Trash soils Bush pledge to protect islands

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
Winning rare praise from conservationists, Bush declared the 140,000-square-mile chain of islands in northwestern Hawaii the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in June 2006.

His proclamation featured some of the strictest measures ever placed on a marine environment, including a prohibition on any material that might injure its sensitive coral reefs and 7,000 rare species, a fourth of them found nowhere else in the world, even if the debris drifts in from thousands of miles away.

It hasn't happened.

Ocean currents each year still bring an estimated 57 tons of garbage and discarded fishing gear to the 10 islands and waters surrounding them, where the refuse snares endangered monk seals, smothers coral reefs, and fills the guts of albatrosses and their young with indigestible plastic.

Debris removal, meanwhile, has averaged 35 tons a year since the islands became a monument, about a third of the 102 tons of derelict fishing gear collected on average before that.

The Bush administration slashed the debris cleanup budget by 80 percent from the $2.1 million spent in 2005 and requested only $400,000 a year for it through 2008.
(snip)


(snip)
Thur said Bush's budget requests were based on a faulty annual debris accumulation rate of 28 tons. New research has shown double that amount floats into the monument each year.

Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, said that while Bush was making the area a national monument, his administration had "decided to reduce its level of commitment to removing marine debris and only address new accumulations."

"The administration is not keeping pace, and this is disappointing," Inouye said.
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/08/08/trash_soils_bush_pledge_to_protect_islands/

[hatrack]

1. And let's not forget the impact of ocean acidification on corals . . .

Still, I imagine for a few years the abundance of bleached skeletal coral should be quite spectacular for the few hundred who can find time, money and inclination to dive there around 2030 or so.