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IOOS spin off products: Bombora Brings NOAA Buoy Data to the iPhone for Surfers, Boaters, and Ocean-Goers. From sunny Southern California comes Bombora the ultimate surf and ocean forecasting tool for Apple’s iPhone. Bombora is an elegant, informative, and comprehensive ocean data application — built specially for surfers, boaters, and everyone else that loves the ocean. Bombora contains a wide selection of tools that provide an arsenal of information for the amateur forecasting tool-belt. Access to recent NDBC & CDIP buoy data provides wave, wind, and atmospheric conditions, tidal information and predictions, directional swell data, National Weather Service marine text forecasts, and more, all bundled together into a single app. Browse buoys, C-MAN, and tidal stations by region, add them easily to a favorites page, or use the convenient ‘nearby’ function to find stations closest to you. View historical charts for buoy data and trends for any number of measurements, wave, wind, or conditions related. Integrated support for directional swell information brings a new level of surf forecasting sophistication to the iPhone. Bombora taps directly in to the National Data Buoy Center’s federally funded network of buoys, in addition to the advanced buoy network of the California Data Information Project. These oceanographic agencies provide important data and support for commerce and recreation in US waters. Bombora’s development was featured in the Santa Barbara Independent’s ‘Winter Surf Blowout’ issue, and the article has generated considerable interest among surfers and other buoy aficionados. Independent journalist Ethan Stewart writes of Bombora: “While somewhat similar applications already exist in the iPhone universe, when Bombora hits the streets for mass consumption … , it will be in a league of its own. Besides basic buoy info, it gives users ever important swell direction information, tide readings, trend graphs ( i.e. is the surf building or dropping?), and allows you to tailor your experience to whatever break or beach you call home.” Now available through Apple’s iTunes App Store. (http://www.itunes.com/apps/bombora/). I have heard from a number of folks that this is great, Suzanne Skelly, IOOS Deputy, downloaded this to her phone and loves it as she gets ready for upcoming sailing season which she hopes will start soon!!

CHESAPEAKE BAY: Council close to decision on foreign oysters (02/16/2009)

A three-member panel is expected to decide soon whether to permit the introduction of Asian oysters into Chesapeake Bay.
Cabinet secretaries from Virginia and Maryland and a colonel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will decide whether to permit the release of millions of Asian oysters to replace decimated stocks of native eastern oysters. The decision is expected within the next two weeks but will not be made public until April.
The seafood industry has advocated releasing Asian shellfish for years, saying they could revitalize the fishery.
Environmental groups say the foreign species could permanently alter an ecosystem already ravaged by water pollution and depleted fish stocks. "It's like saying, 'We're going to replace our black bear with a panda bear from China, and assume the forest ecosystem is going to be fine,'" said Bill Goldsborough, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
U.S. EPA says it is unclear whether the species will become a damaging invasive. It is also possible, they say, that the foreign species will fail to take hold at all and prove to be a waste of money.
All sides agree that once an animal that can lay 10 million eggs is released into the bay, it will be impossible to completely remove.
Native oyster stocks are at 1 percent of historical levels, hurt by past overfishing and microbial diseases. Massive oyster stocks once supported a rich fishery and filtered pollutants from the bay's waters (David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post, Feb. 15).

Md. task force calls for halt of oyster harvest

A Maryland team assigned to studying oyster recovery has recommended that oysters planted by the state no longer be eligible for harvest.
Currently, the state spends billions planting oysters in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, which are then harvested by fisheries workers for seafood trawling. The 21-member Oyster Advisory Commission says that harvest should be stopped, and money currently used to pay for the "managed reserves" should be spent teaching the industry to grow its own stocks.
"I just don't think the public is going to be willing to pay very much longer for a couple hundred guys to make some of their income harvesting oysters," said William Eichbaum, chairman of the advisory commission and a vice president of the World Wildlife Fund.
The commission recommended rebuilding oyster reefs and planting millions of bushels of hatchery-raised oysters in hopes they would become resistant to microbial diseases but says oysters planted with public funds should remain in the bay to filter its polluted waters.
Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, said he would work with the state to get funding for industry-grown oysters but that the bay's native oyster population was unlikely to rebound from the diseases. He also questioned whether the state could afford the massive investments the commission recommended, which at $40 million or more per year are eight times what has been spent the past several years (Timothy B. Wheeler, Baltimore Sun, Feb. 14). -- PR

