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Thanks to everyone
who attended clean-up trainings and volunteered their time
to remove tar and oil from our shorelines. There are currently
no more scheduled trainings. However, Baykeeper is still
looking for help documenting oil sightings. Send accounts
and photos of what you see (what, how much, where,
and when) to
volunteer@baykeeper.org.
RTC
Scientists, students and partners get involved
RTC
scientists and RTC partners are actively performing scientific
research in response to the MV Cosco Busan oil
spill:
Dr. Toby Garfield, and scientist from CenCOOS, (a regional
organization that coordinates ocean observing activities
in Northern and Central California) assisted with spill
tracking by providing real-time spill trajectory information.
Dr. Katharyn Boyer’s lab is working with NOAA to assess
damages to eelgrass beds. Samples of water, sediment, and
polychaete worms from the RTC baywater reservoir have been
submitted to the oil spill response center as high priority
samples to be compared to the signature of the spill. In
addition, plans are to sample the water and sediments for
hydrocarbon concentration, and these will be compared to
pre-spill samples from two other RTC labs.
Dr. Sarah Cohen’s lab is continuing their biological
monitoring of selected invasive and native animal and plant
populations including heavily oil-impacted sites within
SF Bay and impacted and more distant sites outside the bay
as well. Ongoing projects include surveying and monitoring
in the field, and culturing, and experiments in the wet
lab and use of genetic methods. Some of the taxa they are
working on include invasive and native invertebrates, fish,
and sea grass. Genetic methods are used to identify
species and populations and track patterns of response to
human influences including contaminants.
RTC’s Marine Operations has been running sampling
cruises for NOAA/GFNMS/CBNMS at multiple sites in the Bay.
Other groups at RTC are also involved in post spill research.
SF Bay NERR is monitoring and sampling at their China Camp
NERR site. Matt Ashby, TAXON and Adjunct Professor RTC/SFSU
collected samples to profile the microbial communities to
see whether organisms known to biodegrade petroleum have
started to proliferate. And Chela Zabin, UC-Davis
post-doc at RTC is involved in assessing injury to native
oysters for NOAA. Both oysters and sediment were collected
for analysis for the official damage assessment.
Stay tuned for more information regarding RTC’s post
spill activities. Media inquiries, please contact:
Denize Springer, Senior Publicist
University Communications
San Francisco State University
denize@sfsu.edu
415/405-3803 direct
415/338-1665 department
415/338-1498 fax
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