Wildfires Poison the Ocean
- Jennifer Anderson | Serpentine Drive
In just a single month, 2025 has become the second most destructive fire year in California history. It’s been almost two months since the devastating wildfires broke out in and around Los Angeles. In that time, we have experienced devastating outcomes including 29 people who have died, 16,000 homes and structures that have been damaged or destroyed, 180,000 people under evacuation orders, and more than 50,000 acres burned.
Longer-term impacts of the fires are yet to be determined.
Fortuitously, as the fires broke out, a CalCOFI (California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations) research vessel was four miles off the coast of Manhattan Beach conducting a routine coastal survey. The team observed how fire debris clouded the ocean’s surface as far as 100 miles offshore. The fire debris contains the charred and toxic remnants of homes, businesses, cars and electronics and likely includes toxins such as benzene, styrene, formaldehyde and cadmium.
The LA County Department of Public Health has issued ocean water advisories and closed public beaches including Santa Monica State Beach, just 119 miles up the coast from Del Mar, which still remains closed as of mid-February.
CalCOFI, formed in a joint effort by NOAA’s Fisheries Service, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is part of the world’s longest-running marine ecosystem monitoring effort and collects data on everything from water clarity to local plant and animal species. The program’s decades-long data archives make it ideal for studying long-term changes to the ocean, beaches, marine ecosystems and food chain. The samples collected during the fires can help provide insight on what concentrations of toxic metals and forever chemicals have ended up in the ocean and how fire pollution in the ocean has contaminated ocean water, marine ecosystems and the food chain.
NOAA is now facing threats of budget and staffing cuts and proposals to dismantle the agency.
However, many are recognizing that with the rising costs of and vulnerability to extreme weather, dismantling or defunding NOAA would be a devastating error. Instead of abandoning decades of US expertise, with NOAA the United States is uniquely positioned to take advantage of accelerating technological advancements and lead the way in understanding what is happening in the atmosphere and the oceans. This would not only help Americans better prepare for and survive extreme weather but also keep the United States from falling further behind similar agencies in other countries.