Author Archives: globaloceanhealth

Algae and Puget Sound Acidification Linked

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The ocean absorbs a large portion of the CO2 that we release into the atmosphere from our power plants and tail pipes. But when it gets there that CO2 makes the water more acidic and less hospitable for some creatures, like shellfish. In Puget Sound some shellfish hatcheries have already lost millions of oyster larvae because of exposure to acidic water.

Ocean acidification has scientists and policymakers in the Northwest concerned. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire has convened a panel on Ocean Acidification, which met this week. Ashley Ahearn reports.

Remember those little pieces of paper you used to measure pH back in junior high school? You’d stick them into your can of coke or on your tongue and the color would tell you how acidic that liquid was?

Well if you stuck litmus paper into the world’s oceans it would come out closer and closer to the acidic side of the pH scale.

Feeley: “The acidity of the ocean has increased by 30 % over the last 250 years.”

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What’s an Ocean Worth?

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If you like oysters, it is time to pay attention to what is happening in Oregon. And even if you don’t like them, but care about the global food web that allows oysters to grow, reproduce and thrive, what’s happening Oregon should give you pause.

Ocean acidification, a consequence of the oceans being overloaded with carbon dioxide from human fossil fuel use, has been shown by a group of researchers to hamper the development of larval oysters at a hatchery on the Oregon coast. After years of suspicion, this was the smoking gun demonstrating that acidification has real damaging effects on commercial fisheries and that they are happening not 100 years from now but as we speak.

Scientists have been long able to demonstrate in the lab and on paper why this would be so. In the absence of hard evidence from the field, however, they have been exceptionally careful to distinguish what they know from what they suspect. But now it is folly to assume that this problem is limited to one small stretch of Pacific Northwest coastline.

As an indictment of our failure to wean ourselves off oil and coal, this is more fuel for the fire. More importantly, this news will help people understand that there is a hard dollar cost to misusing the oceans. Indeed there is tremendous financial incentive to leaving at least parts of it alone.

My job is lucky enough to come with an office that looks over a lovely marine reserve in the Pacific Ocean whose boundaries recently expanded as part of a revision of California Marine Protected Areas. Of course, this expansion didn’t happen without controversy. There was a predictable hue and cry from sportfishers and commercial fishers who claimed they were being physically separated from their livelihood by a line drawn in the water.

But the facts don’t necessarily support that. Fishermen in Baja California, Mexico decided more than a decade ago to create a marine reserve and make themselves the enforcers of its boundaries. The region they protect is now one of the biologically richest places in Mexico and the subsistence fishermen in Cabo Pulmo no longer have to worry about feeding themselves. California now has a chance to replicate that experience.

Separately a group of researchers writing for the Stockholm Environment Institute put an especially fine point on the argument against exploiting the oceans unsustainably. They calculated a cost savings of more than $1 trillion per year by 2100 if a course of aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction is pursued versus our current negligence, often labeled “business-as-usual.” It is a brave attempt to derive a hard dollar figure using extremely nebulous variables. Nonetheless they make a good argument that their estimate is a conservative one.

It is frustratingly naïve to believe that the benefits of offshore oil exploration (or terrestrial, for that matter) automatically justify the costs. The same can be said for corporate farming that routes tons of fertilizer and pesticides to the oceans. And the same is true for largely uncontrolled disposal of pharmaceutical products and plastics. It is naïve because even the most educated experts do not yet even know the full costs. The oyster industry in Oregon affected by ocean acidification is worth about $278 million, a pittance in a world where a single oilrig can cost $5 billion. On the other hand, that industry is everything to the people who rely on that fishery and a source of great pleasure to the consumers it serves. As if that is not enough to make us think, here is a final thought: The acidification brought on by the past 150 years or so of fossil fuel use will require more than 1,000 years to reverse.

The ocean is large and opaque. It is an act of irresponsible faith to think that impenetrable blue mass is big enough to absorb all our sins without consequence. We need to finish the work of realistically assessing the ocean’s value, and cherish it accordingly.

