It's $250 a pop for a balloon on the loose


CONCORD – People will want to hold onto their balloons if the Senate agrees with a House vote yesterday to ban balloon releases.

By a vote of 215 to 111, the House approved a bill that treats balloon releases as a form of littering.

HB 62 originally barred the release of two dozen or more lighter-than-air balloons.

The version that passed yesterday could bring a $250 fine for even a single balloon let loose. A second offense could bring a $500 fine. The bill specifically exempts hot air balloons, weather balloons and others released as part of scientific research.

The bill does not penalize accidental releases.

Those who favored the bill said the balloon materials, including the attached strings and ribbons, pose a serious threat to wildlife. Whales, turtles and seabirds that live along New Hampshire's coastline mistakenly eat floating balloons thinking they are food, and then are unable to eat real food.

"Do we now get balloon police?" Rep. Randolph Holden, R-Goffstown, asked.

Rep. Kevin Waterhouse, R-Windham, said police officers would be given enforcement responsibility.

A move to give the job to Fish and Game officers was rejected, since the department is under budget pressure already.

He said people need to be aware that balloon releases cause real harm to wildlife.

"It doesn't just go to heaven and disappear. It comes back down again," Waterhouse said.

Waterhouse said he was inspired to sponsor the bill by a group of homeschoolers studying ecology

Fortunately this has already been passed on to The Balloon Council, which is a watch dog/lobbying group for the balloon industry

http://www.balloonhq.com/BalloonCouncil/

It is their job to fight dumb legislation regarding balloons. While releasing foil balloons can be dangerous, latex balloons are all natural, biodegradable, and as of yet, have not been proven to be a threat to wildlife that eats them. Check out their site, it is actually quite interesting.

Hey, everyone wanted something done about.....get ready....you'll use it...
inflation!

As much as I like balloons I fully agree with this law, yea latex will degrade, berry one in your yard some time. 10 years from now it will look dirty. they decompose much slower than most people think. And why is it so impossible for wild life to choke on a known choking hazard. (look at the bag, It says so)

Do the people releasing the balloon pick up ALL the balloons when the event is over, If not it is littering and in my opinion it is malicious littering, as they have no intention on paying for any clean up, or damages.

One balloon may not be a big deal, but we are not talking about one or two balloons here.

I all wase pick up balloon scrap, whether they are mine or not. this litter makes us all look bad.
$250. for the first one $500. each one after, Hope they nail some one and it sticks.


Sorry for the rant but this hit a nerve.

To be honest I don't see the need to release a bunch of balloons.

Yeah those balloons are really stating to pile up. the balloon release is one of the fonder memories I have.... would be a shame to stop them:( Funny what the gov lets big biz get away with but a balloon would be 250 bucks.......... silly

Topper

I've actually done research with sea turtles that have been out to sea for a few days to a couple of months and had washed in dead for one reason or another. Just about everyone of them that we opened up had some sort of colored laytex in thier digestive tract and most of the time it was blocking the stomach or intestine. So saying that latex is not a threat to wildlife is not true. I've seen it first hand. The balloon coucil should be incouraging this law rather than fighting it.

In order for your statement to be credible, will you please post evidence of your research.

I was not the primary investigator on this research project only one of the lab techs so I was not responsible for publishing the work. As far as I'm aware it has yet to be published as the research is still underway in order to collect a statistically significant sample size. The work was through Dr. Blair Witherington with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He spoke previously on this topic at the 14th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Conservation and Biology. Additionally, you can find information on previous work in this area in:

Lutcavage, M. E., P. Plotkin, B. Witherington, and P. L. Lutz. 1997. Human impacts on sea turtle survival. In: The Biology of Sea Turtles, P. L. Lutz and J. A. Musick, eds., CRC Press Inc., Boca Raton, Fla. pp. 387–409.

Which sites additional research showing latex occurrence in sea turtles in the following scientific papers:

Plotkin, P., and A.F. Amos. 1990. Effects of anthropogenic debris on sea turtles in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Pp. 736-743 in Shomura, R.S., and M.L. Godfrey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Marine Debris, 2-7 April 1989, Honolulu, Hawaii. NOAA Tech. Mem. NMFS, NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-154. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Washington, DC.

Burke, V. J., E. A. Standora, and S. J. Morreale. 1993. Diet of juvenile Kemp’s ridley and loggerhead sea turtles from Long Island, New York. Copeia 1993:1176-1180.

Lutz, Peter. 1990. Studies on the ingestion of plastic and latex by sea turtles. In: Proc. Int. Conf. Marine Debris, p. 719-735. R.S. Shomura and M.L. Godfrey, eds. NOAA-TM-154:719-735.

Balazs GH
1985. Impact of ocean debris on marine turtles: Entanglement and ingestion. In Shomura RS and Yoshida HO (eds.). Proceedings of the Workshop on the Fate and Impact of Marine Debris, 27-29 November 1984, Honolulu, Hawaii, p. 387-429. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA Tech Memo. NMFS-SWFC-54.

