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- Written by: Lake County News reports
The study, published this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even small oil spills can have a large impact on marine life, and that common chemical analyses of oil spills may be inadequate.
"Our research represents a change in the paradigm for oil spill research and detecting oil spill effects in an urbanized estuary," said Gary Cherr, director of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and a study co-author.
On the foggy morning of Nov. 7, 2007, when the container ship collided with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, bunker oil contaminated spawning habitats for the largest U.S. coastal population of Pacific herring – a month before spawning season.
The new study, which analyzed Pacific herring embryos following the spill, highlights the effects of bunker oil on fish embryos in shallow water, the potential significance of sunlight interacting with oil compounds, and the extreme vulnerability of fish in early life stages to spilled oil.
Specifically, the study found that components of Cosco Busan bunker oil accumulated in naturally spawned herring embryos, then interacted with sunlight during low tides to kill the embryos.
Laboratory fertilized eggs, caged in deeper waters, were protected from the lethal combination of sunlight and oil, but still showed less severe abnormalities associated with oil exposure.
Crude oil is naturally occurring, liquid petroleum. Bunker oil is a thick fuel oil distilled from crude oil and burned on ships to fuel their engines. It is contaminated with various, sometimes unknown, substances.
The study builds on research following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which released up to 32 million gallons of crude oil into the comparatively pristine environment of Prince William Sound, Alaska.
That research established a new paradigm for understanding the effects of oil toxicity on fish at early life stages.
The new study suggests that this old paradigm is inadequate to explain the dramatic, lethal effects of very low levels of oil on fish embryos, even in an urban estuary with preexisting background pollution.
"Based on our previous understanding of the effects of oil on embryonic fish, we didn't think there was enough oil from the Cosco Busan spill to cause this much damage," Cherr said. "And we didn't expect that the ultraviolet light would dramatically increase toxicity in the actual environment, as we might observe in controlled laboratory experiments."
Researchers began the new study in February 2008. They analyzed the levels of oil-based compounds in caged herring embryos at four oiled and two non-oiled subtidal sites, all of which were at least 1 meter below the water's surface. Naturally spawned embryos from shallower sites were also analyzed.
Three months after the spill, caged embryos at oiled sites showed nonlethal heart defects typical of oil exposure.
But embryos from the shallower, intertidal zone not only exhibited the nonlethal heart defects, they also showed surprisingly high rates of dead tissue and mortality unrelated to heart defects.
"These embryos were literally falling apart with high rates of mortality," said Cherr.
In 2008, almost no live larvae hatched from the natural spawn collected from oiled sites.
The high death rates did not seem to be caused by natural or manmade causes unrelated to the spill, the researchers report. No toxicity was observed in embryos from unoiled sites, even those near major highways.
Embryos sampled two years later from oiled sites showed modest heart defects but no increased death rates.
Pacific herring is a commercially and ecologically important species. The fish travel in large schools, typically from the San Francisco Bay north to the Bering Sea, and serve as a forage fish for humpback whales, other mammals, birds and salmon. After two years at sea, they spawn in shallow areas of bays and estuaries.
"In San Francisco, herring is one of the last urban fisheries, and herring is an indicator for the health of the Bay," said Cherr.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The fire was first reported shortly before 3:30 p.m. off of Highway 20 near the Oasis roadhouse.
Radio reports indicated that dispatchers received numerous cell phone reports of the fire in different locations, but Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said there was just one fire that was located in Colusa County.
He said it was located off the roadway, and measured about 100 feet by 100 feet in size.
Williams Fire sent two engines and a water tender, Northshore Fire Protection District sent three engines and a water tender, and Cal Fire responded with a hand crew, said Brown.
He said the first engine on scene – from Northshore Fire’s Spring Valley station – put the fire out within about 10 minutes.
Brown said Cal Fire is trying to determine the fire’s cause.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Tom Philpott
Disabled retirees, reserve component members, surviving spouses and active forces all benefited from flush wartime budgets and a Congress attuned after 9/11 to America’s deepening appreciation of current and past generations who risk life and limb in our nation’s wars.
But amid a deepening debt crisis and return of all U.S. forces from Iraq, the 2012 defense authorization bill (HR 1540) approved week before last shows priorities shifting, toward controlling defense spending and preparing to drawdown forces.
Restored are some old authorities needed to “reduce end strength in a responsible manner,” explained a House-Senate conference report on the bill.
These include:
– Temporary Early Retirement Authority, TERA, to allow select members a reduced annuity if released after 15 years but less than 20;
– Voluntary retirement incentive pay, payable to “no more than 675 officers’ with 20 to 29 years of service can be encourage to leave in return for payments of up to 12 months of basic pay;
– Voluntary separation pay and benefits for select enlisted members or officers who have more than six years’ service but fewer than 20.