Tony Haymet, PhD, is director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and formerly Chief of Marine & Atmospheric Research at CSIRO Australia.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Marine Life on a Warming Planet

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Since the beginning of the industrial era, humans have pumped increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This has led not only to a warmer climate but also to significant changes in the chemistry of the oceans, which have long acted as a sink for carbon emissions but are being asked to absorb more than they can handle. The result is ocean acidification: increasingly corrosive seawater that has already ruined many coral reefs and over time could threaten the entire marine food chain.

The State of Washington is now trying to tackle the problem in new and inventive ways. It has good reason to worry. Its economically important aquaculture industry specializes in shellfish, especially oysters. Shellfish are highly vulnerable to increased acidity, which kills them by preventing them from creating or maintaining their shells. Washington’s coastal waters are also polluted by urban and farm runoff, as well as an unusual regional threat: wind patterns that cause the upwelling of deep, nutrient-rich ocean currents loaded with carbon dioxide.

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Threatened Puget Sound marine life shows global threat of ocean acidification

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Published: March 27, 2013

By GINNY BROADHURST AND BILL DEWEY — COURTESY TO THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

Chemistry is not always easy to learn or communicate about, but it is at the very root of the problem our oceans face today. The chemistry of the world’s oceans and inland marine waters, such as Puget Sound, is changing significantly and with unprecedented speed. The most serious of these radical changes is ocean acidification. We must pay attention to this problem and act to reduce the threat it poses.

The ocean is 30 percent more acidic than it was before the industrial revolution began 250 years ago. If current trends continue, the increase may reach 100 percent by mid-century. The primary cause is carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels – coal, gas, and oil. The oceans absorb roughly 30 percent of those emissions from the atmosphere. When carbon dioxide mixes with seawater, it forms carbonic acid, and the chemical building blocks needed for the shells or skeletons of species such as mollusks, crustaceans and corals (called calcifiers) are reduced, making it difficult for these creatures to develop.

For years, scientists thought that the carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans was a benefit to all because it reduced the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, lessening the effects of global warming. Only within the last decade have the true costs of this “benefit” been recognized and documented.

While this is clearly a global issue, the effects of acidification are being felt first here in Washington because of the way the deep corrosive waters of the Pacific Ocean upwell and surface off our coast. Between 2005 and 2009, up to 80 percent of the oyster larvae in some Pacific Northwest hatcheries were killed by these corrosive waters. The oyster seed industry was on the verge of collapse.


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Climate change threatens seas, seafood

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Shellfish affected by corrosive ocean water

Mar 28, 2013

XXX OCEAN-ACIDIFICATION_APS_00222.JPG A USA WA
Bill Dewey of Shelton, Wash., and his colleagues have to watch water quality levels at their oyster hatchery to keep plumes of acidic water from affecting their harvest. / Scott Eklund/USA Today
Written by Dan Vergan, USA Today

FOSSIL FUELS MEAN ACIDIC OCEANS

Since the start of the industrial revolution, the world’s oceans have grown nearly 30 percent more acidic, according to a 2009 Scientific Committee on Oceanic Resources report. Why? Climate change, where heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted into the air by burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels ends up as excess carbonic acid absorbed into the ocean.

OYSTER BAY, WASH. — The tide rolls out on a chilly March evening, and the oystermen roll in, steel rakes in hand, hip boots crunching on the gravel.

As they prepare to harvest shellfish, a danger lurks beyond the shore that will threaten clams, mussels, everything with a shell or that eats something with a shell. The entire food chain could be affected.

“Ocean acidification,” the shifting of the ocean’s water toward the acidic side of its chemical balance, has been driven by climate change and has brought corrosive seawater to the surface along the West Coast and the inlets of Puget Sound, the center of the $111 million shellfish industry.

affecting lives.

The acidification taking place here guarantees the same for the rest of the world’s oceans in the years ahead. This isn’t the kind of acid that burns holes in chemist’s shirt sleeves. But since the start of the industrial revolution, the world’s oceans have grown nearly 30 percent more acidic, according to a 2009 Scientific Committee on Oceanic Resources report. Why? Climate change, where heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted into the air by burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels ends up as excess carbonic acid absorbed into the ocean.

“As fresh as they get, you could eat one now,” said Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish in Shelton, Wash., shucking an oyster open, mud running from its shell to reveal the meat within.

