Get Involved or Get Ready for Empty Skies

"More of us must become educated to the threat to wildlife imposed by ecological ignorance and indifference and poorly designed development and get actively involved--or..."



AT LEFT is a common tern looking for a meal in San Leandro Bay, where the marine ecosystem has entered a new era of catastrophic ecological threat due to global warming and other human activity.

Sediment buildup from Alameda's lagoons and dredging of the Oakland-Alameda Estuary have recently combined to shift tidal currents, drawing toxins from street run-off and lagoon chemicals into the feeding grounds of these magnificent aerial acrobats.

The human threat to marine wildlife here took a dramatic turn once before in the early 1900s, when dredging of a marsh turned the Alameda Penninsula into an island. The ecosystem had to adjust to the flooding and scavenging effect of powerful new tidal flows.

Further dredging of the newly-created Oakland-Alaemda Estuary made possible the Port of Oakland, a thriving seaport with hundreds of jobs, but a side-effect was a curse for the marine ecosystem of San Leandro Bay. New ship channel depths allowed larger ships to enter the Port but also increased the strength of tidal currents, drawing toxins from Alameda's lagoon effluent around the eastern tip of Alameda Island through the habitat of thousands of seabirds in San Leandro Bay.

Alameda's Tidal Curse is documented here on my blog: Alameda's Tidal Curse . The Curse is that whatever is carried down the Estuary from San Leandro Bay will be returned there and gets recycled repeatedly, day after day. The Tidal Curse is a prime suspect in the Seabird Massacre of 2015, where three hundred beautiful seabirds died and hundreds more were treated and released. The birds were caked in an oily goo that causes hypothermia a hideous death after hours of shivering from the cold.

The Massacre is still under investigation, but we don't have to wait. Action is already underway by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, who recently issued a new tentative ruling effectively declaring Zero Tolerance for anything but storm water to be released into storm sewers: Regional Water Quality Control Board Action .

This new ruling needs to be extended to include lagoons and all inland waterways feeding the San Francisco Bay. Call or write the Board with your comments. If you can--show up on June 12.

What will we learn from the 2015 Seabird Massacre? Will Alameda wake up? Will the City continue to use chemicals to control algae in their ancient finger lagoons? Will first responders become more responsive? Will the police show more interest in environmental cases? Will people use their cell phone cameras to record and report environmental threats? Will schools expand their ecological awareness curriculum?

Everyone enjoys seeing herons, terns, grebes, ducks, pelicans and egrets in our skies and waters. We share their living quarters. Urban development doesn't have to destroy wildlife. More of us must become educated to the threat to wildlife imposed by ecological ignorance and indifference and poorly designed development and get actively involved--or...

...one day the skies will be empty.

Get involved.

Here's a list of politicians, agencies and organizations you can contact: Who to Contact

Well-drilling Surfactant Matches the Mystery "Goo"

Progress is being made in identifying the seabird-killing Mystery Goo.

A 2007 patent application (see below) reveals that a surfactant* used in well drilling contains components matching eighty percent (four out of five) of the Goo's ingredients.

Silicone fluids**, Tung oil, seed oil, and animal fats (e.g., fish oil) are present in the surfactant and are among the five Goo components in lab results reported by Janna Rinderneck, the Fish and Wildlife scientist who managed the Goo's testing.

As quoted in SFGate.com, Rinderneck lists five probable components of the Goo:

"Scientists at several state and federal laboratories determined after more than two weeks of research that the substance was 'a mixture of nonpetroleum-based fats or oils.' ...'The exact oil- or fat-based product has not been determined, but likely suspects are:1) silicone fluids, 2) tung oils, 3) resins or rosin oils, 4) animal fats, and 5) edible or inedible seed oils from plants,' said Janna Rinderneck, an environmental scientist with the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response."

As shown below, seed oils, tung oil and animal fats (fish oil) are specifically mentioned in the surfactant's patent application. Silicone, being a polymer, qualifies as the "polymeric additive.":

"...a polymeric additive** coating the powdered solid; wherein the polymeric additive comprises a polymer ...at least one selected from soybean oil, linseed oil, grapeseed oil, cashew nut shell oil; perilla oil, tung oil, oiticia oil, safflower oil, poppy oil, hemp oil, cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, high-oleic triglycerides, triglycerides of euphorbia plants, peanut oil, olive oil, olive kernel oil, almond oil, kapok oil, hazelnut oil, apricot kernel oil, beechnut oil, lupine oil, maize oil, sesame oil, grapeseed oil, lallemantia oil, castor oil, herring oil, sardine oil..."

