Sustainable Insights  

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer
Fishery managers trying to protect rare sea turtles from dying in fishing nets have tapped a Cape Cod company to build a device they think can help balance turtle protection with profitable fishing.

The “tow-time logger” is a 7-inch, silver cylinder that attaches to fishing nets and records how long the net stays underwater.

That time is crucial if a turtle gets snared in the nets dragged behind fishing trawlers. Federal research indicates the vast majority of sea turtles survive entanglement — but only if the net is pulled up in less than 50 minutes.

With the logger, regulators can avoid other, potentially more onerous, restrictions on perpetually struggling fishermen — such as shutting down fishing areas or requiring turtle-saving gear that doesn’t work well in all nets. In fisheries where they decide time limits would work best, they wouldn’t have to depend on an honor system to make sure nets are pulled up in time.

“Turtles have also been around since the time of the dinosaurs,” said Elizabeth Griffin of the environmental group, Oceana. “They’re cool animals that I think most people want to see continue to exist.”

The logger was built under a $25,000 federal contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by Onset Computer Corp., a Bourne-based supplier of data loggers for energy and environmental monitoring. It starts recording water depth every 30 seconds once the net drops below two meters. If the net stays under beyond a preset time limit, the logger records it, and the infraction can be discovered when regulators download its data.

The device’s early tests at sea have been successful, and work is ongoing to toughen it for the real-life rigors, such as being banged on fishing boat decks. The company expects it to cost between $600 and $800, an expense that would fall to fishermen.

Even when the logger is perfected, regulators know limiting how long the nets stay underwater is no cure-all as they devise rules, which they hope to propose for public comment by 2010, to meet a new federal requirement to protect sea turtles from trawler fishing nets.

Some environmentalists say turtles shouldn’t be kept underwater at all because even relatively short times of being trapped underwater without oxygen hurt them.
Griffin says there’s also not enough data on how trapped turtles fare in colder waters, so no one really knows how long they can be kept under and survive.

The data logger at least makes briefer tow times a feasible way to protect turtles, if researchers can sort out what’s safe, she said.

Fishermen are skeptical. They say short tows aren’t practical in most fisheries, such as those in deeper waters, where a worthwhile catch is impossible if the nets must constantly be pulled up.

“It’s a bad idea,” said James Fletcher, a veteran fisherman and now head of the North Carolina-based United National Fisherman’s Association.

“Nobody’s going to love the idea,” acknowledged Henry Milliken, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is part of NOAA. But he added fishermen might prefer limits on how long the net can be underwater to harsher alternatives, such as closing fishing areas.

“The idea is that we’re looking at providing options to the managers in the future,” Milliken said.

As the NMFS tries to determine which steps will or won’t work, it’s held public meetings this spring from New York to Georgia.

The turtle most frequently caught in trawl nets in the Atlantic is the loggerhead, the threatened 250-pound giants named for their relatively large heads. In U.S. waters, every sea turtle is listed as either endangered or threatened, so any turtle deaths in fishing nets hit the populations hard.

The most common way to protect turtles right now is the Turtle Excluder Device, often a circular, barred frame attached near the front of fishing nets. The bars are big enough for fish and other sea life to slip through, but too narrow for turtles, which bounce out of the net before they get caught.

The excluder devices have had success in some fisheries, including the Southeast’s shrimp trawl fishery, but bigger species, such as horseshoe crab, monkfish and flounder, can bounce out along with the turtles and make the nets far too inefficient.

Greg DiDomenico of the Garden State Seafood Association, a New Jersey trade group, said since the new rules will apply to fisheries from Cape Cod to Florida — where the turtles swim — whatever shakes out is bound to be felt industry-wide. That includes “huge negative impacts on some fisheries,” he said.

But with regulations coming, DiDomenico said his best hope is that regulators don’t broadly force a turtle-protecting solution, including the time logger being developed, on a diverse fleet.

“It’s not one-size-fits-all,” he said.

By Elisa Wood

May 21, 2009

As a society, we’re accused of being too plugged-in, too reliant on our computers, televisions, and charged-up cell phones. Turns out, we are willing to unplug.

A study by SmartPower (http://www.smartpower.org/) found that unplugging unused appliances, those sucking up vampire energy, is an energy savings act people are willing to do. And they don’t just say they will unplug – they do unplug.

This is an important distinction because often people tell researchers that they intend to conserve power or buy renewable energy. But when it comes time to do act, they balk. SmartPower was able to discern where and when people walk-the-walk through a “Living Diary” study, part of a two-year effort in New England to see how the economy, volatile energy prices and environmental concerns motivate consumers.

Smartpower followed the activities of 81 people for two weeks. The participants were given daily questions, homework and tasks, which led to over 1,000 diary entries.