The acid process

Because of ocean chemistry, water three times more acidic resides at greater ocean depths. When conditions are right, strong winds blowing over ocean water along steep coasts generate “upwelling” of these deep waters. The results bring this more corrosive seawater to places such as Puget Sound, a foreshadowing of how the oceans will look in a few decades.

“We are able to see the effects of ocean acidification,” said oceanographer Richard Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He first charted upwelling of deeper, corrosive ocean water on the surface of the Pacific Ocean along the West Coast on a 2007 expedition.

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How climate change threatens the seas

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Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

March 28, 2013

Special report: USA TODAY will explore how climate change is affecting Americans in a series of stories this year.

OYSTER BAY, Wash. — The tide rolls out on a chilly March evening, and the oystermen roll in, steel rakes in hand, hip boots crunching on the gravel beneath a starry, velvet sky.

As they prepare to harvest some of the sweetest shellfish on the planet, a danger lurks beyond the shore that will eventually threaten clams, mussels, everything with a shell or that eats something with a shell. The entire food chain could be affected. That means fish, fishermen and, perhaps, you.

(Photo: Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures for USA TODAY)

“Ocean acidification,” the shifting of the ocean’s water toward the acidic side of its chemical balance, has been driven by climate change and has brought increasingly corrosive seawater to the surface along the West Coast and the inlets of Puget Sound, a center of the $111 million shellfish industry in the Pacific Northwest.

USA TODAY traveled to the tendrils of Oyster Bay as the second stop in a year-long series to explore places where climate change is already affecting lives.

The acidification taking place here guarantees the same for the rest of the world’s oceans in the years ahead. This isn’t the kind of acid that burns holes in chemist’s shirt sleeves; ocean water is actually slightly alkaline. But since the start of the industrial revolution, the world’s oceans have grown nearly 30% more acidic, according to a 2009 Scientific Committee on Oceanic Resources report. Why? Climate change, where heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted into the air by burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels ends up as excess carbonic acid absorbed into the ocean.

That shift hurts creatures like oysters that build shells or fish that eat those creatures or folks like shellfish farmer Bill Dewey, who makes his living off the ocean.

“As fresh as they get, you could eat one now,” says Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Wash., shucking an oyster open, mud running from its shell to reveal the opulent meat within, silver and white in the starlight. The black lip curling around the sweet-tasting shellfish reveals it to be a Pacific oyster, farmed worldwide.

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(Photo: USA TODAY)

Wash. state climate change bill signed into law

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By PHUONG LE, Associated Press
 Tuesday, April 2, 2013

SEATTLE (AP) — Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law Tuesday a bill he championed that would study the best ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the measure, an independent consultant would review efforts to cut carbon emissions in Washington state and elsewhere. A newly created work group of legislators and other leaders would use that evaluation to recommend actions to reduce pollution associated with climate change.

The group will be expected to prioritize strategies that are the most effective and provide the greatest environmental benefit for the money spent.

Supporters say the measure would help the state reach its target of reducing greenhouse gases. A 2008 state law called for Washington to return to 1990 emissions levels by 2020, and for reductions beyond that.

The Democratic governor, who signed the bill at The Bullitt Center in Seattle, has championed the issue of climate change as a key concern. He appeared before committees in the House and Senate to urge the bill’s passage, saying that climate change threatens industries in the state and Washington is poised to take a lead in fighting global warming.

Environmental groups lauded the bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island.

“This law is an important first step toward reducing climate pollution in Washington,” said Joan Crooks, Executive Director of Washington Environmental Council and co-chair of the Environmental Priorities Coalition.

Language in the original bill warned that Washington state is particularly vulnerable to a warming climate, and noted that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities posed a threat to public health and the environment.

But such language was removed in the Republican-controlled state Senate. House Democrats elected not to reintroduce that language, instead sending the bill to the governor for his signature.

Todd Myers, environmental director for the Washington Policy Center, said the measure marks an important change from past policies that he called “little more than symbolic gestures.”

“With this legislation, Washington will begin prioritizing climate efforts based on environmental effectiveness, contributing to a cleaner world and making sure taxpayers get the environmental benefits they pay for,” Myers said in a statement.