Here's the full application: Patent Application for Surfactant with Goo Ingredients (Click Here)

Only petroleum has been ruled out. No item from this non-petroleum list has at this point been ruled out, but the presence of four of the five Goo ingredients points to a surfactant as the source of the Goo.

Now all that's needed to prove the Goo originated in Alameda's lagoons is to find residues of these ingredients there.

Or, maybe a whistle-blower will come forward.



*Definition and discussion of surfactants: What is a Surfactant? (Click Here)
**Silicone is a polymer.

Photo Essay Tracking Alameda's Toxic Spill

"... a mixture of non-petroleum-based fats or oils. Non-petroleum oils include synthetic oils, such as silicone fluids, tung oils, and wood-derivative oils such as resin/rosin, animal fats and vegetable oils."

On a sunny Sunday October afternoon, a friend and I spotted plume of grey sludge, as we sat on a south-facing bench on San Leandro Bay near the Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline. High tide was just beginning to ebb as I noticed an unusual right-to-left motion on the water in the distance. The air was warm and still. Hardly a cloud. The water was like mercury except for that curious movement that I kept noticing as we intently engaged in conversation about the books we are both writing about orphans and orphanages. I had seen movement like this before when I was a boy of 17 fishing for gar on the Trinity River in Texas, upstream of a sewage pipe. But that didn't register at the time.

A good deal of time passed as the restless indistinct mass crept toward us while we talked. Steam vapors rose from it as it curled around the eastern tip of Alameda Island and picked up speed. I looked at my watch. It was ten after four.

Eventually the undulating mass was close enough to make out its gelatinous consistency and a greyish color I had never seen in nature. Entrapped bits of debris bobbed and weaved. We stopped talking, hypnotized, as the mass of sludge rode the gathering current into the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. It was like being in a Sci-fi flick. "What the hell is this?" I said. "It can't be normal."

That was October 12, 2014. By the following mid-January, a massive seabird kill concentrated near Alameda was being reported in the news. The cause--a "Grey Goo of unknown origin."

Below (Image 1c) is the bench where we sat when we first noticed the plume.

Alarmed now, we stood and followed from the bike trail on the Oakland side of the estuary as the accelerating sludge headed toward the High Street Bridge, hugging the far shoreline where the current was strongest. Below is a map (Image 1e) showing in red the plume's path that we observed between 3:45 and 6PM on the Sunday the Raiders were getting clobbered by the Chargers last year.

Image 1d was taken in March, 2015, from a few hundred yards north and east of the Vantage Point bench to show the Otis Street/Bay Farm Bridge hidden from view in Image 1c. Notice the abundance of sea fowl. It's a mixture of surf scoters, grebes and stilts.

San Leandro Bay is a treasure of sea bird life that is severely threatened by effluent from not just Alameda's lagoons. Four natural estuaries drain street run-off here, as shown in the following Image 1w.

AN ECOLOGICAL DEAD ZONE? The Google Maps drill-down at right (Image 1n) shows an apparent ecological "dead zone" delta on Alameda's southern shoreline surrounding the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary. Note the darker coloration compared relative to the healthy shoreline due east of the dock connected to Weir #1 in the tail of the lagoons.

Also note the three storm sewer outlets due west of the dock. This area shows the ecological effects of a concentration of street run-off from these three sources plus the discharges from the lagoon portal. YES, the lagoons capture run-off from storm sewers. People have been known to toss kitchen grease in the lagoons as well as used cat litter, all of which are illegal.

This discoloration shows that tidal marsh recyclers (mollusks, worms, crustaceans, etc.) are having a hard time keeping up with processing the city's organic output.



At left is the dock referred to above in Image 1n. Beneath the dock is the lagoon portal into San Francisco Bay from a pipeline leading from Weir #1.

Note the Otis Street/Bay Farm Bridge visible in the distance. Beyond the bridge is San Leandro Bay, where the plume of sludge was noticed by my friend and I.

This is a frontal view of the dock viewed from the south, across the channel. Below the dock is the lagoon portal "Rectangular Orifice" of the pipeline to Weir #1.

The Rectangular Orifice at left is the most probable source of the sludge, but proving so requires laboratory analysis of samples from the grey-green moustache and surrounding area to compare with samples of the Mystery Goo reported in news media since mid-January.

Cal Fish and Wildlife have taken samples for this purpose.

At right is a view (Image 1g) from within the finger lagoons at the end of the "tail," showing Weir #1, indicated by the arrow.

A weir is any device within a body of water that controls or influences the flow.