“Unplugging was the most frequent efficiency experience. Panelists reported that it was the easiest to perform, required the least sacrifice and was the most universally relevant to all participants,” SmartPower said in recent comments filed before the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control.

Such research becomes increasingly important as the industry seeks ways to spur consumers to act in a more energy efficient way, an approach known as “residential behavioral strategy.”

In Connecticut, SmartPower and two other companies have proposed an ambitious behavioral strategy program intended to encourage people to cut energy use 20% by 2020. The trio – which also includes Earth Markets (http://earthmarkets.com/), a finance company, and Efficiency 2.0 (http://efficiency20.com/), a software firm – offers consumers several goodies, among them free compact fluorescent lights and software to monitor energy use online.

But that’s not all. The program includes two of the biggest all-time motivators for the US consumer: beating the Jones and earning cash. Communities compete to see who saves the most energy and the results appear on line for all to see. In addition, participants have the chance to earn money through the sale of efficiency certificates or “white tags,” a currency of value in Connecticut. Consumers and businesses can earn a certificate for each megawatthour of energy they save. They sell the white tags to utilities and others who must, under state law, produce or buy a certain number each year to help the state achieve its efficiency goals.

The program must still win regulatory approval (http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/dockcurr.nsf/(Web+Main+View/Search+Electric)?OpenView&StartKey=05-07-19RE02) . But if it does, its 200,000 customers would not only earn money from white tags but also save money on their energy bills – for a total financial gain estimated to be $100 million.

Not a bad benefit. Definitely worth the time of unplugging the appliances at night.

The following post in an excerpt from CSE live.
By David Sellers

Sorry for the break in the string; we just changed the software platform that drives the blog and its taken me some time to get everything set up and working with the new system. But hopefully, at this point, I am good to go and can pick up where I left off and keep moving forward.

My previous posts before the transition to the new system had been exploring 4-20 milliamp current loops, including why we use them in the first place , what they are and how they work , and how to interpret the information they provide . In this post, I’ll begin to discuss how you can hook a current loop up to a typcial data logger. I’ll be discussing how I hook them up with the Onset HOBO H8 and U12 families.. But the concepts can be applied to loggers by other manufacturers.

Most loggers accept temperature and ac current inputs directly. Temperature measurement is typically accomplished by measuring a resistance element such as a thermistor in a bridge circuit using very little power. The current transformers (CTs) typically used to measure ac current are actually self-exciting; i.e. the current they are measuring generates the measured signal via induction. Using a current loop with a logger is a bit more challenging because current loops need a power source to drive them.

That’s the down side. The up side is that being able to pick up a 4-20 milliamp signal opens the door to measuring just about anything from flow to pressure to carbon dioxide. You can even “piggy-back” onto an existing 4-20 milliamp signal by simply inserting your load resistor in series with it as I discussed previously . So, if you are in the data logging business for the long haul, as is the case for most commissioning folks and a lot of operations folks, then investing in a DC power supply panel or two can make a lot of sense. And, if you are like most field people, you will enjoy the process of putting one together.

[read full article]

A vintage home gets a 21st-century energy overhaul

What started out as a relatively straightforward re-siding project on this 80-year-old duplex in Arlington, Mass., ultimately evolved into part of an ambitious superinsulation pilot program for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and the regional utility company, NSTAR.

Upon contacting the state for technical advice, homeowner Alex Cheimets learned that the DOER was in the middle of developing standards for net-zero-energy buildings and agreed to include his home in the research. The state brought NSTAR into the project. NSTAR brought in Building Science Corp. to conduct a study of the building and make recommendations on the overall design and details of the insulation retrofit. As the project grew in scale and importance, Alex was able to secure several product sponsors who provided many of the core materials. Read full story.

For several years, loss of live coral habitat due to coral bleaching has become a global concern prompting researchers and scientists to study the health of coral reefs around the world. One location affected by this phenomenon is the southern Seychelles Islands, in the central-western Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar.

Coral bleaching has been linked to rising ocean temperatures causing 40 to 50 percent of the coral in this region to become colorless and vulnerable to a variety of environmental stresses. To better understand the effects of rising water temperature on the coral’s ecosystem, researchers are using HOBO® water temperature data loggers as part of a long term monitoring program.

“Coral reefs are one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet - equal in many respects to tropical rainforests and they are a very important component of the ocean’s ecosystem,” explains Ray Buckley, a Principal Investigator with the Aldabra Marine Programme (AMP). “So when you have a coral bleaching impact, it has a major effect on local and regional ecosystems.”

“The main focus of our research is Aldabra Atoll because it’s a large remote coral reef ecosystem which has received little impact from human habitation. It is one of the last natural laboratories on the planet. What happens there is how nature really responds to an environmental impact.”

