Scientific and Governmental Misconduct

Back in September, we covered the plight of a small oyster farm in Drakes Estero in Marin County, California. With respect to government bullying and scientific misconduct, that story sounds eerily like our own. To top it all off, the local band of environmental zealots down there (Environmental Action Committee of West Marin) is headed by none other than Amy Trainer, the former in-house attorney for the Friends. Small world.

The accusatory environmental narrative leveled at the oyster farm is essentially identical to the one put forward by the Friends against homeowners here. Funny how that is, don't you think?

Back in September, everyone was waiting for Interior Secretary Salazar to make his decision on whether to shut down the oyster farm or let it continue operating. His decision came down today: he is ordering the shut-down and removal of the oyster farm, which has been in the Estero for about 90 years.

A few posts back, we heard Nick Jones, one of our local oyster farmers, call shellfish farming "perhaps the most environmentally positive form of food production on the planet" because, among other reasons, filter feeders actually cleanse the water. We also heard Nick say that to expand his operation, it will require $30,000 in permit fees ... and that's before the new requirements of the Critical Areas Ordinances (CAOs) and Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) go into effect.

I don't think ordinary citizens quite understand the magnitude of the bureaucratic discretion, or the extent of the overlapping jurisdictions, or the multiplicity of environmental watchdogs that exist today. An alphabet soup of laws, agencies, and interests groups are watching every environmental move we make. When I hear citizens say that the San Juans are unprotected, or when they suggest parallels between today and the anything-goes days in which Rachel Carson lived, I have to wonder what rock they have been sleeping under? Just a partial list of pertinent environmental organizations and laws would include CAO, SMP, GMA, CWA, SDWA, NPDES, PSP, AAOG/LIO, EPA, DOH, CDPD, WDFW, DFW, Ecology, Tribes, Stewardship Network, Friends, and on ... and on ... and on.

As the Drakes Estero Oystergate affair shows, if "they" can't find a real reason to condemn you, they are not above drumming up a fake one. Every person in the San Juans needs to know about Oystergate. Here is what Senator Dianne Feinstein said about Salazar's decision.

The National Park Service’s review process has been flawed from the beginning with false and misleading science.

For more information, read the Washington Post article and/or watch the video below. The video is especially good. I strongly encourage you to watch it. If you have difficulty viewing the embedded video, you can view it at this link. The related blog is here. You won't believe the parallels to our CAOs and SMP.

The Gravity of Sea Level Rise

Did you know that "sea level" really isn't level at all? If you were sitting in a sailboat off the Dingle Peninsula in western Ireland, you would be about 160 meters "higher" than if you were in that same sailboat around Sri Lanka. In addition to steric factors (temperature, salinity) and meteorological factors (wind, barometric pressure), the global distribution of sea water has a lot to do with gravity, which is not uniform across the globe. Gravity is stronger around Ireland, for example, than around Sri Lanka, and that leads to more water being attracted to the area around Ireland; hence, the "higher sea level" there.

One of the points I hope to impress upon readers is that, whatever you may believe about carbon dioxide levels and global warming, prediction of any resulting sea level change is very tricky stuff. Many factors are involved, not the least of which is gravity. And gravity itself can be enigmatic. There are natural spatial variations in gravity across the globe, and even the ice caps exert their own individually distinguishable gravitational pull on the surrounding sea. In other words, right now sea level is higher around Greenland and Antarctica than it would be if there were no ice caps there. The gravitational pull of the ice caps "piles up" sea water next to them. Melt the ice caps, and their gravitational influence melts along with it. The sea level around Greenland and Antarctica would likely fall, even before considering isostatic rebound.

According to the GOCE readings, gravity in our part of the world is somewhat lower than average, suggesting we won't be strongly attracting gravitationally redistributed sea water resulting from melting ice caps. In fact, analysis of the absolute gravity stations from our area suggest sea level is rising very slowly here, much less than suggested by GPS and tide gauges.

Global and local gravity variations, steric factors, meteorological factors, isostasy, and tectonic movements, to name just a few, all serve to influence the global distribution of sea water (and sea level). There can't be one "sea level rise forecast" for the globe any more than there can be one weather forecast for the globe. And our ability to predict the weather is almost certainly better than our ability to predict sea level rise.

When you hear "experts" make sea level predictions for 50 or 100 years from now, imagine they are forecasting the weather for a particular afternoon that far into the future. What will sea level be around here 100 years from now? You might as well ask if we'll need an umbrella for May 1, 2112.

GOCE geoid showing areas of stronger gravity (red) and weaker gravity (blue)

Lovelock's Inconveniently Truthful Confession

As we hear of citizens struggling through the dozens of maps in the Shoreline I&C Report, the SMP update seems to be enjoying the same level of early community acceptance as the CAO (see email below). Collectively, the community seems to be saying, "Huh?"

Unfortunately, the SMP discussion is likely to be infused, at some point, by influence from the globally dysfunctional debates about global warming, climate change, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. In future posts here, I'll discuss some of the science and data related to those issues.

From my perspective, there are a lot of misconceptions (dare I say misinformation) about the data related to those topics, and I want to highlight some of it. Ever heard of principal component analysis or hockey sticks? Well, if you haven't, then you're missing out on one of the biggest science controversies surrounding global warming, and you should stay tuned. Also, I want to say that I am generally not a global warming denier. I certainly am not a climate change denier. For me, it is well established that the climate varies over time, and on balance, I think the world probably has been in a warming phase. I'm just not convinced it's a disaster or that we have that much control over it. In that respect, I appear to be in the same company as James Lovelock.

While not a climate change denier, I most certainly do deny that the Friends of the San Juans or their cohorts at Coastal Geologic Services can predict sea level rise around here with any reasonable degree of accuracy.

There is no end of people, it seems, who are willing to exploit the prospect of a good disaster for their own purposes, especially if there may be a grant involved.

_________________________________________________________________

From: Leith Templin <leithtemplin@hotmail.com>

Subject: Requesting Shoreline Extention

Date: April 27, 2012 9:34:21 PM PDT

To: Richard Fralick <isledream@hotmail.com>, <richardf@sanjuanco.com>, <pattm@sanjuanco.com>, <richp@sanjuanco.com>, <howier@sanjuanco.com>, <jamies@sanjuanco.com>

Dear Council Members,
I became aware last week that the deadline for submitting a review of the Shoreline Characterization Report was due on Monday 30th, 2012.  As I waded through the documents at the library and then had a disk sent to me from the community development and planning department and reviewed all 39 maps I wondered if anybody else was having as much trouble as I was. It was very frustrating to discover that the county employee in charge of this was on vacation, so there was no one to help me.  I met with around fifty people at the Orcas Fire Department last Wednesday night only to discover that none of them had any idea about this review let alone that a report was due on Monday. I shared with them on how to find their management areas and their Reach area and the importance of checking out the maps to see if they were an accurate reflection of their property.  The next day I received numerous emails and phone calls asking for help.  I have not talked to one shoreline property owner that new anything about this. Something is wrong with the communication from the county to it's property owner's on this important issue.  I am requesting that the deadline be extended to a later and more appropriate date this summer so property owners can participate in this important issue.
Sincerely,
Leith Templin
leithtemplin@hotmail.com
Orcas Island