Helpful Links

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For more information, check out these websites:

www.sustainablefish.org/global-programs/global-ocean-health

National Fisheries Conservation Center

www.nfcc-fisheries.org

https://globalpartnershipforoceans.org/indispensable-ocean

http://bcsga.ca/ocean-acidification/

NOAA on Pacific Oysters and Ocean Acidification

NOAA Ocean Acidification Research Page
http://www.oceanacidification.noaa.gov/

NOAA PMEL Ocean Acidification Page
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

NSF Ocean Acidification Page
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=125523

Washington Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/water/marine/oceanacidification.html

California Current Acidification Network
c-can.msi.ucsb.edu/

EPOCA Blog, information outlet of the European Project on Ocean Acidification
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/

UK Ocean Acidification Research Program
http://www.oceanacidification.org/

NANOOS Ocean Acidification Website;
http://www.nanoos.org/data/products/noaa_ocean_acidification/summary.php

NIWA Acid Test

http://www.niwa.co.nz/publications/wa/water-atmosphere-6-november-2012/acid-test

Ocean Acidification: Lessons from the West Coast

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Published in Commercial Fisheries News, Letters, April 2011
By Kelsey Abbott

“You don’t need to be a PhD to recognize a problem,” says Mark Wiegardt, owner of  Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts, Oregon. “I’m not a scientist. I’m not a biologist. There’s a lot of things I’m not,” he says, “but I know shellfish.” And he knows problems.

Zero production is a problem.

As one of the three major shellfish hatcheries on the West coast, Whiskey Creek—which supplies 80% of the region’s shellfish growers with oyster seed—had never had a production problem. But for three to four months in 2007, Whiskey Creek didn’t produce any viable oyster larvae. In 2008, the hatchery saw some production, but at 20 to 25% of normal levels. This lost production left local shellfish growers without seed and left Wiegardt wondering if his 30-year-old business would survive.

Wiegardt reevaluated the hatchery’s procedures. He checked bacteria levels and installed protein skimmers. He hired Alan Barton. Both men were stumped—until Barton decided to monitor pH levels. That, says Wiegardt, is when “we noticed we had a problem.” Larval survival seemed to fluctuate with the pH level of the seawater. When the water
was more acidic (lower pH level), larval mortality was high. If Whiskey Creek was going to produce larvae, they would have to work around the conditions that killed the larvae. To do that, they’d have to predict changes in water chemistry. And to do that, they needed the “Burkilator.”

The Burkilator, created by Burke Hales and Jesse Vance of Oregon State University and installed at Whiskey Creek in April 2010, measures the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in the seawater flowing into the hatchery. Using pCO2 as a proxy for pH, the Burkilator provides Whiskey Creek with real-time continuous measurements of water temperature, salinity and acidity. By analyzing these data along with wind velocity measured from a nearby NOAA buoy, Wiegardt and Barton found that north winds caused upwelling, which brought more acidic waters to the surface. Upwelling, however, occurred one to two days after the winds came from the north. If they timed things properly, Wiegardt and Barton would be able to spawn the oysters before the acidic water came to the surface. Now, when the winds come from the north, they fill the tanks late in the day (when the pH is higher due to natural daily fluctuations) and start spawning.

The success of Whiskey Creek’s monitoring system and the resulting ability of the hatchery operators to maximize production by “working around the problem” spurred the creation of a water chemistry monitoring network throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Coast Shellfish Grower’s Association (PCSGA) monitoring program includes the
monitoring station at Whiskey Creek as well as stations in Bellingham, Dabob Bay, Gray’s Harbor and Willapa Bay, Washington. In 2011, all sites will monitor pH, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nutrient concentrations, bacteria levels and larval performance, while some sites will also monitor continuous pCO2. What does all of this have to do with Northeast fisheries? Maybe everything. Shellfish hatcheries in the Northeast haven’t reported lost production due to acidic waters, but hatcheries in the Northeast haven’t been monitoring pH or pCO2 in their waters either.

