Pollution
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Besides directly killing fish, pollution reduces the productive capacity of the sea itself. Each year we dump more than 22 billion tons of pollutants into the sea. According to the U.N. Environmental Programme, the estimated composition of marine chemical pollution is: 44% agricultural & industrial runoff; 33 % is propellants, hydrocarbons, and biocides that enter the ocean from precipitation; 12% from maritime accidents, ships dumping bilge water, ballast water, and garbage; 10% industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste and dredging spills, and; 1% offshore resource mining for oil and gas. In addition to that, each year the world dumps about 100 million tons of plastics, 17 million tons of sewage and sludge, 5 million tons of oil, and 5 trillion gallons of toxic waste into the oceans. (Life on An Ocean Planet, 2005). We have been dumping things into our oceans in mass amounts for a very long time, assuming that “dilution is the solution.”
In the United States, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found in its 2002 National Water Quality Inventory that over half of the estuarine areas assessed were polluted to the extent that their use was compromised for aquatic life, drinking water, swimming, boating, or fish consumption. 90 percent of impaired waterways do not now meet water quality standards because of non-point source pollution (US Commission on Ocean Policy, An Ocean BluePrint on Ocean Policy, 2004).
Who doesn’t want clean beaches? Who doesn’t want to be able to eat seafood that is not contaminated? Whom better to help protect the ocean than the people who depend on it for their livelihoods and the people that bring the rest of the country the bounty of the sea?
PORT ARTHUR spill
A large oil spill occured on January 23rd after a collision between an 800-foot tanker and a towboat pushing two barges in the Sabine-Neches Waterway in Port Arthur, Texas.
The Coast Guard confirmed that 462,000 gallons of oil was released with a sheen remaining at least two weeks after the incident.
The environmental impacts were reportedly kept to a minimum because the spill was confined to the industrialized, man-made canal and apparently did not enter the area’s nearby wetlands. Fly-overs revealed no contamination of the large oyster reef in nearby Sabine Lake, according to Coast Guard officials.
The tanker Eagle Otome collided with a moored ship, barge and the dock, which ripped a 15-foot wide hole in its hull and caused up to $3 million in property damage.
The Houston Chronicle reported that favorable winds, a quick response and nearly 60,000 feet of booms, helped crews contain the slick to a roughly 2-mile area within the canal.
