workshop to inform key stakeholders about oil spill response off the Virginia Coast, with particular attention to the use of surface dispersants, was recently held on the Eastern Shore. Coordinated by Ann Hayward Walker of Cape Charles, whose company, SEA Consulting, has worked with state and federal agencies in over 200 oil and hazmat incidents, the workshop was attended by representatives of local government, industry, commercial and recreational fishing, and environmental organizations. Presentations were made by representatives of the Hampton Roads sector of the U. S. Coast Guard, NOAA, FDA, EPA, ExxonMobil, and others with planning, response, and recovery roles in an offshore oil spill. Many were heavily involved in the 2009 Deepwater Horizon oil spill response in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fortunately there is no near-term likelihood that a Deepwater Horizon-like event will occur here, since there are no oil-drilling rigs presently off our coast. The greatest challenge in dealing with the 2009 Gulf spill was that oil from an uncapped well flowed continuously for months, in effect constituting a spill a day. The local likelihood is that there will be an accident with a passing oil tanker that causes its contents to spew into the Atlantic Ocean at one time, without continuance, meaning that the bulk of response efforts will be necessary for a comparatively short period.

Modeling Shows Time to Impact

Obviously, the entire Eastern Shore is vulnerable. Computer modeling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) can depict what would happen under certain scenarios. In one, a spill of 200,000 gallons of oil occurs 25 miles offshore and southeast of Chincoteague. With 10-knot winds out of the northeast, oil would reach the mid-point of the coast of the Eastern Shore of Virginia in four days; in nine days it would affect all of the middle and lower Eastern Shore to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

In another scenario, a spill of 200,000 gallons of oil occurs 25 miles offshore of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. With 10-knot winds out of the south, the lower Eastern Shore would be affected in two to three days; in nine days the spill would affect the entire Delmarva coast up to the mouth of Delaware Bay.

In the event of an actual spill, NOAA would predict the trajectory and final assessments would depend on aerial observation, sensing instruments, weather projections, and other information. Wind is the primary factor in moving spilled oil; on average, it moves at 3 percent of the prevailing wind speed. Spreading and movement speed will change as wind speed and direction change.

Other factors that affect what happens to spilled oil, most of which floats, include the   type of product and its viscosity, the temperature at which it stops moving from its source (the pour point), how soon authorities are notified of the spill, how quickly the response team can assess the problem and act, and what resources are available to respond.

Should such a spill occur, any boats moving through the affected area would need to be decontaminated. Boat traffic in the area would be discouraged and likely limited by the Coast Guard, which could shut traffic down entirely.

Surface Dispersants

When an oil spill occurs there is no such thing as a positive outcome. It’s a matter of minimizing the negatives. Options for removing surface oil include burning, using mechanical devices (booms and skimmers), applying surface dispersants, and doing nothing other than monitoring and evaluating. These options are made more or less likely by sea conditions, and each has limitations. Doing nothing, for example, means that even if no oil reaches the coastline, it will take a long time to biodegrade in the ocean, and will still have adverse affects, known and unknown, on various marine life.

Surface dispersants, which are chemical countermeasures, are one of the options available to treat an oil spill. The Rapid Response Team (RRT) formed by federal and state agencies has a Memorandum of Understanding that preauthorizes the use of surface dispersants in Federal waters (beyond 3 miles) along the Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware coasts based on pre-established criteria. Within 3 miles of the coast, the use of dispersants is not pre-approved and application would require further multi-agency concurrence. In Chesapeake Bay, there is no approval for the use of surface dispersants, due in part to the general shallowness of this body of water, so the use of dispersants is not a response option.

Surface dispersants are chemicals that have broad but not universal applicability, depending on the type of oil. They are aerially sprayed, dilute quickly (within hours in some cases, up to a day in others), don’t drift or fall deeper than 75 feet in the water column, and cause the oil to disperse into tiny droplets that are colonized and degraded by marine bacteria. The benefits include quick dispersion of large amounts of oil before it reaches vulnerable habitats where cleanup will be much harder, and a reduction in the amount of effort needed via other means to contain and remove the rest of the spilled oil.

To be most effective, surface dispersants have to be applied as soon as possible after a spill occurs, when oil is concentrated and before there is significant wind-aided spreading. They can only be applied during daylight. Planes capable of applying the dispersants can be on site off the Virginia Coast in 3 to 5 hours from the time they are notified.

