Barrels of Caustic Waste Found Off California
;We only find what we are looking for, and up to this point we have mostly been looking for DDT. Nobody was thinking about alkaline waste before this, and we may have to start looking for other things as well.”From the 1930s until the early 1970s, 14 deep-water dump sites off the coast of Southern California received refinery wastes, filter cakes and oil drilling wastes, chemical wastes, refuse and garbage, military explosives and radioactive wastes, according to the EPA.A pair of Scripps-led seafloor surveys in 2021 and 2023 identified thousands of objects, including hundreds of discarded military
Oceanbotics Returns to Shark Week With SRV-8X ROV to Capture Black Mako
Oceanbotics Inc. has announced its return to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week for the third consecutive year, participating in the production of a new special, “Black Mako of the Abyss,” filmed off the coast of Catalina Island in Southern California.To help locate this rare, dark-colored shark, Oceanbotics deployed its SRV-8X remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). Ryan Gates, an ROV operator, piloted the vehicle down to 1,640 feet (500 meters) using a handheld controller and a laptop, showcasing how straightforward and user-friendly the system is, even in challenging conditions.
Whale Fecal Samples Link Ocean Warming to Rising Algal Toxins in Arctic Waters
; Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and lead author of the new study, also leads the Wildlife Algal-toxin Research and Response Network for the U.S. West Coast. This alliance of agencies and institutions collects wildlife tissue samples from as far North as the Beaufort Sea in Alaska to Southern California. Members then send the samples to her Seattle lab to test for the presence of algal toxins. The lab’s early work found that many species in Alaska had evidence of exposure, although not at levels high enough to be considered harmful to the animals sampled.Over two decades, the lab regularly
2025 Voluntary Vessel Speed Reduction Season in California Commences May 1st
programs will begin on May 1 and conclude on December 31. BWBS and NOAA strongly recommend that all vessels 300 gross tons or larger reduce speeds to 10 knots or less in the VSR zones, identical for both programs, during this timeframe. Please reference the included map for the expanded Southern California zone in the new Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.The previous 2024 BWBS season was greatly successful with the highest participation and cooperation levels since the inception of the program. PMSA thanks its members for continuing to demonstrate that voluntary VSR programs can be
Teledyne ADCP Selected for 63-ft. Hybrid Ocean Monitoring Vessel
variation of the ocean currents from near surface to near bottom, is the perfect tool we needed to optimize the utility of the vessel we’re building”.The vessel built by AAM will enable OC San to carry out environmental monitoring, marine research, and ocean sampling efficiently in the Southern California Coast. The ADCP will help inform OC San’s Ocean Monitoring team on current movements during complex oceanographic research and sample collections. The ADCP data will be used to augment OC San’s water quality program and support the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
NOAA Awards $2.1 Million for Ocean Exploration Projects
for financial support through its Ocean Exploration Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Funding Opportunity. Totaling over $2.1 million, the projects will explore the mesophotic coral ecosystems off the western coast of Puerto Rico, study the biodiversity of deep-pelagic crustaceans from the waters off Southern California, explore and document a collection of nationally significant shipwrecks in the deep waters of Lake Michigan’s Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary, and more.NOAA Ocean Exploration explores the ocean to help us as a society better understand what lives and lies in its great
Matson Helping to Develop Whale Detection Technology for Ships
cutting-edge technology that detects whales and alerts crew members of their presence.In August of last year, Matson made route adjustments to its weekly triangulating Oakland-Long Beach-Honolulu voyage to minimize the time our vessels spend inside whale protection zones of the northern and southern California coasts. Fleet Operations led the development process for creating these new routes with the goal of reducing the risk of whale collisions in areas that are known whale migration routes, feeding grounds, and breeding areas. Since the new routes were implemented, Matson’s compliance with
Manta Ray UUV Prototype Completes In-water Testing
The Manta Ray prototype uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) built by Northrop Grumman completed full-scale, in-water testing off the coast of Southern California in February and March 2024. Manta Ray was built through a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program aimed at advancing key technologies to benefit future UUV designs, including techniques to manage energy, increased payload capacity, low-power propulsion and more.The recent in-water testing demonstrated at-sea hydrodynamic performance, including submerged operations using all the vehicle’s modes of propulsion and
NTSB Recommends Pipeline Operators Implement Safety Management Systems
pipeline controllers contributed to the 14-hour delay in stopping the pipeline’s shipping pumps, which consequently increased the volume of crude oil released.The NTSB also issued recommendations to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, the Marine Exchange of Southern California, and owners and operators of pipelines regulated by PHMSA.
August 2025
