Coastal Studies News

An emerging technology to fish for lobsters virtually ropeless to prevent whale entanglements is exciting conservationists, but getting a frigid reception from harvesters worried it will drive them out of business and upend their way of life.Injuries to endangered North Atlantic Right Whales ensnared in fishing gear have fueled a prominent campaign by environmental groups to pressure the industry to adopt on-demand equipment that only suspends ropes in the water briefly before traps are pulled from the water.The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch…

The United States' largest dredging contractor Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation announced it has signed an agreement with the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University to provide funding and technical support for what will become the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Laboratory of Dredging and Coastal Studies.Lasse Petterson from Great Lakes commented, “Our company has had a long and robust relationship with Texas A&M that has included research, participation in dredging short courses, and advocacy for the ocean and coastal engineering profession.

Researchers from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its partners are set to visit what remains of two ships—a German U-boat and a Nicaraguan freighter – which sank off Cape Hatteras during World War II’s “Battle of the Atlantic,” which pitted the U-boats of the German navy against combined Canadian, British, and American forces defending Allied merchant ships. By July 1942, the United States had been in World War II for less than a year, but the fight was coming to the nation’s shores.

Partnering U.S. agencies have commenced surveying the historic shipwreck of an American lightship shelled and sunk by a German U-boat during World War I nearly 100 years ago. Teams from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), on Sunday, August 30, began a survey of the historic wreck of Diamond Shoal Lightship No. 71, the only American lightship to be sunk by enemy action during World War I.

BMT JFA Consultants (BMT), a subsidiary of BMT Group,  has been awarded a contract by the Western Australian Department of Transport (DoT) to provide services as Coastal Engineering Advisor for the Management of Beaches, Structures and Waterways at Port Geographe, Busselton. The contract will initially run for two years with options to extend annually up to a total five year period. Port Geographe harbor is a coastal marina and residential canal estate developed in 1996 near the town of Busselton, Western Australia.

A team of researchers led by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries have discovered two significant vessels from World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic. The German U-boat 576 and the freighter Bluefields were found approximately 30 miles off the coast of North Carolina. Lost for more than 70 years, the discovery of the two vessels, in an area known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, is a rare window into a historic military battle and the underwater battlefield landscape of WWII.

The Campobello Island Whale Rescue team disentangles whales caught in fishermen's gear and nets around the Bay of Fundy off the east coast of Canada. Campobello Whale Rescue Team began after Mackie Greene witnessed a fin whale wrapped in fishing gear while leading a whale watching trip. Since then he and his team have worked with over 20 whales, risking their lives driving a Zodiac up next to animals that can be 40 to 70 or more feet long, and cutting through the lines entangling them.

It’s been called everything from the Graveyard of the Atlantic to Torpedo Junction. By whatever name, the seas off the coast of North Carolina during World War II were the site of a devastating period for the United States, during which dozens of ships—mostly merchant vessels—were sunk by German U-Boats. Today, the remains of those ships, along with several U-Boats, rest at the bottom of the Atlantic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that from January to August 1942, more than 50 vessels were lost to the U-Boat assault.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has released a report on a bureau-funded study of new and more effective methods of predicting, detecting and mapping the occurrence of gas hydrates in deepwater environments. The study, Multicomponent and Multifrequency Seismic for Assessment of Fluid-Gas Expulsion Geology and Gas Hydrate Deposits: Gulf of Mexico Hydrates, examined the various methods used to locate gas hydrate deposits. If such deposits occur in sufficiently high concentrations, they can be a potential new source of natural gas. “This study is critical to furthering our ability to assess deepwater gas hydrates as a future energy resource,” said BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich.

Crowley continues to foster education in maritime studies through its recent scholarship grant to a deserving student at the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport. Laura Boyle was selected as the spring 2009 Thomas Crowley Sr. Memorial Scholarship recipient at Williams-Mystic. She received a $5,000 scholarship to attend the 17-week maritime studies program in Mystic, Conn. An English major at Bryn Mawr College, Boyle has displayed her strengths through team work and community efforts in roles such as camp counselor, service trip leader, and peer mentor.

Crowley Maritime Corporation will enhance its scholarship grants with the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport beginning in fall 2009. The company has pledged to increase its donation from $10,000 to $20,000 a year for deserving and need-based students in the program. The increase in funding will allow two students each semester, or four students each year to benefit from the Thomas B. Crowley Sr. Memorial Scholarship Program. "The Thomas B. Crowley Sr. Memorial Scholarship has been a fundamental part of our scholarship program at Williams-Mystic since 2003.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation of Somerset, MA, signed a contract today to build a 60-ft. vessel to replace the Institution's aging 46-ft. coastal vessel Asterias. Construction of the new vessel is estimated at a cost of $1.6 million, with delivery expected in March 2004. "The need for this type of vessel has increased dramatically over the past few years as our interests in our continental shelf continue to increase," said WHOI Director and President Robert Gagosian. The Asterias replacement, designed by Roger Long Marine Architecture, Inc. of Cape Elizabeth, Maine…

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation of Somerset, Mass. signed a contract to build a 60-ft. vessel to replace the Institution's 46-ft. coastal vessel Asterias. Construction of the new vessel is estimated at a cost of $1.6 million, with delivery expected in March 2004. "The need for this type of vessel has increased dramatically over the past few years as our interests in our continental shelf continue to increase," said WHOI Director and President Robert Gagosian. The Asterias replacement, designed by Roger Long Marine Architecture, Inc. of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, will offer researchers many expanded capabilities…

$1,029,368 in grants for 12 community-based marine debris prevention and removal projects. These projects are funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program and administered by the NOAA Restoration Center. The program provides financial and technical assistance to local groups to clean-up marine debris, and prevent its introduction into coastal environments. The Marine Debris Program awarded $333,868 in the northeast region to support marine debris removal, research and education. (GIS) analysis to target the source of marine debris in New Hampshire and will investigate the effectiveness of marine debris removal activities. The State of Rhode Island, Clean the Bay, and other local partners will remove more than 500 tons of debris from Narragansett Bay.

A federal judge in Boston on Friday cleared the way for rescuers to use a sedative to free a whale tangled in fishing line while fighting for its life off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass. District Judge George O'Toole rejected a motion by an environmental activist who said a sedative would kill the 50-ton North Atlantic right whale -- one of an estimated 100 to 500 of the endangered species remaining. The Center for Coastal Studies, a rescue group from Provincetown, Mass., plans to sedate the whale on Saturday and remove green fishing line deeply embedded in the whale's upper jaw. The whale suffers from a massive infection and has been uncooperative with rescuers. Environmental activist Richard Max Strahan argued the sedative, untested on right whales, would kill the animal.