Archive for February, 2011
Coral Reef Fact:
Green Moray Eel (Gymnothorax funebris) photo: Lucja Jakubowska
Moray Eels secrete a protective mucus over their smooth, scaleless skin which in some species contains a toxin. Learn more
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
Numeric Nutrient Criteria and the general ability for EPA to effectively enforce the Clean Water Act is under assault. Please support the EPA’s efforts in implementing nutrient pollution standards.
Send a message to Senator Nelson asking him to stand up to our state’s big polluters and protect the EPA’s authority to keep our water clean, drinkable, fish-able and swim-able. This is an urgent matter and Senator Nelson needs to hear from as many Floridians as possible in the next few days. Let him know you support clean water for Florida’s rivers, lakes, streams, bays and springs!
You can contact him by phone (202-224-5274), fax (202-228-2183) or web mail: http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm Phone calls are most effective.
On Friday (2/18) night, Congressman Tom Rooney (FL-16) added a rider to the Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution – that would stop EPA from implementing the new freshwater numeric water quality standards – was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives in a largely party-line vote, 237-189. Only 17 Republicans voted against the rider but 16 Democrats voted for it – three of those Democrats being from Florida (Alcee Hastings, Corrine Brown and Ted Deutch). See Florida Times-Union story at: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-02-19/story/us-house-budget-vote-threatens-florida-clean-water-rule#ixzz1EbRJGiqS
The Rooney rider was just one of many anti-EPA amendments adopted by the House last weekend and next week the battle moves to the Senate.
Our goal now is to put enough pressure on the Senate to Oppose Section 4035 of the FY11 Continuing Resolution. This language would stop implementation and public education on the EPA rule to protect Florida’s waters from excess pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer.
Unfortunately, Senator Nelson endorsed a similar rider to stop the EPA numeric nutrient criteria last fall. And since last summer he has refused to meet with us regarding this issue. We therefore must approach Nelson as we approached Congressman Rooney last week
You can contact him by phone (202-224-5274), fax (202-228-2183) or web mail: http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm Phone calls are most effective.
Please ask key decision makers in other states to support these standards. Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Senator Jack Reed, (D-RI), Subcommittee Chairman, Interior and Related Agencies, have jurisdiction over this issue and it is very important that they vote against this amendment if it is offered to the Senate bill and then it is vital that they insist on dropping the language in conference.
You can contact Chairman Inouye’s Committee office by phone (202-224-7363), fax (202-224-2100) or web mail: http://inouye.senate.gov/Contact/ContactDKI.cfm.
You can contact Chairman Reed’s Subcommittee office by phone (202-228-0774), fax (202-228-2345) or web mail: reed.senate.gov/contact/contact-share.cfm
Of course the Democratic Leader should also lead no votes against this amendment and insist on it being dropped in Conference.
You can contact Majority Leader Reid (D – NV) by phone (202- 224-3542), fax (202- 224-7327) or web mail: Web Form: reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
The opposition is doing everything it can, with many more dollars to spend, to get rid of Florida’s new nutrient pollution limits. Go to this web address http://www.3-1-2011.org/ to get a glimpse of the opposition’s maneuvers.
Send thank you messages to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (202-225-7931), who made a heroic speech on the House floor against the Rooney rider, and to Representatives Kathy Castor (202- 225-3376), Frederica Wilson (202-225-4506) and Cliff Stearns (202-225-3973), who all voted against the Rooney rider.
Coral Reef Fact:
Southern Stargazer (Astroscopus y-graecum) http://www.texasgulfcoastfishing.com/
The Southern Stargazer (Astroscopus y-graecum) is designed so that its’ eyes, nostrils, most of the mouth are above the sand when they bury themselves to ambush prey. They are, also, capable of protruding their eyes for a short distance above the sand. Learn more
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
Coral Reef Fact:
Ernst Haeckel from the Kunstformen der Natur (1904), plate 40: Asteridea
When attacked or damaged Sea Stars (Class Asteroidea) are able to grow new arms. They usually have five arms but have been found with 4 or 6 arms, this may be because more than one arm has been damaged at one time.
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
February 23, 2011
FWC Staff and Reef Relief's Paul G. Johnson, State Programs & Policy Director
“Today, in cooperation with the Sea Turtle Conservancy, Reef Relief Policy and Programs Director Paul G. Johnson presented a resolution in recognition and praise to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, it’s staff and volunteers in the rescue and release of cold stunned sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico last January. The resolution was read at their recent meeting in Apalachicola, Florida.”
Read the Sea turtle Rescue Resolution
Coral Reef Fact:
Banded butterflyfish photo: Bernard E. Picton
The Banded butteryfish’s (Chaetodon striatus) black bands & vertical, black bar through the eye, is designed to confuse predators. Learn more about butterflyfish
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
Coral Reef Fact:
Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) photo: NOAA
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are warm-blooded (homeothermic) and can thermoregulate, which means they can keep their body temperature higher than that of the surrounding water temperature. Because of this, they are capable of great speeds up to 50 miles per hour. Learn more
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
Feb. 20, 2011 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Washington DC
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill “devastated” life on and near the seafloor, a marine scientist has said.
Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia.
Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.
She disputed an assessment by BP’s compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012.
WASHINGTON – Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist’s video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn’t degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.
That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.
Coral Reef Fact:
Dolphins have to be conscious to breathe. This means that they cannot go into a full deep sleep, because then they would suffocate. Dolphins have “solved” that by letting one half of their brain sleep at a time. Learn more
Donate to Reef Relief today and help protect our marine environment.
