The Ruben Lasker was about four miles off the coast of Manhattan beach when Ash began to rain on the sea – first in delicate against harmful clouds.
The fishing ship on peaches had sailed a few days earlier for a coastal investigation. It was supposed to be a routine trip, the genre that the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CALFI) The program is launching four times a year as part of the oldest marine ecosystems surveillance effort in the world.
The smoke of the palisades blows on the Pacific Ocean as observed by the Marine Research Ship Reuben Lasker at sea.
(Rasmus Swalethorp / Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
But when the fires of Palisades and Eaton broke out, scientists aboard the national ship of the ocean and atmospheric administration inadvertently became the first investigators on the scene of a brewing catastrophe which could upset life under the ‘water.
The smoke that smothered Los Angeles, the debris accumulated in the decimated streets, the charred and toxic remains of thousands of destroyed houses, businesses, cars and electronics – almost all, ultimately, will rest in the ocean.
There is no precedent on how an urban fire of this magnitude could change the ecosystem on which countless species, including ours, count for food and subsistence.
Scientists aboard the Ruben Lasker wear glasses and masks to protect themselves from smoke while observing sea birds and marine mammals.
(Rasmus Swalethorp / Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
But there is also no better team team to understand how the fires that have transformed Los Angeles will affect life in the sea.
Unlike the smoke that emanates from rural forest fires, the charred equipment is now between the ocean is the fabric of “people’s houses: their cars, their batteries, their electronics,” said Rasmus Swalethorp, a biological oceanograph The UC San Diego Institution of Oceanography. “It will certainly contain a lot of things that we do not want to see ideally in our oceans – and in our floors, moreover, and our water streams, and certainly not on our plates.”
Calcifi was formed in 1949 to study the collapse of the sardine industry, in a joint effort of scripps, NOAA peaches and managers of fauna and fauna.
But scientists quickly realized that the question could only answer by studying the interconnected layers of the wider marine ecosystem.
Calcifi began to methodically collect detailed ocean samples from the same 113 locations several times a year, along a systematic grid that extends over the Californian coast. Millions of plankton samples, fish eggs and marine animals have since been kept in its archives, providing invaluable instantaneous in the ocean over time.
Since 1949, scripts and NOAA scientists have systematically deducted samples from more than 100 stations across the Californian coast.
(CALCI)
While the fires of this month were raging on earth, the Ruben Lasker continued this ordered-style-style road through the sea. Its scripps researchers and the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of the Noaa have put on glasses and masks . Fauna counts have been temporarily suspended when smoke has become too thick to distinguish sea birds and marine mammals.
The fire debris darkened the surface of the ocean up to 100 miles offshore. The collection nets once white came blackened with soot and charred trash. While the team was carrying seawater samples filled with ashes, Swalethorp went to the smell, which was different from that of all forest smoke which he had encountered before.
“There was not your typical joy fire smell,” said Swalethorp, who directs Calcifi ship operations. “The first thing that came to my mind when I felt it and immediately withdrew, it is: it smells like burnt electronics.”
A typical Calcofi cruise collects data on everything, from the clarity of water to local plant and animal species. The data archives of several decades of the program make it ideal for studying the long -term changes of marine ecosystems.
“I do not think there is a precedent for this type of contribution in the Ocean ecosystem,” said Calcofi director of Noaa Fisheries, Noelle Bowlin, about fires. But with 76 years of data to measure, “we can provide the necessary context to answer the question of the size of a disturbance this event?”
Calcico researchers hold nets once white blackened by soot and charred debris. His first reaction to the arrival of the nets, said a member of the team, was: “It smells of electronics burned.”
(Rasmus Swalethorp / Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
The samples taken at the start of fires can help provide essential answers on the question of whether higher concentrations of toxic metals, PCB, PFAS and other chemicals to always end in the ocean – and for How long, Mark Gold said an environment scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“It is so fish, to have Calfi is literally there during the disaster and to be able to take such samples,” said Gold.
Among the most immediate concerns, there is contamination of ocean water. In addition to the footprint already mass of Ash offshore, Gold noted that the runoff of the first rainst storms is a huge concern. He had a burst of conversations with city officials, county and state, who tried to proactively limit the number of fire pollution in the ocean.
Imagine the County of Los Angeles, supervised by the buttresses and the mountains, like a giant bowl tilted towards the sea. Each time it rains, the water rushes on the roofs and the streets and the sidewalks, picking up all the pesticides , garbage, car tire residue and other contaminants in its own way.
Unlike the wastewater in the region, which is filtered in treatment facilities before its outlet, this mixture of rainwater and debris will generally rinse directly in the ocean through a huge Storm drains network And the rivers bordered by concrete.
Calcifi researchers found ashes and debris on the surface of the ocean up to 100 miles offshore.
(Rasmus Swalethorp / Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
This week’s rain has been the first significant precipitation in the region since May. In addition to the residues of ashes and chemicals of fires, it was also the first influx of nine months of daily pollution in the sea.
Local environmental groups like Heal The Bay exhorted Beachgoers to avoid water contacts on all the beaches of the Surfrider beach in Malibu to Dockweiler State Beach near the international airport.
The Public Health Department of the County of Los Angeles has published Similar ocean precautions And even beach closureswith A map of closed or contaminated beaches.
Public health officials warned that even sand could contain toxic or carcinogenic chemicals, advising beach lovers to avoid any fire debris and any runoff that can circulate on the beach sand. Gold, as an additional precaution, added that it would not swim or not surface in the water for at least two or three weeks after crying.
In the longer term, there are serious questions about the question of whether the contaminants released by the fire penetrate into the food chain.
Forest fire ashes can sometimes stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, microscopic algae at the base of the marine maritime network, thanks to the infusion of nutrients in burned plants. No one yet knows how a massive infusion of ashes of urban fires – with its mixture of asbestos, lead, microplastics and heavy metals – will affect our food supply.
The Calfico team collected seawater samples contaminated by fire debris.
(Rasmus Swalethorp / Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
“Does it have an impact on all food web interactions, starting with the base of the food chain, phytoplankton and microbes, then accumulate slowly … Until the fish we eat? “Said the project manager Julie Dinasquet, an ecologist marine scripps.” Maybe in a few months at a year, people will realize that there is a bioaccumulation of heavy metals in (these fish), or something else of these fires. “
The devastating fires of the are only the last episode in which the ocean served as a receptacle not appreciated for the waste and the dangers from the earth.
A Series of times reports In recent years, have unplowed an obsessive story about the way the largest DDT manufacturer in the country Once, thrown his waste At sea, just off the coast of Los Angeles. Since then, research has discovered that this part of the ocean had also served as a spill to Military ammunition And radioactive waste.
“For me, the circumstances and the magnitude of these fires have shown that the Los Angeles region is not at all resilient in the climate,” said Gold. “One of the consequences of not being resilient in the climate … is that the ocean becomes a dump, whether intentional or not.”