We sampled our two beach sites at Ormond Beach yesterday. As with our beaches in west Ventura County, we found a generally light to moderate tarring along the strand line. It was consistently patchy with the majority of the beach being only lightly tarred. We did also detect an oily sheen within the sand… Read more »
June 2nd and 3rd are the peak spawning days of the year for our California grunion in 2015. These fish are laying eggs and sperm as I type this into some of our newly tarred high tide lines across SoCal.
This was my brief interview at the KVTA (AM1590, Ventura’s News Talk Radio) studios. The recording sound is not fantastic as it was recorded off the radio 50 miles away, but it conveys our most recent observations. https://soundcloud.com/dra-32/dr-a-discussing-refugio-oil-spill-kvta-06-01-15
Quick field observations (note: these are field postings & formatting, etc. may be off) Beach surveys in Ventura County on May 30 We are seeing tar ball strand lines as the high tide retreats this morning. Intermixed in these tar lines are dead sand crabs/carapaces. Tar balls not evident near Hueneme Pier but many… Read more »
When we see videos like this from the Coast Guard: It is easy to take away the impression that things are all good with regards to formal response to this (or any) oil spill. The reality is these clean-up things are vastly complex endeavors, complicated by numerous laws and guidelines and overlapping responsibilities or jurisdictions…. Read more »
Monitoring the Oil As the clean-up progresses, so does our monitoring. We now have sampled an array of sites that span the region of potential impact (Gaviota to downtown Santa Barbara) and the range of observed intensity of oiling. We are now beginning to shift gears a bit to have some of our crew focus… Read more »
Great to see more stories focusing on our students and their dedicated efforts as the getting out into the regular coverage of spill impacts. The two most recent of these featured some of our field sampling over the weekend. Many of the students in our field crews have been canceling things right and left. This spill… Read more »
Our teams are mustering for another field day of monitoring the ecological and social impacts of this spill. Much of the genesis of our current Sandy Beach work is grounded in our efforts to bring folks into field science who would not otherwise be engaged in a so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) discipline…. Read more »
[mapsmarker marker=”1″] The University of California’s Natural Reserve System (NRS) is an incredible network of protected areas spanning the state of California. These areas provide much needed spaces wherein researchers can study California ecosystems minimally impacted (and yes, I know that is a relative term) by our voracious appetite to burn, pave, and manipulate… Read more »
I was on Huffington Post Live this afternoon. I wasn’t able to finish my thought (Real Housewives were apparently on deck). But if I had, I would have noted that our clean-up technology hasn’t kept pace with our drilling/extraction technology. And that you can have all the regulations you like, but it is the government… Read more »