Mark Wiegardt warns Northeast hatchery operators, “You don’t have to go through all the grief we did if you just get the damn monitoring system.” Hatchery operators and lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine are taking Wiegardt’s advice to heart as they pursue plans to establish a regional monitoring network. In the meantime, a pilot project is set to begin monitoring pH levels at Muscongus Bay Aquaculture. By monitoring the acidity of seawater throughout the Gulf of Maine, hatchery operators lobstermen, fishermen and scientists would gain a better understanding of the fluctuations in the marine ecosystem—and, like Wiegardt, may be able to predict changes in water chemistry to maximize productivity.

State of Washington to Address Ocean Acidification and Restore Shellfish Habitat

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 13, 2011

SEATTLE — Washington will become the first state in the nation to create a panel to address increasing acidity in its marine waters. Governor Chris Gregoire revealed her plans to name a blue ribbon panel to advise the state on strategies to deal with acidification as part of a new initiative to expand the shellfish industry, announced at Taylor Shellfish Farm in Shelton, Washington on December 9, 2011. The group will begin meeting early in 2012 and make its recommendations before the end of next year.

Gregoire made the announcement jointly with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco; Brig. Gen. John McMahon, Northwestern Division Commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Billy Frank, Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission; and Bill Dewey, Policy and Communications Director for Taylor, the largest American producer of shellfish. About 100 stakeholders and media attended. Brad Warren, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Director of Ocean Health, pledged his organization’s help. “SFP is already supporting monitoring by the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and developing plans to extend monitoring capacity more widely in US and international waters. With leaders like Gov. Gregoire, Bill Dewey, NOAA’s Richard Feely, the Tulalip Tribes’ Terry Williams and Ron Sims coalescing around ocean acidification, Washington will provide a model for how to spur jobs, restore habitat and turn crisis into opportunity. A perfect storm is forming, but a good one.”

Creation of a Washington state panel on ocean acidification was proposed by SFP and marine scientists following a November symposium on acidification sponsored by Washington Sea Grant. Shellfish producers and tribal leaders championed the plan, and the governor quickly agreed. “If we don’t begin addressing ocean acidification promptly, the future of shellfish farming and the entire seafood industry is at stake,” said Taylor’s Bill Dewey. “All our efforts at marine conservation and resource management will prove inadequate if we don’t tackle the most basic problem of all—our acidifying marine waters.”

In addition to proposing ways to limit the effects of ocean acidification, the Washington Shellfish Initiative’s goals are to:
• Expand, promote and improve shellfish production in Washington and create jobs in the industry;
• Increase opportunities for and improve access to public tidelands for recreational shellfish harvesting;
• Restore native shellfish habitat and populations such as the pinto abalone and the Olympia oyster; and
• Improve and protect water quality to help ensure healthy and safe shellfish for consumers and to expand employment for aquaculture workers.

Gregoire noted the direct link between clean water and jobs. “Few people realize how important the shellfish industry is to Washington state, and the potential for job growth. We have a unique opportunity to create good, living-wage jobs – but it will require clean water and partnership to grow this critical industry.” Gregoire said.
Shellfish farming produces $107 million in farm-gate revenues, employs 3,200 people, and contributes $270 million to the region’s economy annually, much of that in economically depressed, rural areas. The Governor intends to provide $4.5 million in federal funds to local governments and the 12 counties surrounding Puget Sound to create pollution identification and correction programs that fix residential septic systems and runoff from livestock and other sources, the major cause of acidification in the Sound.

NOAA Administrator Lubchenco noted that “The Washington Shellfish Initiative is the first regional implementation of a national effort to increase the commercial production of shellfish and restore native shellfish habitats and populations that NOAA launched in June.” To support the state’s effort, Lubchenco announced a $200,000 grant for restoring the native Olympia oyster, which was once common from Baja California to Alaska. Former King County Executive Ron Sims, freshly returned from serving as Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, prompted the idea for a panel to advise the state on acidification when he spoke at the Sea Grant symposium in November. Sims, who serves on the leadership council guiding restoration of Puget Sound, challenged scientists in the standing-room-only crowd to come up with succinct, actionable intelligence to counter the acidification threat. “Keep it simple for the public and the policy makers,” was his advice. “Don’t get bogged down in details. Give us something we can understand and act on.”