(Airdate: September 30, 2020) Marine debris are often a threat to safe boating and water quality in our region. Most obviously, marine debris can be a major navigational hazard for boaters. Less obvious, but just as harmful is the smaller debris that can and do make their way into the seafood we eat. Andrew Mason is the Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator and Pacific Region team lead for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and shares what types of debris gathers in the Pacific Northwest and how boaters and beach goers alike can all help reduce the debris on our beaches and in our water. 

Coastal Cafe
A joint production of Washington Sea Grant at the College of the Environment, University of Washington and KPTZ 91.9 FM. Coastal Café explores the latest in marine science with researchers, policy experts and people who live and work along our coast.

(Airdate: September 16, 2020) Coastal Cafe host Aaron Barnett has a most interesting conversation about boater sewage with Catherine Buchalski-Smith. Catherine talks in great detail about pumpouts, boater sewage impacts and other elements of this small but important federal program.

(Airdate: September 2, 2020) Coastal Cafe host Aaron Barnett speaks with Troy Wood, Director of Washington State’s Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Program. Troy discusses the Vessel Turn-In Program or VTIP as well as new legislation that expands efforts to collect and dispose of derelict vessels in Washington waters.

(First airdate: August 19, 2020) This week we talk with Dr. Nina Bednarsek, Senior Scientist of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. Dr. Bednarsek will be sharing some of her recent research and findings on the impacts of Ocean Acidification on exoskeleton production in larval stage Dungeness Crab.

(First airdate: August 5, 2020) On this segment of Coastal Cafe we continue our focus on technology with a conversation on self-lubricating wooden bearings. Lignum Vitae Solutions of Powhatan, Virginia makes propeller and water turbine shafts for the maritime and hydroelectric industries and discusses this centuries-old applied technology and more.

(First airdate: July 22, 2020) Carrie Garrison-Laney is a tsunami hazards specialist with Washington Sea Grant, based out of the University of Washington where she researches past tsunami deposits found around the Puget Sound. Her work includes identifying paleo-tsunami deposits and determining their age using carbon dating. Learn facts about tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest, both past and future.

(First airdate: June 18, 2020) The National Motor Lifeboat School, located at the mouth of the Columbia River in Ilwaco, Washington, is one of the U.S. Coast Guard’s premier training stations. Students come from around the country for about a month at a time to gain experience out on the area’s famously stormy seas, which have earned the nickname “graveyard of the Pacific.” Coastal Café guest host Samantha Larson and Aaron Barnett interview students and instructors from the school and provide a real-time account of a training mission, seasickness and all.

(First airdate: May 21, 2020) Nanotechnology alerts Washington boaters and farmers  to threats from eColi and other pathogens. This month we spoke with Dr. Phil Long from the Lake Chelan Research Institute and Dr. Dan Angelscu of Fluidion Inc. about novel technological approaches to early pathogen warnings for agriculture and boating operations.

(First airdate: April 23, 2020) We’ve all heard about The Blob. But what exactly is it and what is its impact? In 2014 and 2016, a mass of warm water formed in the Pacific Ocean, wreaking havoc on marine life. And again, this past fall a similar ‘blob’ of abnormally warm water reappeared off the California coast. Coastal Café explores this phenomenon with fishery biologist Dr. Chris Harvey, NOAA NW Fisheries Science Center. 

(First airdate: March 26, 2020) Coastal Cafe host Aaron Barnett speaks with the director of Washington State’s oil spill response program about their preparedness, response and prevention plans for catastrophic and small oil spills in Washington and the West coast.