Daily Archives: December 25, 2014
Wastewater Treatment Plants – Why we can’t get our water supply free of drugs.
Vance Trudeau, a biologist at the University of Ottawa, who has found evidence of “sexual side effects” in goldfish exposed to traces of Prozac in his lab, says “Prozac is the tip of the iceberg.” He adds that U.S. waterways are becoming a and he, along with Writer and other biologists, say that soup is becoming more difficult to identify and filter everyday. “Most sewage treatment plants have not been built with the removal of pharmaceuticals in mind because it wasn’t something people were thinking about,” Trudeau says. “To upgrade is prohibitively expensive. So pretty much anything we take ends up in the water.” Read the rest here 23:01
Global Fishing Watch: Google’s Big Data Overfishing Project Flounders
Last month at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia, Google unveiled a project it bills as a groundbreaking leap in the use of cloud computing, big data, and satellite networks—all to stamp out overfishing. The program, Global Fishing Watch, launched in beta with the help of environmental outfits Oceana and SkyTruth, uses the signals from Automatic Identification Systems (emergency devices installed in all major ships) to plot the trajectory of every commercial fishing vessel on the ocean. Read the rest here 21:45
Rough commercial crab season recently became harder for fishermen selling to Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Company.
ILWACO —According to fishermen, many of whom have sold their crab to Jessie’s for years, the seafood processor has not paid the full amount owed them as of Dec. 24. This puts the fleet out by millions, according to some estimates. Dungeness crab was going for $3.10 and, currently, $3.50 per pound, an increase over last year when fishermen saw prices of $2.62 per pound at the start of the season. Read the rest here 18:46
LIPA Says No to Offshore Wind Farm – “We’ve got a renewable resource in our fisheries,”
Reaction from stakeholders was swift. Jeffrey Grybowski, chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, issued a statement on Dec. 17 in which he said that the power company had “missed an opportunity to build a 21st century energy supply for Long Island and a new local industry employing hundreds for years to come.” Shut up. Not everyone was disappointed by the decision, however. of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, had been concerned about the wind farm’s potential impact on marine habitat, spawning, and migratory patterns. Read the rest here 18:07
Vineyard bay scallops provide hard work, good pay, high value
Aquipecten irradians, the scientific name for the bay scallop, is a species in low supply but high demand on dinner tables across the Island and country. Utilizing a lot of science, a healthy dose of ingenuity, and some help from Mother Nature, fishermen and town shellfish departments, supported by a considerable investment of more than $700,000 in taxpayer dollars this year alone, help sustain a bay scallop fishery on Martha’s Vineyard that is worth more than $1 million annually, sometimes much more. Read more here 17:41
Signs of hope for endangered sawfish
Approaching Port Everglades in a helicopter, Ryan Goldman peered down at the water and saw a ray swimming at unusually high speed. Behind it, he spotted two large and bizarre-looking predators: the endangered smalltooth sawfish, which use their long, serrated bills to hunt prey. The two 12-foot-long fish swam out of the inlet as the helicopter circled and Goldman, a biologist for Broward County who was in the air to count manatees, took photos. Read the rest here 17:26
Fight over clam cages makes its way federal court
A seafood processing and marketing company with operations in Fall River has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of itself and three other companies to seize about 40 clam cages that it alleges are being unlawfully held by two companies that harvest clams and one company that buys them. The defendants in the case include the following companies that harvest clams,, Read the rest here
Salt cod: a traditional local Christmas dish with a Spanish twist
For some folks, it’s a Christmas Eve tradition. Others prefer to have their “feed” of it Christmas morning. And others still are finding ways to serve it as party of their party grub. However you like it, there’s no doubt salt cod continues to be a savoured treat in many households in the province. But salt cod isn’t just a traditional feast here. It’s also a welcome part of the diet in many countries, including everywhere from Portugal to Brazil. Read the rest here 11:29
