National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Archives

A fisherman sues the feds for acting like crooks

August 20, 2012/1 Comment/in Featured, News /by Ron Arnold

Photo credit: NOAA

As raw December 1998 swept over the Atlantic off New Bedford, Mass., scallop fisherman Larry Yacubian brought around his boat, Independence, hailed by the Coast Guard. The officers who boarded his fishing vessel didn’t tell Yacubian it was a setup to coerce out of him a ruinous fine and to destroy his life so thoroughly he could never get it back.

Captain Yacubian lost his business, his boat, his license to fish — and literally the farm that had been in the family for generations — trying to exonerate himself of false accusations that he had been fishing in a prohibited area and free himself from a malicious prosecution for lies that he never told. His persecutor? The Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two weeks ago, Captain Yacubian filed the lawsuit that may well restore his money and his life after nearly 15 years of gut-wrenching bludgeoning by the NOAA.

The Commerce Department’s inspector general reviewed the NOAA’s Asset Forfeiture Fund — where Yacubian’s $430,000 fine went — and found that “these funds were used to purchase ‘luxurious’ undercover vessels, buy 202 vehicles for a staff of 172 enforcement personnel, and take trips around the world.”

A special investigative judge concluded there is “credible evidence that money was NOAA’s motivating objective in this case.” There’s also knowledgeable belief that the NOAA’s purpose is to eradicate the fishing industry.

Prepping to fight Shell Oil production: Biologists commence study of Chukchi Sea life

August 15, 2012/0 Comments/in Alaska News /by Douglas Main

Photo credit: thomas toohey brown

A group of researchers has embarked on the first comprehensive study of marine life in the eastern Chukchi Sea near Alaska. Their findings will be used by the Department of the Interior to help decide whether to grant future leases for offshore oil exploration and drilling in the region, and to regulate transportation and future fishing.

“We are going up there to look at the oceanography, plankton, fish and crab in the region,” said Michael Sigler, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service in Alaska.

Little baseline data has been collected in the region, which is currently little-trafficked and fished due to its remoteness and its ice-choked waters. As ice cover throughout the Arctic decreases, however, these pursuits are likely to increase.

Although surveys have been conducted in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas since 1959, U.S. fishery research in the Arctic has been infrequent and limited in scope, according to a statement from NOAA. A similarly comprehensive survey of the northern Bering Sea was not conducted until 2010. [Images: Creatures of the Bering Sea]

The new study is primarily meant to gather data for scientists and to avoid negative impacts of oil exploration in the region, Sigler told OurAmazingPlanet. (Royal Dutch Shell has been granted a lease to drill exploratory wells in the area, and the company hopes to begin in the next few weeks, according to the Reuters news service.)

NOAA Scientist: Experiment Suggests Worst of Fukushima “still on the way”

July 18, 2012/3 Comments/in Featured, International, News /by RT News

It’s been over a year since natural disaster ravaged a nuclear plant in Fukushima and interrupted the lives of millions of Japanese. Scientists now fear though that contaminated water is on course to America, and it could be more toxic than thought.

Researchers have released the findings of an intense study into the aftermath of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster and warn that the United States isn’t exactly spared just yet. In fact, scientists now fear that incredibly contaminated ocean waters could be reaching the West Coast of the US in a matter of only five years, and the toxicity of those waves could eventually be worse than what was seen in Japan.

A team of scientists led by Joke F Lübbecke of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory have published the findings of an experiment recently conducted to measure the impact of last year’s nuclear disaster and the results are eye-opening to say the least. By simulating the spreading of contaminated ocean waters and seeing how currents could carry them across the Pacific from Japan to the US, scientists believe that the worst might be still on the way.

“Within one year it will have spread over the entire western half of the North Pacific and in five years we predict it will reach the US West Coast.” Claus Böning, co-author of the study, tells the website Environmentalresearchweb.

Böning adds that “The levels of radiation that hit the US coast will be small relative to the levels released by Fukushima,” yet fails to exactly stand by that statement in the fullest. “But we cannot estimate accurately what those levels will be because we do not know for certain what was released by Fukushima,” the doctor adds. In fact, others fear that contaminated ocean waters may collect in packets and produce waves of highly concentrated nuclear toxins that could pose a dangerous toll to Americans.

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