SEJ2008

Concurrent Sessions 3: THE WATER: Are the Oceans Already Lost?

Here's the audio file (MP3/12.4MB/0:54:15) for this Saturday, October 18, 2008, session: Download C3_Water

The declining health of the world's oceans is an often unseen, intangible predicament for a land-based human society. But the daily outputs of life on land are having a tremendous impact on life in the sea. A wholesale re-ordering of the ocean's food chain is under way, not only through overfishing but from agricultural and industrial runoff into the seas that makes previously productive areas uninhabitable to marine life. The broader impacts of climate change, another byproduct of human life on land, will continue to have major impacts on the rhythms of life in the sea. What are the most dire issues facing the rich and vast natural resource of our oceans, and what are the practical ways to reverse the trends?
Moderator: Chris Kirkham, Reporter, The Times-Picayune
Panelists:
Dennis Heinemann, Senior Scientist and Vice President for Ocean Climate Change, Ocean Conservancy
Jackie Savitz, Senior Scientist and Pollution Campaign Director, Oceana

Concurrent Sessions 2: THE WATER: Hydropower: Past, Present & Future

Here's the audio file (MP3/16.4MB/1:11:57) for this Friday, October 17, 2008, session: Download C2_Water

The old questions about the environmental costs of building big dams haven't gone away — they've just turned up in new places like Asia and South America. We'll talk about the latest news on those projects. In the United States, different questions dominate, such as: Is aging dam infrastructure still safe? Is the boom in "second generation" hydropower — mainly wave and tidal energy projects — a solid green alternative or will these projects create serious environmental problems, too? In light of rising energy prices, what are the prospects of decommissioning more controversial conventional dams? Where in the U.S. are conventional dams still in development?
Moderator: Elizabeth Bluemink, Reporter, Anchorage Daily News
Panelists:
Andrew Fahlund, Vice President for Conservation, American Rivers
Jacques Leslie, Author, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment
Julie Smith-Galvin, Director of Communications, U.S. Operations, Brookfield Renewable Power

Audio: Wednesday evening, Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau

Cousteaus: Continuing a Legacy (Documentary Sneak Peek)

Download Cousteau  (MP3/4.4MB/0:25:41)
On Wednesday, October 15, 2008, Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau shared intimate stories of their father, Philippe Sr., and their work to continue his legacy. They discussed life in one of the most important families in environmental conservation, which was led by their grandfather, Jacques Cousteau. The evening included a preview of "Oceans," a High Definition Discovery Channel/BBC co-production premiering in the fall of 2008 that explores the state of our world's oceans and major seas. From Mexico across to Eritrea, the Arctic down to Tasmania, Philippe and his team plied the waters of every ocean on the planet exploring and documenting their mysteries.
Moderator: Jeff Burnside, Special Projects Reporter, WTVJ NBC 6 News, Miami

Audio: Concurrent Sessions 1: THE WATER: Can This Bay Be Saved?

Here's the audio file (MP3/16.6MB/1:12:46) for this Friday, October 17, 2008, session: Download C1_water

“Can the Bay be Saved?”

By Sarah Lichtman

Panelists Bill Street, Ann Swanson, Richard Batiuk, and moderator Tim Wheeler discussed the fate of the Chesapeake Bay. And in answer to the session’s ominous question, “can the bay be saved?” the panelists agreed on a conditional “yes.” The condition being, of course, a lot of attention and effort.

The technology and science that goes into the monitoring of the Chesapeake Bay is some of the world’s finest, yet the bay’s water quality has not improved significantly in 25 years.  In this session, experts discussed what still needs to be done to get the Chesapeake back to good health.

“We’ve seen success when we’ve taken strong action,” said Bill Street, executive director of the James River Association.  For example, when there was a big push to save rockfish, they rebounded with astounding numbers.

Panelists in this session stressed the need for federal pressure to reduce non-point source pollution.  They also expressed worry over a generation of children that are now being raised without any connection to nature.  The hope, said Street, lies in a new movement towards “green” practices.

A trip down the James (where cattlemen drive kayaks)

[Video: How often to you get to interview a cattle rancher from a river kayak? Check out this clip with Robert Curd, a cattleman in Virginia who raises about 80 cattle on 300 acres. He's using state and county money to keep his cattle -- and their problem-causing poop -- out of the James River.]

By John Sutter (concretebuffalo.blogspot.com)

Standing on a bank of the James River with other members of the Society of Environmental Journalists, colorful leaves seemed to hang in the air before wandering into the water. David Sligh, the water keeper for this part of the river, told our group of canoeists and kayakers that the river we were about to journey onto represented far more than this picturesque scene. It's a machine, he said, and one made up of many parts. Small streams and creeks that cover a quarter of the land in Virginia feed these waters. In turn, the James dumps its contents off of the eastern shore of the United States, into the Chesapeake Bay. But this natural machine is about more than just water, Sligh urged. Trees that line its banks filter out pollution. Oysters, once prevalent on the riverbed and now conspicuously absent, act as filters, too. And the farmers and factories and coal trains and mines and cities and people that exist in the James' watershed are inextricable constituents of the quality of this water.

This full-circle view of nature seemed to me to be the main point of our group's four-hour trip down the river, from a drop-off point at a bridge in Buchanan, Va. (pronounced here: "Buck-An-An.") Along our way, we heard from several of the river's stakeholders. Each gave our group a window into the sources of water pollution that plague this river and so many others across the country.

Cousteaus: A Sneak Peak

By Lisa Palmer

Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau, of Earth Echo International, presented awards to journalists at the SEJ 2008 conference awards ceremony Wednesday evening.

Alexandra for the last two years was living in Central America studying water ecosystems. Her new book, tentatively titled "This Blue Planet," will present her take on the different water ecosystems around the world, including the practices of sustainable fishing and will explain how ecosystems are interconnected and interdependent.

I first met Philippe when he was a student of mine at the Longshore Sailing School in Westport, Connecticut. Today he's exploring bigger waters. As host of a Discovery Channel/BBC co-production called "Oceans," he's bringing the message of ocean advocacy and sustainability to mass media audience. 

Nuclear power impacts on Hudson River

Posted by request of Roger Witherspoon, leader for the nuclear tour, who cant be there Thursday due to unexpected illness. 

July 11, 2003

Power plants destroy smaller species, plant life, state finds in river study

Roger Witherspoon
The Journal News

The use of Hudson River water to cool generators at three major power plants is degrading the river's ecosystem by killing billions of fish and plants each year and pouring tremendous amounts of hot water into the tidal estuary, according to a new state environmental analysis. 

The analysis, prepared by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, found that existing systems used to keep aquatic life out of the plants' huge cooling systems are effective at removing large fish and debris, but "do very little" to stop smaller fish and plant life from being sucked into the plants and baked to death during the power generation process. 

Guest Blogger Christine Heinrichs

I'm from Cambria, California, the Central Coast. I joined SEJ in 2001 when I was reporting on golf course maintenance and poultry was an avocation. Since then, Voyageur Press has seen the wisdom of publishing my book on chickens, How to Raise Chickens. It has been well received -- I'm big in Tractor Supply's books section --so they asked me to write another on poultry. How to Raise Poultry, with chapters on ducks, geese, swans, turkeys, guineafowl, game birds, ratites (ostriches, emus and rheas), and, of course, chickens, will be available in April 2009. My blog is http://poultrybookstore.blogspot.com.

Being involved with poultry has led me into so many environmental areas: agricultural practices of all kinds sustainable and industrial, herbicide and pesticide use, watershed management, water and air quality issues, humane farm animal treatment, food-borne illness, food quality, global hunger and saving the world.