– Expansion from three months to one year the period that an enlisted member can be discharged early without incurring a loss of benefits. But no pay or allowances would be paid for obligated time not served.
The Army and Marine Corps saw the steepest force increases during the Iraq war and expect to make the deepest post-war cuts.
Army end strength in 2012 will fall by 7400 soldiers, to 562,000, by October. That’s still up 77,000 from 2003.
Marine strength will hold at 202,100 but plans are to cut the Corps to 186,800 or even lower as cost-cutting pressure intensifies.
The Navy is down 54,400 sailors since wartime strength peaked at 383,000 in 2002. It will lose another 3000 to reach 325,700 by fall.
The Air Force is to gain 600 airmen for total active duty strength of 332,800. Though it is down 40,000 airmen since a wartime peak in 2004, Air Force exceeded its authorized level by 1,200 last October.
The new defense bill authorizes the modest TRICARE Prime enrollment fee increases that took effect Oct. 1 for working-age retirees, the first bump since TRICARE began 16 years ago.
It also directs retiree Prime fees be raised annually by the percentage hike in retired pay through annual cost-of-living adjustments or COLAs. Pharmacy co-payments will be allowed to rise.
Effective back to Oct. 1, the services must prorate imminent danger pay and hostile fire pay of $225 a month based on number of days spent in designated danger areas.
Previously, any part of a day in a war zone qualified a member for the full monthly payment. Only if there’s exposure to hostile fire will a day in theater now trigger full payment.
The Obama administration, military leaders, prominent lawmakers and various debt commissions have signaled deeper cost-sharing ahead for military beneficiaries including a first-ever enrollment fee for TRICARE for life and a dampened COLA formula for all federal entitlements.
So beneficiaries have reason to be wary of the defense budget to be unveiled in February with all accounts, including personnel, facing spending cuts.
Killed during final negotiations between House-Senate conferees on this defense bill was a provision to end reductions in survivor benefit annuities for surviving spouses to match dependency and indemnity compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Also killed was a provision to ease the impact of this SBP-DIC offset by increasing amounts paid under the interim Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance.
Progress also has stalled on other entitlement reforms including lifting the ban on concurrent receipt of both retired pay and VA disability compensation for all disabled retirees.
Still being impacted by the ban are retirees with disability ratings of 40 percent or less and disabled veterans forced by health conditions to leave service short of 20 years. President Obama at one time endorsed these benefit expansions but no more.
Military associations don’t brag of gains over the past decade, probably to protect them and to the fight effectively for others. But even a partial list is impressive.
Older retirees today have TRICARE for Life, a prized supplement to Medicare that didn’t exist before. All beneficiaries have access to a mail-order drug program and a vast retail pharmacy network.
Many thousands of retirees with serious or combat-related disabilities now draw full retired pay plus VA disability compensation because Congress ended for them the century-old ban on concurrent receipt.
The Survivor Benefit Plan is more valuable since Congress ended a deep reduction in annuities at age 62 when surviving spouses become eligible for social security.
The gratuity for combat-related deaths was raised six-fold to $100,000 and maximum Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage rose from $250,000 to $400,000.
Congress also approved a lump sum Traumatic SGLI payment of up to $100,000 to assist the most severely wounded with immediate financial challenges.
A decade ago careerists faced a reduced retirement plan, Redux, and an anemic post-service education benefit.
Congress restored for them the traditional retirement plan of “half” base pay at 20 years with full COLA or annual cost-of-living adjustments.
In 2009, a far more valuable Post-9/11 GI Bill took effect for those with active service since Sept. 11, 2001.
A perceived military pay gap with the private sector was closed over a decade with a string of annual raises that exceeded private sector wage growth, and out-of-pocket housing costs fell sharply as Basic Allowance for Housing was raised enough to cover members’ average rent and utility costs.
Reserve personnel also saw gains including premium-based TRICARE coverage while in drill status and the lowering of the age-60 reserve retirement tied to length of wartime deployments after January 2008.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The fire was reported shortly before 10 p.m. on El Camino Real, according to Lake County Fire Assistant Chief Willie Sapeta.
Firefighters were dispatched and on the scene within seven minutes, Sapeta said.
Sapeta said he responded along with an engine, water tender, two medics and a total of 20 fire personnel.
When they arrived the older doublewide mobile home was 50 percent involved, he said.
“We had control of it in about 45 minutes,” he said, adding that firefighters had mopped up and been released from the scene within two hours.
He said they were aided in fighting the blaze by the fact that a fire hydrant was located just across the street.
Neighbors told firefighters that they thought the woman who lived in the home was there when the fire broke out, but Sapeta said three complete searches yielded no sign of her.
Firefighters did, however, find two dogs and a cat that died as a result of the fire, he said.
The home was destroyed, said Sapeta, noting that what the fire didn’t damage the smoke and heat did.
He said the cause is still under investigation.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at