As occurred during the response to Deepwater Horizon, there are concerns about the introduction of chemicals into the water to deal with an already environmentally troubling event, and whether doing so actually furthers pollution and adversely impacts marine life.

According to information about dispersants published by the RRT, “there is a wealth of laboratory data indicating that dispersants and oil/dispersant mixtures exhibit relatively low toxicity to marine organisms.” These chemicals are approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are contained, albeit in lower dosages, in such items as skin cream, shampoo, tanning lotion, mouth wash, air freshener, household cleaning products, and the like. Surface dispersants have been available for decades; FDA researchers as well as manufacturers say that current dispersant chemicals are much more environmentally friendly than in the past, and that work continues to make them more so for the future. This doesn’t mean they have no toxicity.

Making Choices

Which leads to a greater-good type of decision: There’s a major oil spill offshore and projections are for it to impact the barrier islands and the mainland of the Eastern Shore of Virginia within days. The RRT is capable of mobilizing quickly, but it has to make short-window decisions. One of those is whether to use chemicals to rapidly disperse the oil, which makes it easier to employ other response options, possibly lowering the amount of personnel and equipment that need to be mobilized  (thus being cost-effective) and minimizing adverse impacts on sensitive marine and coastal habitats as well as the species that utilize them.

As the RRT states in its literature, “The benefit gained by using dispersants to protect coastal amenities, sea birds, and intertidal marine life may far outweigh the disadvantages, such as temporarily tainting fish stocks.”

Minimizing negatives requires difficult but necessary choices. The most obvious solution is to not have an oil spill. There is a lot of ship traffic off our coast, and many oil tankers ply nearby waters enroute to Delaware Bay and upriver refineries, as well as to points further north. Nevertheless, several refineries in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are closing or may close, which some sources say is partially due to decreased U.S. motor fuel demand. Less demand, fewer tankers. Fewer tankers, less chance of a spill.

The Eastern Shore has been lucky in this regard, but an oil spill is within the realm of possibility. Federal and state agencies and their partners are doing an impressive job of preparing for such an occurrence locally.

-End-

Ken Schultz is a member of the Board of Directors of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Anglers Club and the Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper.

MORE

To see the USCG contingency plans for how various areas of the Virginia coast would be protected during an oil spill response, and where inshore surface containment booms might be placed, go to the following website page, then click on the contingency plan on the right side of the page and follow the onscreen instructions.

General information about responses to an oil spill can be found on the Publications link of the home page of the U.S. National Response Team.

Note: The following was written by VES Director Ken Schultz to address the problem of the overexploitation of menhaden by commercial fishing interests.

PROTECT MENHADEN

October 28, 2011
 
Ms. Toni Kerns
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N
Arlington, VA 22201

RE: Menhaden Draft Addendum V Comments

Dear Ms. Kerns:
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) should adopt the most stringent measures possible to allow for a recovery of the Atlantic menhaden population, and enact policies that closely monitor and protect it in the future while preventing over-exploitation.

As is well known, menhaden recruitment in Chesapeake Bay has been low since the early 1990s and studies indicate that overfishing has been occurring for decades. Menhaden mortality from disease and pollution occur throughout their range. As a result of these, and probably other factors, the Atlantic menhaden population has literally been decimated.

As is also well known, the overwhelming majority of menhaden landings come from the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The remaining landings are caught in coastal waters from New Jersey to Virginia, mostly within 5 miles of the ocean shore. Maryland has prohibited purse seining in state waters (0-3 miles from the coast) and in the Chesapeake Bay since before the 1950s. Virginia should do the same, but has not. I have twice in the last year been fishing in Virginia waters of Chesapeake Bay when spotter planes and a fleet of reduction fishery vessels have run me off and corralled large schools of menhaden, so I have witnessed first-hand the efficiency of their operations, and am alarmed at what has transpired for years with this resource and how it has been excessively exploited.

Therefore, I urge you to adopt a 15% MSP threshold and a 40% MSP Target. Approval of these options will immediately result in a much-needed reduction of menhaden harvest., and may well be necessary to ensure the future of this species.

In addition to the foregoing, I would like to see the ASMFC do the following:

1). Provide language in the Addendum specifying that decreased harvests will come explicitly and almost entirely from the reduction fishery.

2). Include a mechanism in Addendum V that prevents commercial harvest from increasing in the future when the menhaden stock increases and starts to achieve the objectives of this addendum. At the least, commercial harvest via the reduction fishery should not increase to its former levels of over-exploitation.

