August 25 and 27
— from Islanders for Safe Shipping —
The fall release of drift cards will be on August 25 and 27, so keep your eyes open and report any cards found on your favorite beach.
This drift card study is a collaboration between FRIENDS of the San Juans and their Canadian partners, Georgia Strait Alliance and Raincoast Conservation Foundation. The results from this study will improve understanding of ocean circulation in the Salish Sea, helping to identify places especially vulnerable to oil spills, and will be used by scientists at University of BC and elsewhere.
To help with the project and/or sponsor a drift card for $20/card, contact FRIENDS of the San Juans at 378-2319.
For more information:
www.salishseaspillmap.org
www.raincoast.org/adopt-a-drift-card-to-help-protect-our-coast/
San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping is a member of San Juans Alliance
San Juans Alliance is a consortium of Lopez NO COALition, Orcas NO COALition, San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping & FRIENDS of the San Juans. We are a diverse group of San Juan Islands’ citizens who call these islands home. We are united in our concern about the likely adverse impacts to our economy and our environment from the transport of fossil fuels through the Salish Sea.
“This could be oil”, but it’s just more beach litter (which is illegal). Just another fund raising stunt from the “un-friends”. The Salish Sea has some of the most stringent safety requirements for oil tankers. They have to be escorted by huge tugs whenever they travel through the area so the chances of any kind of spill is practically nil (when was the last spill?).
John –
The drift card study is part of a much larger international research project on the potential effects of increased vessel traffic in our region as a result of proposed construction of major shipping facilities at Gateway (Cherry Point) and Kinder Morgan (Vancouver). You can check out the web page for this project at https://www.salishseaspillmap.org/# where they give a detailed description of the study as well as the preliminary data from the drops in 2013.
The study is in direct response to the information and projections given in the Vessel Traffic Risk Assessment Report which does an excellent job of describing the potential effects of increased traffic resulting from these projects in both the US and Canada.
You can download a pdf of the full report at https://www.seas.gwu.edu/~dorpjr/VTRA/FINAL%20REPORT/083108/VTRA%20REPORT%20-%20Main%20Report%20083108.pdf
I personally do not know about the chemical composition of the cards used in the Salish Sea study, but I expect that they are made of materials standard to such studies. You can find much more information about drift card studies on the NOAA web page https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/driftFL.html
And, of course, you can always contact the research team at contact@salishseaspillmap.org as well as the folks at FOSJ (stephanie@sanjuans.org)
In addition, I have been monitoring the “escorts” of tankers passing along the north shore of Orcas Island — and many of the do NOT have escorts. This was confirmed to me personally by the Commandant of the US Coast Guard “So you are absolutely right about there being times when tankers will not be escorted because they meet these “redundancy” standards. Most of the tankers are the same vessels that always call in our waters.”
You, too, can monitor shipping via the ShipFinder app for your phone or iPad. This app gives you real-time location, destination, cargo, and speed of all commercial (and some recreational) shipping in the Salish Sea and beyond.
I hope that you can use this information — and perhaps even join the citizen science groups in San Juan County as they work to protect our economic as well as environmental resources.