[ad_1]
KAILUA-KONA – The ocean is full of fish. And the garbage.
Nor is it a new phenomenon and he is not entirely aware that the waters of West Hawaii have not been free of harmful pollutants. However, government officials, boat captains and local residents have all noticed a slight increase in marine debris in recent weeks: abandoned fishing nets, cargo nets, plastics and even construction materials.
Captain Jeff Fear, a long-time commercial fisherman, said plastics and other wastes were more or less constant about 20 kilometers offshore. He noted that the increase in debris was 1,000 fathoms, where the nets were the main problem, and what he called Ono Lane, located about 40 to 50 fathoms from the shore.
"There have been a lot of things in these last two weeks," Fear said. "You call it, it's there."
Driven by currents, the problematic presence of excess debris in both the water and the shoreline has affected the entire Leeward coastline of Hawaii.
Lynda Bertelmann brought together a group on Tuesday to clean fishing nets, PVC pipes and wooden planks of nails from the Ala Kahakai Trail along the coast between the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort and the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel.
She added that her friends living in Kawaihae had seen debris washing in Honokoa and Kailapa bays.
Megan Lamson, a fish and habitat surveillance technician with the Aquatic Resources Division (DAR) of the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, said the nets had left tangled messes in Pololu and Puako.
Captain Jeremy Bricco, a Jack's Diving Locker employee, fished off the waters off Kohanaiki on Saturday as his boat set off for the Manta Ray Night Tour. He estimated that the net weighed between 200 and 250 pounds and stated that it had taken three people to pull him on board.
"For some reason, I do not know what happened, but in the last two or three weeks we've had a lot of this stuff coming," added Bricco.
Lamson, also director of Hawaii's Wildlife Fund's Hawaii Island program, said that an apparent increase in marine debris was expanding considerably further – but added that the keyword is "apparent".
"Anecdotally, yes, the big bundles of abandoned fishing nets are apparently on the rise," she said. "In fact, there has been a slight increase since 2017. But scientifically, I would be uncomfortable to say that it is statistically significant. However, fishermen went to the DAR office and said, "I have never seen so many things."
While nets, lines, plastic and other garbage accumulate in the Pacific at an alarming rate, Mr. Lamson explained that, in the Hawaiian Islands, these debris tend to accumulate on the northern shores. is. On the island of Hawaii, accumulation is more common along the southeast coast, starting at South Point and extending for several kilometers to the northeast.
The prevalence of ocean pollution gives some certainty that each marine debris will be affected to some degree on each island. But Lamson said that identifying specific culprits can be as obscure as navigating the waters that they pollute.
"We sort of learned that blaming a country or an industry is really inefficient," she said. "We must all recognize the problem and work together on the solution."
Mr. Lamson, however, added that the Hawaii Wildlife Fund, along with its volunteers, has eliminated more than half a million pounds of marine debris in the past 15 years. By weight, more than 51% consisted of bundles of nets and nets, which are most often used for fishing and freight transport.
Some of the network / line waste may have been intentionally discarded, although Mr. Lamson thinks most are accidentally adrift.
In February 2017 and March 2018, DAR installed net containers outside its offices in Kona and Hilo, respectively. Since then, Mr. Lamson has stated that the division has removed approximately 4,650 pounds of bundles of nets and abandoned lines from seven cargoes. The Kona office has produced two trucks in 2017 and already four this year, a fifth being on the verge of being shipped.
Mark Manuel, Regional Coordinator for Marine Debris in the Pacific Islands with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), asked if the state should wait for more debris pile up.
"Nothing currently indicates that the amount of marine debris in our ocean is decreasing," Manuel said, citing plastics as the most common type. "In addition, we do not have a significant amount of marine debris data (or even a good baseline) in Hawaii to determine whether we expect more or not."
Regarding the source of the nets scattered on the west coast of Hawaii, as well as all the other islands, Manuel stated that this was not the case of commercial fishermen from Hawaii, who are part of the longline fishing industry.
"These net dishes come mainly from trawling or purse seine fishing throughout the Pacific," said Manuel, adding that the sources were both international and domestic.
Trends in ocean currents may also partly explain why West Hawaii has apparently been the landing place for more debris in recent weeks, but Lamson said these trends can be dynamic and therefore difficult to determine. . Several small local swirls complicate things further.
Since the source of the pollution and the factors that cause it with probably greater frequency in the waters of western Hawaii remain at least partly obscured, the best solution is to participate in cleanup efforts.
The Hawaii Wildlife Fund organizes several times a year to address some of the obvious side effects: entangled marine life, inadvertent ingestion of plastic, choking of coral reefs and the potential importation of invasive species.
Fear is also a prominent member of Big Wave Wave Riders Against Drugs, which organizes beach cleanup. As a fisherman, he organizes Scoop It events, where he solicits other boat captains to help clean up local waters for the public good.
"Many of us work at night, so you can not see (debris)," said Fear. "One of those times, someone's going to hit something, it's going to sink and someone's going to be hurt."
[ad_2]
Source link