3). The ASMFC should immediately begin a full amendment to the menhaden interstate fishery management plan that would include a range of options, including limiting access to the fishery, gear restrictions, time/area closures, mandatory reporting of catches from state and federal waters, and establishment of set quotas for both the bait and reduction fisheries. The findings of the 2012 menhaden stock assessment should be the information used to drive the decision of this amendment.

Please restore this fishery. Please restore the confidence of the angling community, and the general public, that the ASMFC members charged with oversight of this precious and irreplaceable resource will take the tough steps necessary to recover the menhaden stock and will safeguard this population for the long-term.

Sincerely,

Ken Schultz

Shellfish Aquaculture: The Solution to Pollution?

By Dr. Mike Peirson

Note: This article by VES Director Dr. Mike Peirson originally appeared in the August 2011 issue of ShoreLine, the newsletter of Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore

It seems that whenever we talk about the element nitrogen it is usually in the context of a pollutant of our waterways, but as every gardener and farmer knows, it is an essential nutrient for plants. The transformation of a nutrient to a pollutant comes about when there is an excess that throws off the natural balance of a system. In the case of the Chesapeake Bay, excess nitrogen stimulates the growth of single-celled algae (phytoplankton) that reproduce beyond the capacity of the zooplankton, bivalves, and menhaden to consume them. The un-eaten algae then die off, fall to the bottom, and are broken down by bacteria and fungi consuming so much oxygen in the process that we are left with dead zones in the Bay with so little oxygen that fish, crabs, and the myriad of tiny animals in the system cannot survive.

The Chesapeake Bay Program estimated that 281 million pounds of nitrogen entered the Bay in 2007 (a 20% reduction from 1985). According to their study the sources of the nitrogen are agricultural fertilizer and manure (38%); atmospheric deposition from vehicles, utilities, and industry (27%); municipal and industrial wastewater (19%); developed-land chemical fertilizer (10%); and septic systems (4%). Millions of dollars have been spent to try to reduce the influx of nitrogen into the Bay through Best Management Practices (BMPs) for agriculture, cleaner burning engines for vehicles, smoke stack scrubbers for industry, and better wastewater treatment, but we never came close to the probably impossible language of the Clean Water Act that states “it is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985.”

In fact, the EPA has recently decided that because the states surrounding the Chesapeake Bay have failed to make adequate progress in cleaning up the Bay, the EPA will now mandate specific pollutant-discharge targets. The added expense of more agricultural BMPs, storm water run-off treatment, tertiary treatment of municipal sewage, and other environmental upgrades will be difficult or impossible to accommodate in our current economy.

“Free” environmental services

Although the Clean Water Act as written does not allow “in-stream treatment” of pollutants (that is, the attempt to remove the pollutant after it has already entered the waterway), there is an excellent way to remove nitrogen from the water:  the culture of filter-feeding bivalve mollusks such as clams, oysters, and mussels.

Fortunately, here in Virginia we already have in place a massive amount of clams and oysters that are being cultured commercially and providing “environmental services” for free. The latest Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) survey shows that there were 371 million clams and 76 million oysters planted in Virginia in 2010. Clams and oysters efficiently filter particles of around 5 microns (millionths of a meter) and larger, and in the warmer months a single oyster will filter around 50 gallons per day and a clam about 10 gallons. With 50% survival and two year-classes in the Bay at any given time, the amount of water filtered is about 7.5 billion gallons per day.

What happens to the nitrogen?

The nitrogen content of the algae that was filtered by the shellfish has two routes of removal from the Bay. The most obvious way to get nitrogen out of the water is to harvest the clams and oysters. Some of the nitrogen in the algae is incorporated into the tissues of the shellfish. For every million shellfish harvested, about 2,300 pounds of nitrogen is removed. From the VIMS survey for 2010, that amounts to over 400,000 pounds of nitrogen removal (17 million oysters and 162 million clams harvested).

The less obvious route for nitrogen removal has only come to light through recent research.  It has been found that about 20% of the nitrogen in shellfish waste is converted by bacteria in the sediments to gaseous nitrogen that is released to the atmosphere (which is already 78% nitrogen). Some of the soluble nitrogen products in the waste go back into the water column to fertilize both phytoplankton and seaweeds, while some of the solid waste is consumed by worms and other bottom dwellers and recycled back into the food chain.

