This is Part 1 of a two-part report.
A year ago on Sept. 12, an unassuming fishing boat reached port after causing an international uproar by dumping tonnes of iron dust in the North Pacific, off the coast of Haida Gwaii. Today, the company behind the dumping, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp., remains committed to ocean fertilization even as it fights the federal government in court over the ensuing investigation.
The Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. says the iron dumping causes a surge in plankton growth, boosting the food source of smaller fish upon which salmon feed, and in turn replenishes dwindling salmon stocks. Growing plankton pulls in and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, thus making the process financially viable through the sale of carbon credits, the company argues.
Haida Salmon is scheduled to be back in court in December, arguing that a search warrant used by Environment Canada to seize digital and paper documents in March should be quashed.
Despite the harsh criticism levied against the company, those involved with the project are determined to keep going as the corporation tries to reinvent itself.
Former director and the most controversial figure — enigmatic American businessman Russ George — has been fired.
And some respected scientists are now working with the small team.
Since 2010, Jason McNamee has been a director of the company, which spread 100 tonnes of iron sulphate and 20 tonnes of iron oxide in international waters 370 kilometres west of Haida Gwaii in the summer 2012. A 35,000-square-kilometre plankton bloom was visible from space, and some observers called it the world’s largest geoengineering experiment.
McNamee believes large-scale action to save Fraser River salmon and address climate change is required. An idealist, he’s motivated by fatherhood and the desire to leave his two sons, aged 7 and 9, a better world.
“If there’s an opportunity whereby we can restore fisheries and we can sequester carbon, we pretty much have an obligation to see if it works,” McNamee said. “It certainly feels like that to me.”
The first attempts to fertilize the North Pacific were met with international derision as the stories played out in newspapers and magazines across the globe. The project was funded by the Old Massett Village Council. In a vote in which less than 200 of the 700 residents took part, about 140 people voted to spend $2.5 million of the band’s money.
As for how the millions were spent — and it’s all been spent — McNamee says a long-awaited audit has been completed but not yet made available. Another public meeting is planned for Sept. 12 in Old Massett.
McNamee might be at the helm now, but under the direction of Russ George, formerly known as “chief scientist” but having dubious credentials, the project was doomed. George has led other, failed carbon credit schemes such as a Vatican-supported forest in Hungary and an ocean fertilization project in the Galapagos. Neither materialized. The latter ultimately resulted in a moratorium on iron fertilization for purposes other than legitimate research by the International Maritime Organization’s London Convention in 2008.
In the summer of 2012, George — who has no formal education as a scientist — would not be thwarted. He launched the Ocean Pearl, a fishing boat sailing under the Old Massett flag, on its maiden voyage to begin the iron filing experiment.
Trouble began after mere days at sea.
Tensions had been mounting between George and Craig Mewis, a young chemist hired as part of a crew of researchers. Mewis wanted to do testing before iron was dumped in the sea, to gather baseline information on nutrient content in the water. George wanted things done his way, which was dump first and test later.
McNamee had obligations at home and was not on the first trip out. He was in contact via phone and advised his chemist to record his interactions with George to ward off accusations later. Eventually, a disagreement led to a shouting match, and by some accounts, a shoving match. Mewis refused to continue working. After departing Victoria on July 14, 2012, the Ocean Pearl returned to dock in Masset on Aug. 3. Mewis returned to shore and a second trip started days later.
The company had chartered the 35-metre fishing boat and a commercial fishing crew to run the vessel while the small group of scientists worked.
Some of the fish holds and a below-deck smoking room had been converted with a coat of white paint into an on-board laboratory.
Even the deckhands were given brief training on how to operate sophisticated plankton nets. Once the Ocean Pearl left Canadian waters, they were trained how to release 100 tonnes of iron sulphate and 20 tonnes of iron oxide into the sea.
That proved easiest: Open a paper bag of the stuff and dump it off the stern.
Most of the iron was dispersed on the first of two trips. On the second, between Aug. 4 and 14, 10 more tonnes of iron oxide were spread on the west side of the Haida eddy, a natural plankton-rich phenomena, and 20 tonnes of iron sulphate to its south.
The crew finally disembarked in Steveston on Sept. 11, 2012.
Other signs the experiment was lacking in traditional scientific rigour showed through. Dozens of foam pool noodles were dropped off the side of the boat, supposedly to track the currents. But only one person on the scientific team — the sonar operator, Peter Gross — had a graduate degree, in physics. The chief biologist, Tegan Sime, was hired straight out of university. The mechanical engineer had more work experience as a soft drink ambassador, according to the LinkedIn page of David Gourlay.
Most important, the “chief scientist” did not have a university degree, although he is sometimes referred to as Dr. George, a reference to the initials for Darcy Russ George. His own LinkedIn page lists his education as “the school of hard knocks.”
Once Mewis was back on land, there was no one trained to operate the fluorometer, a key piece of sensitive equipment designed to measure chlorophyll presence in plant organisms. It also measures the photosynthetic rate — an important number for measuring the rate of carbon uptake and sequestration.
McNamee, who was on the second trip, contacted Doug Campbell, a Mount Allison University professor and Canada Research Chair in phytoplankton ecophysiology, to talk the crew through its use. The conversation took place via satellite phone from four time zones away in New Brunswick.