CHESAPEAKE BAY: 7 charged with illegal catch, sale of protected fish (01/30/2009)

Allison Winter, E&E reporter

Criminal charges were filed in federal court today against a ring of commercial fishermen and salesmen involved over five years in the illegal catch and sale of hundreds of thousands of pounds of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay, the Justice Department said.
Five Maryland fisherman and two employees of a Washington, D.C., fish wholesaler were charged with violating the Lacey Act through the illegal capture and sale of a protected species, the department said.
Striped bass, also called rockfish, are protected by strict rules for fishing and capture. The fish, which can live up to 30 years and exceed 50 pounds, have special tagging requirements, size and quota amounts in Maryland.
The government says the fishermen knowingly transported and sold bass under false records.
The striped bass population collapsed in the 1980s, but severe fishing restrictions have allowed it to rebound. The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem has the largest number of striped bass in the Atlantic.
The Lacey Act carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000. If found guilty, the fishermen may also have to forfeit the vessels and vehicles used to commit the offense.
The charges come as the result of an undercover investigation that the Fish and Wildlife Service and Maryland and Virginia police began in 2003. The task force bought and sold striped bass undercover and observed fishing vessels in the Chesapeake Bay and on the Potomac River.
The investigation is continuing and more charges are possible, the Justice Department said. The department charged two other Maryland fishermen in October with a seven-count felony indictment for similar conduct.
The department identified the men charged as Thomas Crowder Jr. of Leonardtown, Md.; John Dean of Scotland, Md.; Charles Quade of Churchtown, Md.; Thomas Hallock of Catharpin, Va.; Keith A. Collins of Deale, Md.; Robert Moore of Falls Church, Va.; and Robert Moore Jr. of Ashburn, Va.
Submitted by Nina M. Young
CHESAPEAKE BAY: Md. crabbers, officials debate '08 harvest regulations (01/29/2009)

Maryland crabbers say they caught more crabs in 2008 than in 2007 despite a state program that intended to reduce harvests by a third, but state officials say crabbers are inflating their figures to sabotage the controversial regulations.
Despite the claims of foul play, scientists say the crabbers' reports raise questions about how effective the regulations have been. "They were attempting to reduce harvest," said Eric Johnson, a fisheries ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater. "[Even] if the harvest comes in the same as last year, they certainly were not effective."
Maryland closed the crabbing season on Oct. 23, 2008 -- about seven weeks earlier than usual -- and imposed daily catch limits. The restrictions sparked outrage among Maryland crabbers, and Virginia crabbers unsuccessfully sued to block similar regulations in their state. Some crabbers say the shortened seasons only gave them an incentive to harvest more aggressively.
Eric Schwaab, Maryland's deputy natural resources secretary, said that despite crabbers' reports to the contrary, other indicators being examined by state biologists suggest Maryland and Virginia met the states' joint goal of reducing the catch of female crabs by a third.
Maryland is currently conducting its annual winter dredging survey that gives the state's best estimate of crab numbers. The results will be released in April, and officials from both states have said they will tighten or loosen their restrictions accordingly.
Virginia officials released preliminary reports stating they had reduced harvests by 37 percent, setting the stage for possible tension between the two states whose cooperation last April to curb overharvesting was hailed as unprecedented (Timothy B. Wheeler, Baltimore Sun, Jan. 29). -- PR
Submitted by Nina M. Young