Our free “environmental services” from our aquaculture industry are very localized. The vast majority of clams cultured in Virginia are here on the Eastern Shore on both the bayside and seaside. The oyster industry is expanding rapidly and is covering a much wider area of the Bay including Maryland, but is still mostly limited to the shoreline. What about areas out in the main stem of the Bay or areas that are closed to shellfish harvesting? These areas could benefit most from the nutrient removal aspects of shellfish culture. Can we grow shellfish in these areas just for nutrient removal?

New ideas

On the west coast of Sweden, the town of Lysekil was faced with an expensive upgrade of their sewage treatment plant to meet new standards. The plant was releasing 40 tons of nitrogen per year into the sea. They were required to reduce this outflow by 70%, or 28 tons of nitrogen, at a projected cost of over $300,000. Instead, they set up commercially used long-line mussel culture gear to produce 3,500 tons of mussels, which when harvested removed 39 tons of nitrogen. Two-thirds of the mussels were sold for human consumption and the rest were tested as chicken feed, fertilizer, and a potential fish meal substitute. The mussel farm was located far enough from the sewage plant that the mussels could be used for food. The Swedish government is looking at a framework to allow nutrient emission trading between producers of emissions and removers.

Can we do something similar in this country? As referred to earlier, the Clean Water Act does not allow “in-stream treatment,” but perhaps we can start testing some of these concepts to gather enough information to start making changes in the Clean Water Act. On a small scale, the many oyster “gardeners” in the state grow oysters primarily for their ecological benefits. State oyster restoration efforts are aimed at restoring the fishery as well as re-creating the habitat that has been lost due to destruction of oyster reefs. These efforts help remove nitrogen from the Bay, but there is nothing outside of commercial aquaculture that is working on a large scale.

Very large-scale culture of shellfish for nutrient removal could be devastating to existing shellfish businesses if all these shellfish went to market. There is increasing discussion of the merits of shellfish culture programs in which the shellfish are never harvested but left as sanctuaries for their nutrient removal and habitat benefits. Without harvesting, the complete removal of nitrogen incorporated in the shellfish tissues would not be accomplished, but that nitrogen would be recycled as crabs and fish eventually ate some of the shellfish and excessive algae would still be removed from the system.

Maybe we can try something new for the Bay like large-scale mussel culture in deep water to remove hundreds of tons of nitrogen. The EPA could change its regulations and allow nutrient trading fees to be paid to aquaculturists to remove nitrogen from sources that are too difficult or expensive to control. An encouraging sign is that the EPA is funding a study of nutrient removal in the Bronx River in New York City by culturing ribbed mussels.

We need new ideas to maintain our efforts to clean up the Bay. While shellfish culture may prove to be a useful tool, we must still make every practical effort to keep nutrients out of the Bay in the first place.

Arsenic and Old Litter – chicken, that is

By Dr. Mike Peirson

Note: This article by VES Director Dr. Mike Peirson originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of ShoreLine, the newsletter of Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore.

The local poultry industry has indicated that it could use hundreds of new chicken houses on the Virginia Eastern Shore to supply product for the two large processing facilities in Accomack County. While Accomack County is already producing over four million broilers per year, Northampton County has no broiler production houses at all. Zoning changes would have to be made in Northampton to make it practical to build hundreds of new broiler production houses. The citizens and local governments will need to be informed on a wide array of issues to make a reasoned decision on these zoning issues.

Arsenic in Chicken Waste (Litter)

One of the many issues involved in locating concentrated animal rearing facilities in an area is how to deal with the animal waste. In the case of chickens, the waste is referred to as litter. Litter is about half chicken manure and half saw dust and wood shavings. Dealing with chicken litter can be an enormous problem. Maryland produces over 500 million broilers per year (10th in the nation); these produce one billion pounds of manure. As if the massive volume of manure isn’t enough of a problem, it can contain tons of arsenic.

Arsenic? How did arsenic get into chicken manure? As of 2007, 70% of the nine billion broilers grown in the U.S. had the arsenic-based compound Roxarsone added to their feed to control intestinal parasites, give the meat a pinker color, reduce stress and stimulate growth. Most of the compound (95%) is excreted unchanged in the manure. Some of the compound stays in the meat of the chickens (2 to 46 parts per billion of arsenic, FDA allows 500 ppb arsenic in uncooked chicken muscle). This arsenic residue complicates the disposal of the chicken litter.

