5/26/10

Hard to Believe

Divers reel in plethora of potties off state's coast as part of UC Davis project

Published By Daily Democrat

Hundreds of discarded toilets are being recovered from a reef populated by fish, lobsters and sea urchins.

The effort is coordinated by the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project, a program of the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center's SeaDoc Society. It will be the project's first cleanup of debris other than fishing gear.

Today, Kirsten Gilardi, a veterinarian at UC Davis and director of the UC Davis-based California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project, along with professional sea urchin fishermen and scuba divers from San Diego and Malibu who are contractors on this cleanup, will review their progress at cleaning up the ocean.

Gilardi expects to show toilets and other debris pulled from the sea floor off Point Dume will be unloaded in Marina Del Rey. The toilets will be lifted from a boat to the dock, by winch, for transport to a landfill. Once unloaded, the boat will return to the clean-up site for another day's work.

Gilardi is using the occasion to report on how lost fishing gear and other debris can kill fish, birds, seals and sea lions, and damage the reefs and kelp beds that are the basis of the California coastal ecosystem.

In 2005, the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project was established at UC Davis to enhance and restore underwater habitat for the benefit of marine animals and people.

Since May 2006, fishermen and divers working for the project have cleaned up nearly 17 tons of gear (mostly commercial nets and traps) from the waters around the California Channel Islands, and more than 1,400 pounds of recreational fishing gear off public fishing piers from Imperial Beach to Santa Cruz, including more than 1 million feet of fishing line.

The project has also installed recycling bins for unwanted hooks and lines on a dozen piers.

This toilet and tire recovery is the project's first cleanup of debris other than fishing gear. Expected to last at least a week, it got underway on Monday in waters 80 feet deep, on a rocky reef about 1 1/2 miles east of Point Dume, on the edge of Point Dume Canyon. The area is home to many kinds of fish, as well as lobsters and sea urchins, and is under consideration by the state for designation as a marine protected area.

Gilardi doesn't know when or how the trash was dumped at the site.

On reconnaissance dives, fishermen and divers estimated there were about 300 toilets and 300 tires lying on a large stretch of reef.

This cleanup is expected to cost $30,000. It is funded by the state Wildlife Conservation Board and the California Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission monies come from a fund established to mitigate impacts to the sea floor from a recent fiber-optic cable installation project off the Southern California coast.

The California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project is a program of the SeaDoc Society, which is a program of the Wildlife Health Center at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. The overall fishing-gear project is currently funded by the State Wildlife Conservation Board. It was established with grants from the California Ocean Protection Council and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program, as well as philanthropic gifts from private donors.

Everyone can help clean up California's underwater coast by reporting sightings of lost fishing gear or loss of gear to (888) 491-GEAR (calls are toll-free) or to www.lostfishinggear.org.

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