| Dear
EarthTalk: Why did 34 million wild sockeye
salmon return to the Fraser River in British Columbia this
year? The run had been declining for 20 years before now.
-- David B., Seattle, WA
| |
Some
34 million sockeye salmon returned to Canada's Fraser
River this past summer and fall, following years of
decline that had many scientists worried about the
future of the fish and the industry built around it.
There is now great optimism for better times ahead.
© John Warrenchuk, courtesy Wikipedia |
The
miraculous sockeye salmon run in western Canada’s
Fraser River watershed in the summer and fall of 2010—indeed
the biggest run in 97 years—still has fishers, researchers
and fishery managers baffled. Just a year earlier only one
million fish returned to spawn. No one seems to be able
to say for sure what caused the massive 2010 run, but most
agree that it probably had to do with the very favorable
water conditions that were present in 2008 when the sockeyes
were juveniles. “They’re very vulnerable at
that stage of their life,” reports John Reynolds,
a salmon conservation expert at Canada’s Simon Fraser
University.
Roberta
Hamme, a researcher with Canada’s University of Victoria,
suggests in a recent study published in Geophysical Research
Letters that the ash fall from the eruption of Alaska’s
Kasatochi volcano in 2008 may be one reason for the huge
2010 run. Iron in the ash, which was spewed far and wide
by the erupting volcano and then dispersed further by turbulent
weather, served as a fertilizer throughout the North Pacific.
The result was huge algae blooms that dramatically improved
the fish’s food supply. A similar large Fraser River
salmon run in 1958 was likewise preceded by a huge volcanic
eruption in Alaska.
What
was particularly striking about 2010’s mammoth run
was the contrast against 2009, when the Fraser River sockeye
run was a disaster by all accounts. It capped 20 years of
decline and was so much worse than anyone had expected that
the Canadian government formed a commission to investigate
possible causes, reported Daniel Jack Chasan on the Pacific
Northwest news website, Crosscut.
The
situation was terrible in 2008, as well, so much so that
on the U.S. side of the border, then-Commerce Secretary
Carlos Gutierrez declared the Fraser salmon fishery a disaster
and allocated $2 million to U.S. tribes and commercial fishermen
to make up for their loss of income. But strangely enough,
just as the Canadian commission began investigating the
paltry 2009 run, said Chasan, commercial fishermen “started
hauling in more Fraser River sockeye than any of them had
ever seen.”
Generally
speaking, scientists and environmentalists are well aware
of why wild West Coast salmon runs have been declining over
the past century: namely pollution at almost every inch
along the thousand mile river-to-sea-and-back underwater
journey, overfishing in both rivers and the ocean, and man-made
obstructions to fish passage. But environmentalists are
now optimistic that the huge 2010 sockeye run is a sign
of better times ahead. Perhaps improved logging practices,
a resurgence in organic farming, new protections for upstream
habitat or restrained commercial fishing catch limits—or
some combination thereof—has begun to make a difference
in salmon survival.
In
any event, the salmon runs typically peak every fourth year—2010
was supposed to be a peak year but substantially exceeded
expectations. Only time will tell if the masses of sockeyes
in the Fraser in 2010 were a fluke or foreshadow better
days ahead for the environment—and for the fish and
people in it.
CONTACTS:
John
Reynolds; Geophysical
Research Letters; Crosscut.
Dear
EarthTalk: Can you explain what “fracking”
is with regard to natural gas exploration and why it is
controversial?
-- Jonas Kern, Bellevue, WA
| |
Fracking,
shorthand for “hydraulic fracturing,”
involves blasting millions of gallons of water, sand
and hazardous chemicals at high-pressure into sub-surface
rock formations to create fractures that facilitate
the flow of recoverable oil or gas. It has come under
serious attack of late due to fears about contaminated
drinking water and other threats to public health.
Pictured: A hydraulic fracturing site, one of several
concentrated in a small area in and around Troy, Pennsylvania.
© Shaleshock.org |
Fracking is shorthand
within the oil and gas industry for “hydraulic fracturing,”
a process in which drillers blast millions of gallons of
water, sand and hazardous chemicals at high-pressure into
sub-surface rock formations to create fractures that facilitate
the flow of recoverable oil or gas. According to the Interstate
Oil and Gas Compact Commission, 90 percent of all oil and
gas wells in the U.S. are “fracked” to boost
production. Fracking usually occurs just after a new well
is drilled, but many wells are fractured numerous times
to get as much production out of a profitable site as possible.
But after a series
of accidents in Pennsylvania and elsewhere over the last
few years, fracking has come under attack as dangerous to
both human health and the environment. The most common problem
involves the disposal of the toxic sludge that results from
fracking. Texas-based XTO Energy, for instance, racked up
31 fracking-related pollution violations at 20 wells in
Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale in 2010 alone. But
the fact that between 20 and 40 percent of the chemicals
remain stranded underground—where they can contaminate
drinking water, soils and other features of the environment
that plants, animals and humans rely on—is perhaps
even more troubling. According to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), a least nine different chemicals
commonly used in fracking are injected into oil and gas
wells at concentrations that pose a threat to human health.
With Americans
getting half of their drinking water from underground sources,
it’s no wonder that people are concerned about the
risks of fracking—especially since 2005 when George
W. Bush exempted oil and gas companies from federal regulations
designed to protect our drinking water. Meanwhile, most
state oil and gas regulatory agencies don’t require
companies to report the volumes or names of chemicals being
used in extraction (benzene, chloride, toluene and sulfates
are among them). The result, according to the non-profit
Oil and Gas Accountability Project, is that one of the country’s
dirtiest industries enjoys an exclusive right to “inject
toxic fluids directly into good quality groundwater without
oversight.”
There are other
potential issues with fracking as well. The non-profit Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) warns that beyond contaminating
drinking water with toxic and in some cases carcinogenic
chemicals, fracking could trigger earthquakes, poison grazing
livestock, and overburden our wastewater systems—especially
since drilling expanded during Bush’s tenure in the
White House.
In response to
public concern about the potential risks associated from
fracking, the EPA recently commenced a comprehensive study
on the topic. Oil companies and environmentalists alike
hope that the study puts to rest any debate over the environmental
impacts of the process. In the meantime, the city council
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania recently voted to outlaw fracking
there, while New York governor David Paterson extended a
moratorium on fracking in his state through July of 2011,
citing concerns about whether the technique is safe enough
to allow it at all moving forward. Other municipalities
and states are waiting to see what the EPA finds before
making their own decisions on fracking.
CONTACTS:
EPA; Interstate
Oil and Gas Compact Commission; Oil
and Gas Accountability Project; NRDC. |
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