The predominant method of utilizing chicken litter is as a fertilizer or soil amendment. Litter contains the usual nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium but also serves as a soil conditioning agent that can increase crop yields compared to inorganic fertilizers. USDA researchers estimate the value of the litter at $61 per ton for the nutrients and at $78 per ton when the extra crop yield is considered. The value is diminished when one considers that 22 to 55 tons of Roxarsone is spread onto Delmarva farm fields every year along with the manure.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that 275 to 385 tons of arsenic is applied to farmland in the U.S. every year. The problem with this much arsenic on agricultural land is the potential for re-uptake by subsequent crops as well as the potential for leaching into groundwater and surface waters. A USDA study on the Delmarva Peninsula found that the level of arsenic reaching drainage ditches around farm fields could be as little as 0.004 pounds per acre to as much as 17 pounds per acre. The highest levels found were near a manure storage shed.

Chicken Litter as Fuel

Another potential use of chicken litter is as a fuel to heat the chicken houses where it was produced. The typical U.S. broiler house burns 4,000 to 6,000 gallons of propane per year for heating. Chicken litter can produce 3,800 to 5,000 BTU per pound of litter. On average it would take 12 tons of litter to supply the heating for a single house. The ash produced from combustion is high in phosphorus and could be worth $40 to $50 per ton as a fertilizer ingredient. Unfortunately, a small-scale furnace unit that can deal with emissions (including arsenic) and work with the variable moisture content of litter in an affordable way is not on the horizon. The combustion of litter on a large scale, however, may be more feasible.

A British company called Fibrowatt has built several facilities in the U.K. and one in Minnesota in order to burn poultry litter for production of electricity with a byproduct of phosphorus to use in fertilizer. The Minnesota plant burns 700,000 tons of litter and other agricultural waste each year to run a 55 megawatt electrical generating station. Fibrowatt has had numerous plans to build similar facilities in the U.S., including one in Page County, Virginia. Their plans have generated a rabid response from the local citizens judging from the multitude of websites dedicated to stopping Fibrowatt in their respective communities. One of the more reasoned views can be looked at in detail on the Yadkin (NC) Riverkeeper’s website, www.yadkinriverkeeper.org, where a 30 page document can be found outlining the case against Fibrowatt.

In summary, Fibrowatt is accused of lobbying state governments to classify burning agricultural waste to produce energy as renewable or “green” energy so that it will qualify for subsidies to increase the amount of renewable energy produced in each state. Fibrowatt then gets local 20-year commitments to buy their electricity at elevated rates since it is “green,” and they also petition for lowered emission standards. Critics claim that the emissions are greater than those of new coal plants and that the Fibrowatt plant will consume one million gallons of water per day with 75% of that volume lost to evaporation. Some localities are offering $3 million to $8 million in tax incentives to agricultural waste-burning businesses to locate in their counties. But another complaint is the trucking of poultry litter through rural areas from as far away as 50 miles from the plant.

Less Arsenic, Continued Leaching Concerns

It seems that the most likely fate of chicken litter for the near future is the same as it has been in the past – to use it as fertilizer or soil amendment on farm fields. The good news on this front regards the arsenic content of the litter. In July of 2004, Tyson Foods stopped using Roxarsone in their broiler feed. They made a point that it was not removed for safety reasons but because of negative publicity and that better husbandry on the broiler farms made it unnecessary. In April of 2007, Perdue Farms also stopped using Roxarsone. If new broiler operations are put into service for these companies, arsenic in the chicken litter should not be a problem.

Just as leaching of arsenic is a potential problem in litter, leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus from litter still needs to be addressed. USDA research shows that the greatest chance of leaching from litter occurs if it is not incorporated into the soil. A tool developed by their researchers digs four trenches two to three inches deep, adds litter then covers it with soil as the litter application device is pulled behind a tractor. They showed that nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from test plots were 80% to 95% lower than when litter was applied by a broadcast spreader.

The study of arsenic runoff cited earlier shows that the greatest chance of escape of arsenic or nutrients is when the litter is stockpiled. This is the area where regulations for the proper stockpiling of litter are essential to prevent it from being a source of pollution to surface waters and groundwater.

Author’s Comment: There are many things to consider in the siting of new chicken production facilities, but the decisions by our major poultry companies here on the Eastern Shore to stop adding arsenic to chicken feed have mostly eliminated the issue of arsenic runoff. If the litter is handled properly by chicken and crop farmers, nutrient pollution should be no greater than from the use of any other fertilizer. Use of litter as an energy source is not out of the question, but many technical hurdles must still be overcome for that use to become a reality.