Businesses balk at dealing with ocean threat
They say the first-in-the-nation effort to reduce ocean acidification is premature. Environmental groups want to move forward.
Business interests say a proposal to deal with the rising acidity of Washington's coastal waters is "not ready for prime time."
The Association of Washington Business and the Washington Farm Bureau lined up Wednesday against a bill to create a council to advise the state government on how to tackle ocean acidification. The bill also calls for considering the acidity of water runoff in urban planning efforts.
"Most of those recommendations (by a 2012 scientific, business and legislative panel on how to deal with ocean acidification) the business community doesn't believe are ready for prime time," AWB representative Brandon Houskeeper told the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.
Tom Davis of the Washington Farm Bureau argued that science has not shown that local factors are increasing ocean acidification. However, ocean scientists and biologists on the 2012 panel pointed to industrial emissions and water runoff as factors in increasing the acidity of Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean off Washington's West Coast.
Meanwhile, Taylor Shellfish, the Nature Conservancy, the Pacific Shellfish Growers, the Surfriders Foundation, University of Washington research interests and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife supported the bill by Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, to create an ocean acidification issues panel.
Washington is the first state to try to tackle ocean acidification.
Thanks to rising acidity levels in Northwest waters, tiny oyster shells in Washington's Dabob and Willapa bays and in Oregon's Netarts Bay are crumbling faster than they can grow back; the problem has cut sharply into the most recent oyster harvests. Billions of oyster larvae have died. Scientists have pinpointed a drop in the water's pH level as the cause. The trend has two primary contributing factors: additional carbon dioxide in the air and nitrogen-laden nutrients that seep from cities, septic tanks and agriculture into the ocean.
The problem has a local economic component because the state's shellfish industry is one of the biggest in the world, bringing in about $270 million annually and employing roughly 3,200 people in predominantly rural areas, where jobs are often hard to come by and losses could greatly hurt local economies. "It has a huge impact, not just on the environment, but on economic drivers," Ranker said.
"Ocean acidification is a serious problem, especially for our industry. We're experiencing losses because of it," said Bill Dewey, representing Taylor Shellfish.
"Washington needs to think proactively," said Bill Robinson of the Nature Conservancy.
Opponents argued that the proposed council would create a new layer of bureaucracy. And they said business and agricultural interest are not earmarked to be represented on the council. Environmentalists made the same argument about conservation interests. Ranker said that underrepresentation can be easily fixed in the bill.
If the bill makes it to the floor of the Senate, it has a chance of passing. Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, is a co-sponsor. His vote along with the 24 minority-side Democrats would provide a winning 25 votes.
If the council is formed, it would then tackle recommendations by the 2012 panel, which include:
- Studying the relationships between the state's carbon emissions and Puget Sound's acidity. The report also recommended doing similar studies on nutrients from various uses, such as fertilizers and their effects on Puget Sound's water. Relationships between acidity and shellfish health also need expanded study. These will be expensive, and should be tackled soon, with expectations that the studies will take years.
- Introducing legislation on nutrient limits for rural sewage going into or toward Puget Sound or the Pacific Ocean.
- Beginning long-range studies on whether urban sewage plants and other specific nutrient-waste sources should be modified to decrease the amounts of nutrients leaving them.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Feb 14, 4:01 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you for following this issue.
From your post in Nov.: "Ranker... is vetting... potential measures among colleagues as he prepares a bill expected to be filed in January. The bill will be designed to decrease the acidity of sea water..."
I responded at the time: As I understood the [Governor's] presentation the recommended approach is two part based on differing certainties: legislation to reduce regional contribution and spur global reduction of ocean carbon loading (based on traceable certainty) and intensive, time limited research to bring similar certainty to the contributions from water cycle pollutions, with suitable legislation to follow."
I have already lost track of the "traceable certainty," nonetheless there remains a huge difference between certainty and correcting a global situation. All practical entities should be concerned at the prospect of another craft-the-message council. Most certain is the need for immediate research into adaptive shellfish farming techniques, which I understand is underway although costly.
Ecological advocating now employs an astonishing number of people, making it nevermore urgent to get the science (the horse) ahead of the cart. Science reverted to religion is not science, no matter how successful we are at stifling messengers, e.g. Alston Chase (1995), David Botkin (2012) Elizabeth Nickson (2012).
Botkin 1/26/13: "There's no doubt that the earth has been in a warming trend in general since the middle of the 19th century and its also clear the carbon dioxide has been increasing from the burning of fossil fuels and some deforestation. Until the late 1970s, the weight of the evidence supported that the climate change was human caused but there's been some surprising development since then, I'll give you three–
There are these ice cores from Antarctica that go back 800 thousand years and they show that carbon dioxide change lags temperature change by 800 years.
The second thing is that a new paper done by some Norwegian scientists shows the same lag—although you can measure more sensitively—that carbon dioxide is lagging temperature change. Something that lags something else can't be its cause, at least not its primary cause.
And third, while carbon dioxide is increasing rapidly the temperature's not tracking it very well—it's wandering around, mainly warming up a little right now—it tracking better the amount of solar energy reaching the earth. So as a scientist, I have to say there's been a big change and we can no longer say that its carbon dioxide as the primary cause—you have to be agnostic about our role and we have to get away from this blame game, the morality play...."
http://www.danielbbotkin.com/2013/01/31/radio-interview-for-your-ears-only/ At approximately 30 minutes in.
