Field Update: Katmai Coast
Funded by a grant from NOAA, our Katmai collection project is well underway and beginning to produce the results we’d hoped for. Our two collection expeditions have already netted over 7 metric tons of ocean plastics (15,432 lbs) and made an immediate impact on the marine ecosystem of the Katmai coast.
For these expeditions, we recruited volunteers who would be influential in marine debris policy, plastics recycling, and research in their professional and academic lives. Due to COVID related cancellations, a few unaffiliated volunteers were chosen to back fill these vacancies and played a key role in ensuring we met our collection goals.
The two collection expeditions were similar in approach, and in outcomes. Early efforts were concentrated in Kukak Bay, and progressed to Kuliak bay and Hallo Bay when tide conditions were favorable. Kukak Bay and Kuliak bays were characterized by high energy beaches with boulder substrates. Hallo Bay was characterized by a sandy or gravel substrate along its eastern shore, and dense deposits of debris along a boulder-strewn shoreline on its southern coast. Throughout the Katmai coast marine debris composition was characteristic of what we have experienced in the nearby Kodiak area, with approximately 50-60% derelict fishing gear by weight. Bear sightings were common throughout the expeditions but only rarely disrupted clean-up efforts. Training on bear psychology and human behavior in bear country was provided before going ashore, and volunteers occasionally went ashore for guided bear viewing sessions despite long and demanding workdays.
The first expedition, June 28-July 3 involved 10 volunteers, two paid crew leaders, and four ship’s crew. The roster of the first cleanup included Dr. Katrina Knauer of Novoloop, Nina Butler and Stacey Luddy of Stina Inc, Bonnie Monteleone of the Plastic Ocean Project, filmmaker Max Romey of Max Romey Productions, and four undergraduates from Western Washington University.
The first expedition was not without surprises. The arrival at the clean-up site was delayed by approximately 18 hours due to an emergency on a nearby vessel. The Coast Guard requested assistance from the Island C, who towed the vessel across the Shelikof Strait to safety, later earning a citation from the Coast Guard for their valor. The incident was time consuming, with three consecutive crossings of the Shelikof Strait, and required all-night watch standing by the vessel’s crew. Island C returned to Kukak bay and the collection effort began in full force on the afternoon of June 29. Teams worked into the first evening and throughout the day of the 30th on a densely littered coast between Cannery Passage and Cape Kukak. On Jul 1, Heavy weather in the afternoon kept crews onboard the anchored vessel. Crews returned to work in Kukak the morning of Jul 2 before relocating Island C to Hallo Bay to the north in the afternoon, conducting a surface trawl for microplastics at Cape Nukshak along the way. Results of this trawl are being studied at the Plastic Ocean Project.
At Hallo Bay that evening, all hands set to work on a deeply embedded trawl net that would not break free from the sand. Schroeder had documented this same net in May 2010 at the request of the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation and at that time deemed it too difficult to remove. Now, with a large team and vessel resources mobilized in the area, Schroeder applied all hands to the effort for one hour before once again relenting. Perhaps with a group of twelve applied for a full day the net could be freed, cut into pieces and loaded onto a skiff at high tide. This day was not the one. A cleanup of the rest of the beach concluded at 2100. Bear scat samples were collected an analyzed from this bay, with results to follow, but preliminary findings confirmed the presence of microplastics in the scat.
Island C remained in Hallo Bay until personnel were flown from the vessel by a pair of chartered aircraft (donated by Island C Enterprises) at midday July 3. A small group of friends and family comprised the volunteers for the July 4 transload at sea.
On July 4 the LCM-8 landing craft Supplier was contracted to offload marine debris from the Island C, and emptied its holds during a three-hour transload in Kukak Bay. This large vessel contract item allowed Island C to remain on the grounds for the next group to be flown in (also a donated flight), obviating a 12-hour transit to port and increasing collection time in Katmai.
On July 5th, a fresh group of volunteers flew by DeHavilland Beaver float plane to Island C, anchored in Kukak bay. Whereas the first trip hosted undergraduate students from Western Washington University, this trip involved five undergraduates from Oregon State, accompanied by their professor, Dr. Skip Rochefort. The roster of the second expedition included Jackie Wilson and Ani Kasch from the Environmental Center (Bend, OR), and Dr. John Dorgan from Michigan State University, and Brittany Cunningham of the Pacific Northwest Consortium on Plastics (Oregon State University).
Though there were periods of rain, the winds and seas were generally cooperative during the first part of this trip. The team chipped away at the numerous small beaches at Kukak until the end of July 6 before moving 10 miles to the southwest on July 7 to Kuliak Bay.
In any given bay on the Kodiak archipelago or Katmai coast, the highest quantities of marine debris will be found on beaches with a long fetch to the Northeast. In Katmai National Park, through aerial data and prior scouting efforts we noted a general trend of decreasing quantities of marine debris as the expedition moves southwest. This may be due to a “shadow effect” of Afognak and Kodiak islands which stand to the northeast. However each successive bay has a more southerly orientation than the last, like spokes on a wheel, so that past Kuliak bay there is very little coastline which faces northeast. The orientation of the bays away from the source of marine debris may also partly explain why ocean plastics becomes less dense towards the southwestern part of the park.
Kuliak Bay is characterized by northeast exposure (the last bay to do so), combined with mountains dropping more precipitously towards the sea, and correspondingly the beaches tend to be steeper gradients than in other areas of the park. This allows crews maximum flexibility to embark, disembark and load marine debris at different stages of the tide. After a long day at Kuliak, we moved to Hallo Bay for July 8 due to a favorable tide window there. Kuliak produced a significant amount of the overall tonnage from this expedition, and two beaches remain uncleaned. We will return to these in 2022.
Hallo Bay was also highly productive, as we used favorable tides to access a difficult rock section of coast on the south coast as it trends towards Cape Nukshak. By mid-day, crews had sacked over a half ton of debris there. That afternoon, the vessel suffered a mechanical casualty which prevented work on the last day and caused an early return to the port of Kodiak.
In spite of the loss of two operational days, the combined expeditions netted 15,410 lbs of marine debris over 1398 volunteer hours. Maps of locations cleaned are attached to this report. The materials are now staged in Kodiak, awaiting shipment to a leased facility in the Pacific Northwest, and from there to research partners for analysis.