A quick search of seaturtle.org also brings up the preceding and additional articles regarding latex ingestion by sea turtles:

LUCAS, Z. 1992. Monitoring persistent litter in the marine environment on Sable Island, Nova Scotia. Marine Pollution Bulletin 24(4):192-199. Z. Lucas, P. O. Box 3504 South, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3J2 CANADA. [N.B. ingestion of plastic and latex by leatherback turtles was observed.

Pilcher, N.J., Compiler. 2006. Proceedings fo the Twenty-Third Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-536, 261 p.

I looked at the Balloon Council website and one of their arguments is that latex balloon biodegrade at the same rate as an oak leaf. They site as their source the "scientific research" of D.K. Burchette in, “A Study of the Effect of Balloon Releases on the Environment." However they do not site the source this research was published in. Upon searching it I found it never appeared in a peer reviewed scientific journal (the science industry norm) but was published by North American Balloon Association. Without peer review scientific research can be considered bias and not valid especially when only published through an organization which would benefit from such a report. Even if we were to accept the validity of the research, one research paper states oak leaves in the Himallayas took 6-18 months to decompose (Pandey, U. and Singh, J.S., 1982. Forestry 55(1):47-59.). Other papers I looked at showed oak decomposition rates of 22 months to one instance of 36 months in a Florida Scrub. So using the argument of latex and oaks decomposing at the same rates still means the latex spends anywhere from six months to three years in the environment. The sea turtles we looked at in our research had only been out to sea for several weeks to a couple of months so had plenty of time to encounter not yet degraded latex. Biology of Sea Turtles, which I sited earlier, states sea turtles that were studied with small amounts of ingested latex took anywhere from a few days to four months to pass it through the digestive system. If four months in a journey though the digestive system didn't degrade the latex then six months out to sea probably won't do a whole lot. One of the Balloon Council's other arguments is "Within three hours, most latex balloons released into the atmosphere rise to approximately five miles, begin to oxidize, freeze and shatter into spaghetti-like pieces." These small "spaghetti-like pieces" are exactly what we are finding in the digestive tract of sea turtles. Not whole balloons. I'm not against balloons as I'm a twister myself but I don't see a need to release balloons into the air when there are definite consequences when they come down.

THANK YOU! (holding back another rant)

Wow, I'm impressed. Usually, people that make environmental claims are arguing over assumptions that they claim are fact. Idiots of course. It's nice to see someone argue a point and actually have "real" evidence substantiating their gripes. I, at first thought this was a stupid topic until I saw the evidence provided. I now will have to join in on the agreement that balloon realeases are a bad action.

I am not impressed at all.

Here is why demente42 email is seaturtle@alumni.fit.edu with a total of 6 posts.

Can you smell agenda? Riddle me this Batman. how does latex stick in the intestinal track of a Sea Turtle? What exactly is the stickiness that doesn't let it pass through.

And with the vastness of the ocean how do only theTurtle you find have the few balloon fragment available in the ocean.

Junk science from the same people that bring you Al Gore and get Imus Kicked of the air. I don't agree with Imus but I do defend his right to be a jerk if he likes.

Oh by the way ...
Yeah I only have 6 posts to my name, but ask anyone here. I know balloons. Only recently re opened my account.

Mark "the Balloon Guy" Byrne

Mark,
I have no hidden agenda as I've been into magic and balloon animals well before I was doing research with sea turtles, which I've been doing for the last ten years. Yes my email is seaturtle@ but I chose that upon my graduation from FIT to use with the science side of my work. I also work part time in a magic shop in Melbourne which you've been in as you gave me your card with the balloon harley on it when you were there. I know that you know balloons and I am impressed with what I've seen you do. I couldn't even come close to half of it. As for little numbers of posts, I have been a Café member for quite a while though I don't have many posts. That is because I use the Café more for the reviews of new products so that I can help to provide our magic shop customers with quality merchandise rather than junk they will get frustrated with.

As for the stickiness of latex it isn't that it is sticky but that in the turtles I was looking at (which were only 4-6 inches long) the latex wedges in bends of thier intestine as it is too large to pass at some points. As for the vastness of the ocean and the turtles running into the ballons the answer lies in the currents. The North Atlantic Gyre (collection of all the currents in the north Atlantic), where these turtles live for the first serveral years of their lives, collects things by its nature. Naturally this would be the sargasm seaweed that these turtles hide and feed in. But it also collects unnatural material like all of the trash that ends up in the ocean. The occuance of balloons in these currents is not as rare as you'd think. When the winds blow strong out of the east for several days the sargasm and what ever garbage is trapped in it makes its way onto the east coast of Florida. Due to the nature of my non magic related job (teaching through a nature center) I'm on the beach anywhere from once a month to three times a week throughout the year. I also pick up trash when ever I'm out there and there is rarely a time that I don't find a balloon. In fact on average I pick up 5-6 balloons per visit. I just pulled a dozen off with one on my adult ed classes I took out this last weekend. Balloon are in our ocean, that is a fact. Animals eat these balloons, that is also a fact. If the peer reviewed research I sited earlier doesn't convince you then I have no other arguement that will. You are respected to your opinion all I ask is that you look into the sources that I gave before deciding they are worthless. I looked into the sources that other people gave for the other side of this discussion before presenting my opinion.

