A team of 17 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration divers recently returned from a 33-day mission to remove marine debris from Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a World Heritage Site and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world.
A team of 17 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration divers recently returned from a 33-day mission to remove marine debris from Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a World Heritage Site and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world.
In total, the team removed nearly 57 tons of fishing nets and plastic litter from the monument’s tiny islands and atolls, sensitive coral reefs and shallow waters.
“The amount of marine debris we find in this remote, untouched place is shocking,” said Mark Manuel, operations manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Coral Reef Ecosystem Division and chief scientist for the mission. “Every day, we pulled up nets weighing hundreds of pounds from the corals.”
Manuel said the team filled its ship’s dumpster and decks with nets.
“… but there’s still a lot out there,” he added.
At Pearl and Hermes Atoll, the divers encountered and rescued three sea turtles tangled in nets. They also spent several days removing a 28-by-7-foot “super net” that extended 16 feet deep and weighed 11.5 tons. The net destroyed coral in the atoll and posed a wildlife entanglement risk.
On the shorelines of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, also part of the monument, the team surveyed and removed more than 6 tons of plastic trash. They removed and counted thousands of pieces of plastic, including 7,436 hard plastic fragments, 3,758 bottle caps, 1,469 plastic beverage bottles and 477 cigarette lighters.
NOAA has led this mission each year since 1996, removing a total of 904 tons of marine debris, including this year’s haul.
The nets are an entanglement hazard for monk seals, turtles and seabirds that depend on the shallow coral reef ecosystem for survival. They also break and damage corals as they drift through the currents, snagging on anything in their path. Once they have settled, they can smother the corals and prevent growth.
“This mission is critical to keeping marine debris from building up in the monument,” said Kyle Koyanagi, Pacific Islands regional coordinator for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program.
After the nets are unloaded from the ship, they will become electricity as part of Hawaii’s Nets to Energy partnership with Covanta Energy and Schnitzer Steel.
The team also recovered two 30-foot boats at Pearl and Hermes Atoll, which are suspected to have come from Japan as a result of the 2011 tsunami. Two additional boats also were spotted but unable to be recovered.
NOAA scientists will inspect the boats and work with the Japan consulate to determine their origin. Similar boats have turned up in Hawaii, on the U.S. West Coast and Canada during the past three years.