Posted Tue, Feb 19, 11:22 a.m. Inappropriate
We've dumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to trigger ~69 feet of sea level rise (see link below), and the climate systems are now noticeably beginning to catch up to the huge spike. Why the lag? Because we're a water planet, and it takes a long time to heat the oceans. The warming and carbon accumulation has started in the oceans; ocean acidification is one result. Another warming focus is the Arctic. Temperatures are rising faster there than in the mid-latitudes, and I think everyone has noticed the record low sea ice extent, and thickness, measured in 2012. That loss of ice is changing the jet stream and changing our weather.
It's utterly sobering to think that Puget Sound and Washington coast shellfish are already in trouble, given the carbon numbers we've already locked in for the future. The ocean takes time to respond as well; current rates of acidification reflect, roughly, early 1990's carbon.
On carbon and 69 ft of sea-level rise:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/01/1527551/manmade-carbon-pollution-has-already-put-us-on-track-for-69-feet-of-sea-level-rise/
On Arctic sea ice:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/14/1594211/death-spiral-bombshell-cryosat-2-confirms-arctic-sea-ice-volume-has-collapsed/
Posted Fri, Feb 15, 9:37 a.m. Inappropriate
..::"Ocean Acidification is now irreversible... at least on timescales of at least... TENS of THOUSANDS of years...
Even with stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm, Ocean Acidification will have profound impacts (death and extinction) on many marine systems.
LARGE and rapid reductions of global CO2 emissions are needed globally by at LEAST 50% by 2050.
Analysis of past events in Earth's geologic history suggests that chemical recovery (normal pH for LIFE in the Ocean) will take TENS of THOUSANDS of years - while the recovery of ecosystem function and biological diversity (LIFE AS WE KNOW IT) can take much longer. (MILLIONS OF YEARS)
http://interacademies.net/10878/13951.aspx
---
..:: "Every day, 70 MILLION TONS of CO2 are released into Earth's atmosphere. ( remaining in the atmosphere for thousands of years )
..:: "Every day, 20 MILLION TONS of that CO2 are absorbed into the OCEANS, thereby increasing the overall ACIDITY of the OCEANS.
By 2100, Ocean acidity will increase another 150 to 200 hundred percent.
This is a dramatic change in the acidity of the oceans. And it has a serious impact on our ocean ecosystems; in particular, it has an impact on any species of calcifying organism that produces a calcium carbonate SHELL.
-
http://www.ClimateWatch.NOAA.gov/video/2010/origin-impacts-ocean-acidification
---
..:: "These are changes that are occurring far too fast for the oceans to correct naturally, said Dr Richard Feely with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
..:: "Fifty-five million years ago when we had an event like this (and that took over 10,000 years to occur), it took the oceans over 125,000 years to recover, just to get the chemistry back to normal," he told BBC News.
..:: "It took two to 10 million years for the organisms to re-evolve, to get back into a normal situation.
..:: "So what we do over the next 100 years will have implications for ocean ecosystems from tens of thousands to millions of years. That's the implication of what we're doing to the oceans right now."
--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17088154
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http://ecodelmar.org/phytoplankton
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Posted Fri, Feb 15, 1:55 p.m. Inappropriate
ALBEIT TOO LATE:
Crosscut newbie Larry Lawhorn, NGO ecodelmar, expounds further on the above at http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/larry_l/2007/06/ (copied below). Larry aims at arousing a wider audience by raising and leaving unaddressed, the questions of what to do when it is already too late? Is it really? ? Do "normals" exist? How long do "normals" last, and in particular, the so called "normal" within which humans flourished? Surely it IS past time to address these assumptions and questions with the upmost of care.
"Albeit too late... we finally awaken to the consequences of giving a "green light" to industrial mavericks who would dump millions of tons of deadly toxins into the only known living Oceans in the entire universe.
Ocean Acidification combined with worldwide industrial toxic dumping is killing the only Living Oceans in the known universe....
Without Living Oceans, planet Earth will not have a Life supporting atmosphere...
Please consider the following scenario, and tell me if i am wrong about this...
1) we have no way to stop runaway Ocean Acidification...
2) we will probably continue burning fossil fuels worldwide for about 50 more years...
3) all the kings horses and all the kings scuba divers can not prevent the Oceans from becoming so acidic it will dissolve the coral reefs and impair all marine life, including the phytoplankton....
4) when that happens... we could loose up to 70% of Earth's oxygen supply...
5) with more CO2 in the atmosphere, even the trees, plants and crops will no longer function...
6) when the methane hydrates melt... and they already are... mega tons of flammable biomass will burn out of control worldwide... releasing additional greenhouse gas, increasing the positive feedback loop....
7) forests will become deserts... further reducing oxygen and increasing CO2...
8) Earth's currently Livable atmosphere will be lost for thousands of years...
9) As Dr. Sylvia Earle says so poetically, "No blue, No green"... http://ecodelmar.org/sylvia/ "
Posted Thu, Feb 21, 2:10 p.m. Inappropriate
another panel that will end up flooding the internet with PDF's, and whatever actions make their way through the legislature, will be challenged in court, and never implemented. Stormwater was identified by the Puget Sound Partnership back in 07 as the main culprit of pollution, has anything changed... no
Any action to help the problem, costs people money, because they are polluting for free, so groups like the Pacific Legal group who are claiming Orca's dying off is junk science, come in a challenge any meaningful actions in court.
we can't afford to change, we can't afford not to.... yet money interests control this country, we're governed on a premise kind of like Tony Montana in Scarface, "He lived the American dream until the end"
To solve a problem you first have to see there is one... and anytime the solution costs money, then business owners don't want to see it.
the governor is fired up to change that, and I hope he can succeed ... but articles like this show just how entrenched the status quo is
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