I am a little confused as to why fellow twisters would be up in arms about balloon release restrictions anyway as I know I haven't ever filled a 260Q with helium before sculpting it and haven't heard of any other twisters in my area doing so. I've also never heard of 100 balloon dogs being released at any special event. I'd think that balloon artists would support legistlation that tries to prevent balloons from having negative impacts. If animals eating balloons gives balloons in general a bad reputation then it could end up hurting us in the long run. This type of legistlation tries to prevent that. Instead of balloon releases we should be pushing balloon sculptures so everyone at a special event has something to take home rather than just a memory of some balloons floating up into the air.

It won't float.


[/quote]
" I've also never heard of 100 balloon dogs being released at any special event. "
[/quote]
Release the hounds!!!

some one who studys sea turtles will find it in sea turtles, if he was studding sea birds, or fish he would only have statistic for those critters.

I tried to look at the data, however most of it is references to references and no emperical data seems to be on the web. Two pictures I did find.

/Users/markbyrne/Desktop/Origins-Small-Plastic-Particlesf1.jpg

/Users/markbyrne/Desktop/image065.jpg

Unfortunately your not swaying me with the findings, the little bit of information available the culperate is not the balloon but the string. When we used to do balloon release in the 90's we NEVER had strings on the balloons. In the photos I don't recognize the objects as balloons, nor does it show how it was wedged into a n intestine. Not the size on the black & white picture.

This is going to sound contrite but I have had an experience with a a turtle and a balloon.

We have a pond in my front yard, and we put turtles & fish in it. One day I noticed the turtle had something hanging out its back end. I picked up the turtle and noticed a 260 dangling from its rear end. It was mostly out so I pulled it out for the little feller.

Now I didn't purposely feed a balloon to a turtle, but we are talking a red earslider passing a full size 260 uninflated from one end to the other with no harm to the turtle. I fact the turtle is still alive.

Now I was also raised on a farm and some animals will eat anything, the normal mechanism for most animals is to pass it through or throw it up.

So what is my point? Though it is possible to find latex or latex like object in animals, I highly doubt the presents causes of such things cause the demis of the creature. If eniromentalist went after beer drinking, cooler carrying, fishing redneck with the same vigor as balloon decorators. You might be able to make an impact. But as long as they buy fishing and boating licenses that ain't going to happen.

BTW glad we met before, we are probably going to have to agree to disagree.

Sorry pictures didn't come out. Anyone really wants to see them e-mail me.

Like I said before Mark I know I won't change your mind but if you want to find the resources I mentioned you might have to go over to the University of Tampa near you as they should have most all of the journals mentioned in the research section of their library. Unfortunately most scienctific journals don't publish whole papers to the web as they want universities to actually subscribe to their journals. Also I would always double check any research I found floating around online as you never know who actually published it. If you want a great example of that check out http://www.dhmo.org for an interesting look at how something can sound so convincing but without proper peer review it can be very misleading. That site was desinged by a professor to show his students you can't trust everything on the web and a California town saw it and was about to ban the styrofoam at all town functions becasue it contained the dangerous chemical Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) until someone let them in on the joke that DHMO is another chemical name for water. Its a good site for a laugh.

I never saw string/ribbon in the turtles we researched but that is because most strings are over twice as long as the turtles we were looking at so they probably woundn't try eating it. I haven't researched the effects of string but I don't doubt that it is a problem also. Not all of the turtles we looked at were blocked by latex (though many were) its just that most of them had latex somewhere in their intestines and in the book I mentioned earlier (Biology of Sea Turtles) it shows research that even when not blocking the intestines that latex in the digestive track altered the turltes digestive absorbtion rates therefore affecting its blood glucose levels. Yes, sometimes you can get lucky and balloons pass through but sometimes they also cause blockage. Now don't ask me why but somethings just wedge in the right (or wrong) way. I've seen it perosonally with latex and other items like plastic bits and styrofoam. There was an instance of a 9 foot, 2200 pound leatherback turtle that died because it injested a small plastic bag which wedged into its stomach so nothing could pass out of it. Now I'm sure this wasn't the first piece of trash this turtle had ingested in its 60+ years but it happened to be the one piece that stayed and caused its death. I wasn't trying to single out balloons (I agree they are in smaller numbers than most of the other types of trash), I'm against any trash that is in the ocean or on land, it was just that this thread happened to be about balloons when I came across it. I can't justify littering of any one item by saying, "Well there is more of this other type of trash so if I throw this type in it won't matter as much."

Thanks for hearing me out Mark and I think you're right we'll have to agree to disagree but the one thing I'm wondering is in your opinion why it is necessary to release a bunch of balloons? Wouldn't it be more lucrative to you or I if they hired balloon twisters to give out sculptures people can take with them rather than paying some kid minimum wage to fill a hundred globe balloons with helium just for a five minute thrill? And that way the latex companies don't miss out on sales of balloons either. If you feel like releasing balloons though it is still legal in Florida as long as its under a dozen, string or not.

Latex from turtle?

Click here to view attached image.