To monitor water temperature, Buckley and the AMP team have strategically placed HOBO Water Temp Pro data loggers in several locations at Aldabra Atoll, and Assomption, Astove and St Pierre Islands to the east. Each data logger is deployed using cable ties and stakes, and water temperature measurements were taken every 30 minutes to an hour.

“The data loggers have become encrusted with bioaccumulation of coralline algae after two years on the reef and are still able to collect accurate temperature data,” says Buckley.

The data logger provides ±0.2°C accuracy over a wide temperature range and offers a 42,000 measurement storage capacity, making it suitable for long-term deployments.

Data from the loggers can be quickly offloaded directly to a laptop via a USB-based optical interface, which provides high-speed, reliable data offload in wet environments. Its optical design eliminates the need for failure-prone mechanical connectors found in many traditional underwater data logger products.

The data was analyzed using HOBOware® Pro graphing and analysis software, which easily converts the collected data into easy-to-read graphs that reveal spikes and drops in water temperature over a 12-month period.

“Most coral bleaching studies take place in locations where there are major impacts to the corals due to human development,” explains Buckley. “While those studies are critical in better understanding coral reef health, they are unable to provide a good baseline for how an ecosystem responds when there is no human impact. Aldabra Atoll is as close to pristine as we have and allows us to see how the coral and fish respond to the rising temperatures without outside interference.”

Researchers have found that, in coral reef ecosystems impacted by human development, there is usually a shift in the dominant component of the ecosystem from live coral to algae.

“The fish populations then switch to mainly herbivorous species and the algae covering the dead coral makes it harder for the coral to recover. This causes a major shift in reef ecosystem,” says Buckley.

According to Buckley, for the past 10 years, there were no substantial changes to the fish populations at Aldabra Atoll where there was essentially no human habitat.

“The coral bleaching event did not result in an algae dominated ecosystem and it wasn’t catastrophic for the fish in this area. Fish were able to adapt to the rapid major loss of live coral habitat and development of a new coral habitat. We found that if there were no other variables affecting the ecosystem, fish can respond positively to these habitat changes, even though the matrix of the system changed.”

UNH Ph.D. candidate Jason Goldstein holds a lobster with a temperature logger, an ultrasonic transmitter and a return tag. These items are secured to the lobster like a lightweight backpack to help UNH researchers learn about their migration patterns. Credit: Rebecca Zeiber, N.H. Sea Grant

Jason Goldstein checks his lobster traps in New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary once a week, but not for tasty crustaceans to sell. Instead, the University of New Hampshire Ph.D. candidate is fitting these lobsters with transmitters and tracking their migrations year-round.

Goldstein has tracked lobsters along the New Hampshire coastline and into Great Bay throughout the past two years. This research, funded by N.H. Sea Grant, will provide more accurate information about the sources of juvenile lobsters and interactions between the population stocks in New England. The information could improve the management of this economically valuable fishery, thus allowing lobster to remain front-and-center among the New England menu choices.

Goldstein and UNH professor of zoology Win Watson are particularly interested in the movements of “berried” females, those carrying eggs. This year, they are comparing the berried females’ movements with those of the large- and small-sized males and females without eggs. Where the berried females go, so go their eggs, and those movements likely have implications for New England lobster populations.

“We often go diving one day and there are a lot of lobsters around, and the next day they’re all gone and have moved offshore,” Watson says. “There’s a dramatic shift that takes place in late autumn and causes them to move out into deeper water.”

Watson and other researchers believe this drive to migrate is primarily due to water temperatures. The deep offshore waters are consistently warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than shallower water close to the shore, Watson explains. Lobster migrations might also be driven by turbulence in the water, particularly during autumnal storms.

“They are very mobile animals and move around to avoid bad conditions,” Watson says. He notes that the average lobster can walk from the Isles of Shoals to the New Hampshire shore — up to 10 miles — in just a few days.

Along with other students and technicians, Goldstein has spent numerous hours tracking the lobsters using ultrasonic and handheld hydrophone tracking equipment to locate them and determine their movements. Commercial lobstermen are assisting Goldstein by helping to tag some of the creatures they find in their traps. In many cases, lobstermen who capture tagged lobsters will call Goldstein to report the tag number and location.

In addition, 15 “lobster listening stations” moored throughout Great Bay and the coastal waters allow researchers to more accurately pinpoint where the lobsters go. These stations hold special ultrasonic receivers that can identify and record tagged lobsters moving within a 400-meter radius of the equipment. For example, receivers are currently located at the Great Bay Marina, the Shafmaster dock, the Public Service of New Hampshire power stations, and the Weathervane dock in Portsmouth.

The various tracking efforts have led to a wealth of knowledge. Watson originally hypothesized that berried females would be more likely to move offshore to protect the eggs during the winter months. However, he was surprised to find out that most lobsters, regardless of size, gender or maturity, followed the same migration patterns.

