Comment▼ Coastal waters need action
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ast year, two separate committees reported that U.S. coastal waters and oceans are in a state of crisis as a result of overfishing, burgeoning development, loss of coastal wetlands, contaminated sediments, and nutrient pollution (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2004, 38, 242A–244A). The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Com mission made recommendations to reverse the crisis and clarify the overlapping jurisdictional authorities of 15 federal agencies and departments charged with regulating oceans. In response, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level committee on ocean policy, chaired by James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. This decision is unfortunate, because instead of providing the funding and leadership that were recommended in the reports, the president appointed yet another committee to examine the 212 recom mendations from the commission. It’s also disappointing because President Bush appointed the commission, pursuant to the Oceans Act of 2000, and now has failed to deliver on its recommendations. Not since the 1969 Stratton Commission report have oceans received so much attention, yet there is little action from the White House. U.S. coastal resources are huge, ecologically rich, and economically vital. The 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) encompasses an oceanic area of 4.4 million square miles, more vast than all the U.S. land area. U.S. ports handle $700 billion in trade, commercial fishing accounts for $28 billion in income, and tourism and recreational fishing comprise another $31 billion every year. Seventyfive percent of all U.S. fish production comes from coastal waters, and 85% of waterfowl reside there. More than half of all Americans live in coastal counties, where population is growing rapidly. It seems everyone wants to live on the coast. (I fear I will be the last rebel watching the corn grow and writing to you from Iowa.) Numerous trends drive our coastal crisis (www. pewoceans.org, www.oceancommission.gov, and p 716 in this issue of ES&T). A growing population and increasing development in coastal counties have resulted in an increase of 37 million people and 19 million homes since 1970, with 27 million more people projected by 2015. Urban sprawl is expanding areas of impervious surface and consuming coastal wetlands at a rate of 20,000 acres per year. Nitrogen inputs from agriculture, urban runoff, and dry deposition are increasing.
Threatened fisheries include those that are home to groundfish in the North Atlantic and salmon on the Pacific Coast; overall, 30% of all fisheries are overexploited. The numbers of threatened, endangered, and extinct native species are growing. One hundred and fifty new invasive species have been introduced since 1970, primarily from ship ballast waters. Hypoxia events are more frequent and extensive, with harmful algal blooms. Coastal industrial activities that involve ports, oil shipments, oil and gas exploration, offshore aquaculture, wind turbines, tourism, and cruise lines are expanding. Funding for ocean research has fallen in the past 25 years, from 7% of total federal R&D to 3.5% today. The commission’s report recommended a $4 billion government trust, supported by oil and gas development fees, to fund ocean initiatives. It also recommended acceding to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—a treaty that has been held hostage by a few senators objecting to “global governance”. Both reports recommended an “ecosystems approach” to managing our coastal waters, in which complex ecological interactions would be appreciated and federal jurisdictional authority would be simplified. Such cooperation could reap benefits for homeland security as well. In 2001, Céline Godard with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution organized a workshop on the ocean crisis in Papua New Guinea. Subsequently, the government of Papua New Guinea created a 1-million-squaremile EEZ marine sanctuary. Imagine if the president of the United States were to grasp this issue and create a marine sanctuary off the U.S. coast. Such an act would rival the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, who created the Forest Service, the National Monuments Act, and five national parks while he was president. We are husbanding a precious renewable aquatic resource that is bigger than the area of the United States and supports abundant marine species and a large fraction of our commerce. Now is the time to protect it.
© 2005 American Chemical Society
FEBRUARY 1, 2005 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 55A
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
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