Taking exception What effect will 250 decibels have on marine life off the Central Coast? BY NEW TIMES STAFF
W
hat’s “a little louder than a rock concert” (according to PG&E), is going to cost PG&E ratepayers $64 million, and has detractors threatening to strap themselves to a whale to prevent it, if necessary? If you answered PG&E’s proposed seismic testing, scheduled to take place off the shores of the Central Coast in November, you’d be correct. But even if you happen to know that the California State Lands Commission has already approved the project, and that the California Coastal Commission is slated to either approve or deny the studies in mid-October, you probably still have some questions. Even if you know that the testing will consist of air guns affixed to the back of a research vessel firing into the water and measuring the blasts reflected off the seafloor, you still have questions, like: How will the testing effect the fishing industry in Morro Bay?—a concern that prompted the Morro Bay City Council to condemn the tests. What will blasts reaching up to 250 decibels do to the marine life off the Central Coast? What does the draft environmental assessment released by the National Science Foundation mean when it lists 3,736 Morro Bay harbor porpoises, a species exclusively found locally (among dozens of other species, totaling thousands of marine mammals) as the take for the studies?
By its own admission, the National Science Foundation can’t explain to New Times what “take by harassment” means, which makes the assessment it’s mulling over more alarming than useful. So take the numbers below (pulled directly from the National Science Foundation’s environmental assessment) with a grain of salt—because we can’t tell you what it all means, because we can’t put these staggering numbers in some kind of reasonable context, and because the regulatory agencies required to approve this project seem shockingly comfortable with that fact. Here are the numbers we’ve found, ranging from 11 humpback whales to 3,736 Morro Bay harbor porpoises. We wish we could tell you what it all means. And in the coming weeks, we’ll continue to try. ∆ Send comments to Managing Editor Ashley Schwellenbach at aschwellenbach@ newtimesslo.com.
California Gray Whale Eschrichtius robustus
78
x10 =
DWarf Sperm Whale -
Kogia sima
=
4
humpbaCk Whale -
Megaptera novaeangliae
11
=
12
blue Whale
=
Balaenoptera musculus
killer Whale -
Orcinus orca
=
6
More to the story
For more information about PG&E’s proposed seismic studies, check out “Given ‘take’?” (New Times, Sept. 20) at newtimesslo. com/news/8350/given-take.
fin Whale -
Balaenoptera physalus
20
x10 =
Short-finneD pilot Whale Globicephala macrothynchus
Sperm Whale -
1
=
Physeter macrocephalus
1
=
TAKES BY HARASSMENT continued page 18
TAKES BY HARASSMENT from page 17
Short-beakeD Common Dolphin Delphinus delphis
lonG-beakeD
Common Dolphin
x11
=
-
Delphinus delphis
66
1,468
x100 =
riSSo’S Dolphin Megaptera novaeangliae
78
x10 = h arbor
porpoiSe
-
Phocoena phoceoena
x100 =
3,736 HARASSMENT continued page 19
TAKES BY HARASSMENT from page 18
bottlenoSe
Dolphin
-
Tursiops truncatus
1,324
x 10 =
StripeD
Dolphin
-
Stenella coeruleoalba
7
=
paCifiC
WhiteSiDeD Dolphin Lagenorhynchus obliquidens
152
x10 =
Dall’S
porpoiSe
-
Phocoenoids dalli
x10
=
65
HARASSMENT continued page 20
TAKES BY HARASSMENT from page 19
bairD’S
beakeD Whale
-
Beradius bairdii
2
=
Small beakeD Whale -
=
Ziphius cavirostris
7
northern
riGht Whale Dolphin Lissodelphis borealis
California
Sea lion
-
x10 Zalophus califorianus
91
=
849
x100 =
paCifiC
harbor Seal Phoca vitulina rishardsi
x10
61
=
Southern
Sea otter
-
x100
=
Enhydra lutris nereis
1,188