The researchers also learned that relatively few berried females are located in the estuary, while male lobsters are often found there. Goldstein and Watson theorize that the estuary is too extreme an environment for most females carrying eggs, so they migrate toward the ocean when they reach sexual maturity.

In addition to studying the migrations of the adult lobsters, Watson and Goldstein are using oceanic drifters — submerged box-like structures that mimic the movements of lobster larvae — to learn how the movements of berried females could impact where larvae are released and the path they travel when carried by ocean currents during the three weeks they are in the water column prior to settlement. They’ve found the drifters, which are fitted with satellite transmitters so they can monitor them remotely, travel as far away as Cape Cod and Georges Bank. However, those released in Great Bay estuary tend to remain there, likely to the detriment of the lobster populations.

“The estuary is not the best place for lobster larvae because of the warmer temperatures, higher turbulence and lower salinity,” says Watson. “That might explain why there are few mature females there.”

Putting all these data into perspective will be Watson’s next step. He hopes to apply what he has learned to improving management practices for the species. In particular, Watson wants to know if New Hampshire lobsters can be managed in isolation or if the management unit needs to be larger.

“If our lobsters are leaving for Massachusetts or elsewhere, then we need to work together to better manage the population,” he says.

Jim Miller, Research Scientist, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada

We deployed a HOBO Weather Station in southern Alberta. It is used for recording precipitation, wind speed and direction, RH, air temperature, solar radiation and rainfall and soil temperature.

It is in the Lower Little Bow watershed next to a river. The reason we put it there is the nearest MET station is 10 km away, and we wanted to have site-specific data right in the watershed.

We were looking for a MET station and data logger that was easy to use and was a plug-and-play system. The price was really reasonable, and we knew HOBOs had a good reputation.

We download the data monthly. We are conducting hydrological modeling of the basin so we need to have access to local climate data to use in our computer modeling. We’re also looking at hydrology of the basin, river flow, and we need on-site weather data to correlate to the hydrology and river flows, so if we have a runoff event, for example, we know what the precipitation was. We can also use the MET data to estimate evapo-transpiration.

The reliability of the system has been good, despite the fact that the weather gets down to -30ºC in winter, and we have really strong Chinook winds sometimes in excess of 100 km per hour.

Steven Rice, Hydrologist, Grand Canyon National Park

We use a number of Onset rain gauges in Grand Canyon National Park. We’re investigating the rates and timing of precipitation which recharge the aquifer systems below the canyon rim. We’ve set up a network of rain gauges on the rim as well as at different elevations that correlate with changes in vegetation type below the rim. This allows us to look at how precipitation rates vary along the rim and all the way down to the Colorado River.

We also have rain gauges at three springflow gauge sites to see how much rain is falling at those locations and look at the intensity and timing of storms and the relation to spring discharge and flash floods.

Some of the rain gauges are in very remote and harsh locations, and it can take a full day just to get to them. Some of them have been working reliably since 2001.

We offload the data four or five times a year using a data shuttle. We then use HOBOware to take the data in and export into Excel. Then I plot it up and compare the data to other information like spring discharge and temperature.

We’ve run trend analyses on the discharge at the three springflow gauges because the area has been in drought and have seen decreases in spring discharge at some of these sites. We’re using the collected data to help understand if this is a result of groundwater pumping that is occurring just outside the Park boundary, the drought conditions, or a combination of the two.

Because the equipment is deployed in the National Park, we want to keep it out of the way and inconspicuous. At a few locations, we surround the rain gauge with rocks so it remains open to the sky but is not visible. There are also some attached to existing structures in the Park so they’re out of the way. We plan to expand the rain gauge network in 2009.

How difficult could it be to retrofit an 80 year old two-family for state-of-the-art energy efficiency? Really. Stuff a little insulation here, a little caulk there, replace a few light bulbs and yell at the kids to take shorter showers……and you are done.

These are all great ideas, and by all means caulk away, but they won’t get an 80 year old house (or any house already built) ready for 2050 when our carbon budget will be 80% less than it is today. You need to do more, more than can be accomplished with caulk, more than can accomplished by insulating the 3-1/2″ deep cavities of your 80 year old walls, more than can be accomplished by screaming at your kids through the bathroom door. Trust us.

[see how Onset assisted the project]
[see full story]

(Follow-up to Monitoring the arctic ice shelves and ecosystems posted on July 1st, 2008)

The University of Ottawa and the Onset weather station on the Serson Ice shelf captured the break up of the Serson Ice shelf. The Onset station measured temperatures unheard of at the North Coast of Ellesmere Island with a maximum of 17.46 C in early August . The Onset station also captured the wind event when the ice shelf broke away. The station is being moved to the Milne Ice shelf next spring.