NH Marine Debris to Energy Project

A New Hampshire-based project to study marine debris at sea and on the shore, incorporating waste-to-energy and recycling as part of cleanup efforts.

• Home
• Program Details
• Get Involved
• Ocean Debris Reporting Forms
• Beach Debris Maps
• Beach Debris Reports
• Beach Debris Data
• Whale Watch Debris
• Whale Watch Debris Maps
• Side Scan Sonar Survey
• Contact Us

Side-Scan Sonar Survey

An important part of this project is detecting derelict fishing gear ("ghost gear") underwater so that we can target areas for future removal.  An initial side-scan sonar survey was conducted September 16, 2008 aboard the University of New Hampshire research vessel Cocheco to locate derelict lobster pots.

The popularity of the Portsmouth Harbor area for fishing and its use by many commercial and recreational vessels (which have the potential to cut lobster buoy lines in transit) led us to concentrate our first survey in this area.  Approximately three nautical miles of sonar tracks were made from Portsmouth, NH to Kittery, ME.  An astounding 300+ derelict lobster pots were identified.  Pots were generally observed in piles of three or more and in the vicinity of actively fishing gear. Pots were determined to be derelict if there were no obvious lines around the gear and/or they were clumped together.

We gratefully acknowledge L-3 Klein Associates, Inc. for their assistance with sonar work and data interpretation.

Sonar Tracks The tracks originate in Portsmouth Harbor off New Castle Island, turn toward Kittery, Maine and loop back to Portsmouth.
The images above show clumps of lobster traps within the white circles.
The white arrows point to lobster pots in a trawl.	In the image above, there is a shipwreck covered with ghost pots.

This study is funded by NH Sea Grant and through a grant from the NOAA Marine Debris Program.
Site design and hosting by the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension.