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June 25, 2009 – From the Scientist, Unalaska, Alaska
by Dr. R. Michael Reynolds
ALASKA EXPERIENCES
Today we are in Unalaska, Alaska. Most people from the lower forty eight might call this Dutch Harbor, and I made that mistake too, but Caleb, a long time resident and particularly concerned citizen set us all straight. Dutch Harbor is the port. The name “Unalaska” comes from a Russian spelling of an Aleut name meaning “near the mainland.” The US Air Force and private air carriers used the port name and it seems to have stuck, much to the chagrin of the locals.
“Dutch” is the largest fishing port in the United States. It is the largest by a wide margin, producing over 900 million pounds of seafood annually. Whenever you have a fish sandwich at MacDonald’s, think Dutch Harbor and you will probably be correct. This is not a tourist town and that means it is my favorite kind of place to visit. This is a real, working town, and when one walks the muddy streets here, one feels he is at an epicenter of modern life. These are the people, in this remote spot, who allow the rest of us to lead lives of plenty.
Last night we had a King crab feast. Two monsters, steamed in a modified beer keg at the home of Reid Brewer, who is a marine biologist, diver, University of Alaska Ph.D. student, and youth worker. At the party were Don Graves, a manager of the UniSea processing plant, his wife, Christine, a Tlingit woman and their son, Sebastion. The crabs came from their subsistence pots in the bay. Native families are allowed to capture one crab per day per person. Imagine if you had your own permanent pot minutes away and all you had to do was row out and pull in your King crab. And as you might imagine, a nicely steamed crab that is just minutes out of the ocean is without comparison.
Don Graves is a senior manager at the UniSea fish plant that spreads out below us. Don is a wealth of information on sustainable fishing and talked to us at length on the operations of the plant and how conscious they are of the environment: everything has a use, they use fish oil for plant energy, a quarter of their energy needs come from oil, a sieve traps everything larger than 1/2 mm to be used for product such as fertilizer or fish meal. UniSea, Inc. is one of the largest seafood producers in the world, with primary processing facilities in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
ALASKA AND SUSTAINABILITY
Oh my goodness. I find that my spell checking program does not have the word “sustainability.” I have to program this word into my spell checker and into my entire psyche. In Alaska, this word is well known and shared across the board, from industry to environmental regulations. Every person in the world is going to need sustainability in their every consideration. There simply are no infinite resources and we are learning the hard way just how shockingly finite our resources are.
Alaska is fifty years old this year. When it first became a state in 1959, it declared its dedication to sustainable fishing practices in its constitution, which mandates that “fish… be utilized, developed and maintained on the sustained yield principle.” As such, Alaskan fisheries have been managed with a view toward long-term sustainability for more than five decades. (1)
This constitutional mandate creates a most interesting and friendly mixture of environmentalists and industry. I saw this while in Juneau when I attended a meeting of scientists, fishing industry representatives, environmental groups, and even the teens from the Taku Marine Sciences Camp (photo). This meeting, at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute (2), was a little daunting for me, for reasons I shall discuss below. I thought I was coming out for a tour and friendly chat. Suddenly I was confronted by smart, concerned, ocean enthusiasts from a huge spectrum of activities. All looking at me and waiting for me to say something about the ecosystem. But here I began to see how the goals of protection of the ocean and the fishing industry inspire coordinated efforts. The same as I see here in Unalaska.
THE EAST PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH
In Juneau we met with a group who were very concerned with the situation of garbage in the ocean. (3) As part of my year long education program I have set out to learn more of the phenomenon. All of us on Ocean Watch are environmentalists and we all have seen sad examples of garbage at sea. But we were unaware of just how horrible it has become. The web links I have posted below are a smattering of the reporting out there in the middle of the oceans. Imagine sailing into an area the size of Texas, or maybe two Texases, where ocean currents concentrate and hold floating trash. Billions of tons of trash. The patch in the North Pacific Ocean is the largest, estimates range from 700,000 km2 to more than 15 million km2, (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean). The area may contain over 100 million tons of debris. It has been estimated that 80% of the garbage comes from land-based sources and 20% originates from ships at sea. Currents carry debris from the west coast of North America to the gyre in about five years, and debris from the east coast of Asia in a year or less.
Please think about this when you are tempted to throw one of those water bottles from a boat or bridge. In a few years, your contribution to the Eastern Patch will take its place under the sun. And please note the plastic will not dissolve in sunlight. Unlike debris which biodegrades, the photodegraded plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. This process continues down to the molecular level. As the plastic flotsam photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms, the plankton, which reside near the ocean’s surface.
As a result of what we learned in Juneau, Ocean Watch is especially watchful of garbage patches. We are sailing far north of the actual patch, but we intend to be aware of observed flotsam and will be entering observations of major patches, oil spills, and other anthropogenic in the ship log. We have always been conscious of trash from our ship but now we are conscious of trash everywhere.
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
and you all may be Rulers of the Queen’s Navey!
– Sir Joseph, the First Lord of the Admiralty
in H.M.S. Pinafore
(1) “Sustaining Alaska’s Fisheries: Fifty years of Statehood. By Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Jan 2009.
BACK IN JUNEAU
(2) http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/abl
(3) Here are a few web pages that discuss the oceanic garbage situation:
http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=998423
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/06/63699
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
Comments welcome: Michael Reynolds, michael@rmrco.com
Photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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