He thought nothing of the call at first, Campbell told The Vancouver Sun last fall when the news broke. The fluorometer, known as a Satlantic FIRe, is highly specialized. Campbell is considered one of Canada’s few experts.
“They were in a bind,” Campbell said, adding he had a “quiet respect” for the initiative and for George: “He had amateur, unqualified staff, but he’s out there. I’m ambivalent.”
Campbell later applied for a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to fund a collaboration with the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp.
It was declined, and Campbell said he received some negative feedback from “incredulous” colleagues that he would consider collaborating with the company in the first place.
But, like McNamee, he sees a bigger picture.
“In a world of problems, some iron dust off the coast of B.C. is not at the top of my environmental policy concerns,” he said recently.
A joint grant was later approved through Mitacs, a non-profit organization funded by provincial and federal governments, academic institutions and industry. The grant fell through when Haida Salmon Restoration could not provide matching funds.
The serious lack of scientific controls led many in the scientific community to criticize the original experiment. Many assumed the Haida community of Old Massett, which bankrolled the project, was duped by an international rainmaker, something McNamee and Haida Salmon Restoration CEO John Disney have vehemently denied.
McNamee has known George for years, and counted him as a close friend. He said George, who did not respond to a request for comment, originally came to Canada from California to avoid the Vietnam draft, married and settled in the Lower Mainland for years. George would stay at McNamee’s Victoria home from time to time, and McNamee described him as “grandfatherly” at times and “a bit of a bully” at others.
The friendship and business relationship came to an end in May, when George was fired.
“Russ has wonderful ideas. He’s inspirational that way. He truly means well. He’s always trying to do the right thing. But he’s always trying to do the right thing in his way,” McNamee said, calling his former friend a “visionary” who is perhaps less competent when it comes to teamwork and project management.
“The other thing I do like about Russ is action. We could sit around and argue about ‘is this the right thing to do or the wrong thing?’ That’s what’s going on in academia, but there’s no action ... we’re breaking new ground.”
The research work is progressing, despite the odds: the court dates, the drama with George, the lack of public support, the lukewarm support from the mainstream science community.
Sonar technician Gross co-wrote a paper with Simon Fraser University engineering professor John Bird to be presented at the Oceans 2013 conference this fall in San Diego.
The paper was reviewed by Timothy Parsons, ocean ographer, marine biologist and professor emeritus at the University of B.C. Parsons even has an annual award named for him by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Parsons believes there is a strong connection between ocean nutrients and young salmon, something he began studying in the 1960s. He was first contacted by George in June 2012, before the ocean seeding took place.
Parsons told The Sun that he had been “very hesitant” to get involved. He said that he reminded George, during a tense meeting, dumping at sea was prohibited.
But Parsons also believes the 2008 eruption of Alaska’s Mount Kasatoshi, which led to a massive Gulf of Alaska plankton bloom triggered by iron-rich volcanic ash, was linked to 2010s unprecedented sockeye salmon run in the Fraser River. He published a paper to that effect in the journal Fisheries Oceanography in 2012.
He said the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. project should be done again “under more controlled conditions.”
“I quite strongly support the experiment, and I think there are many others in the world who do, too,” he said in a recent phone interview, adding, “Unfortunately, we won’t know the results (of the 2012 dumping) until this time next year, because the salmon come back then.”
Parsons said George was difficult to work with and wanted no formal association with the project last year.
But he remains “vitally interested” in the data. And a lot of data was collected during the 2012 iron dumping voyages.
Two underwater, remote-controlled ocean gliders were used to collect hundreds of sensor readings on ocean temperatures, turbidity, oxygen levels and other parameters inside and outside the fertilized zones. Zooplankton were collected, along with 1,000 sea water samples, 50 hours of sonar readings, 700 fluorometer readings and notes on marine animal sightings.
McNamee estimates analysis of that data is a year behind schedule. But that year will give the company time to recalibrate before another experiment takes place, he said.
Reversing a former tendency toward secrecy, McNamee wants to start a Haida Ocean Centre to make all collected data publicly available.
“I would like industry, government and NGOs (to work together),” McNamee said.
“Basically, what I want is to build a huge data repository, a centre of excellence.”
He’s also trying to develop an inexpensive and open source shoreline monitoring system using automated cameras to capture data from intertidal zones.
McNamee sees the Haida Ocean Centre at the forefront of his future plans. He sees a time when vessels of opportunity transmit information and images of the sea to a central, open database and when so-called “citizen science” has more respect. (“You don’t need a PhD to be a scientist,” he said.)
The company’s new direction will depend in some ways on how Old Massett, a majority shareholder, wants to proceed.
“September could change everything for us,” if the issue is settled with Environment Canada, he said. They also start presenting some data from their borrowed ocean gliders in San Diego that month.
And he still sees iron fertilization as a solution to the declining salmon stocks in this province, and to climate change.
“Do we do something or do we do nothing? Right now we’re doing nothing,” McNamee said. “If action is clearly required and yet no action is being taken, who has the right and responsibility to act?”
Tomorrow: What did Ottawa know before iron was dumped off Haida Gwaii?
