http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/ocean-acidification-04-14-2009.html

For Immediate Release, April 14, 2009

Contact: Miyoko Sakashita, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 436-9682 x 308 or (510) 845-6703 (cell)

EPA Evaluates Ocean Acidification as a Threat to
Water Quality Under Clean Water Act;

Action Marks First Step Toward Regulation of
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Under the Clean Water Act

SAN FRANCISCO— The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced steps to protect U.S. waters from the threat of ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act. Today, EPA issued a notice of data availability to be published in the Federal Register that calls for information and data on ocean acidification that the agency will use to evaluate water-quality criteria under the Clean Water Act.

The notice responded to a formal petition and threatened litigation from the Center for Biological Diversity that sought to compel the agency to impose stricter pH criteria for ocean water quality and publish guidance to help states protect American waters from ocean acidification. EPA’s notice marks the first time that the Clean Water Act will be invoked by the agency to address ocean acidification.

“Ocean acidification is likely the greatest threat to the health of our oceans and is occurring at a frightening rate,” said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program. “The federal government has finally acknowledged that ocean acidification is a threat; now it must take the next step and fully implement the Clean Water Act to protect our nation’s waters from ‘the other CO2 problem.’ ”

EPA’s water-quality criteria are relevant to preventing ocean acidification because they are the measure against which many states gauge the need to impose regulations on pollution. The notice states that EPA’s “recommended criteria provide guidance to States and authorized Tribes in adopting water quality standards that ultimately provide a basis for controlling discharges or releases of pollutants.” Here, that could eventually translate into controls on CO2.

The oceans absorb CO2 to the tune of 22 million tons each day, and this changes seawater chemistry, causing it to become more acidic. Ocean acidification is emerging as a primary threat to our oceans. To prevent the worst impacts of ocean acidification, CO2 emissions will need to be reduced from current levels, requiring immediate regulatory action.

Ocean acidification is degrading seawater quality, with adverse impacts on marine ecosystems. The primary known consequence of ocean acidification is that it impairs the ability of marine animals to build and maintain their protective shells and skeletons. For example, ocean acidification threatens to erode away coral reefs within our lifetime. Nearly every marine animal with a shell is vulnerable to the impacts of ocean acidification. According to the notice, “[i]mpacts to shellfish and other calcifying organisms that represent the base of the food web may have implications for larger organisms that depend on shellfish and other calcifying organisms for prey.”

In 2007, the Center filed a formal petition asking EPA to impose stricter pH criteria for ocean water quality and publish guidance to help states protect U.S. waters from ocean acidification. The federal Clean Water Act requires the EPA to update water-quality criteria to reflect the latest scientific knowledge. Since the agency developed the pH standard back in 1976, an extensive body of research has developed on the impacts of carbon dioxide on the oceans. Now, EPA has agreed to evaluate this pH criterion in light of the new information on ocean acidification.

“We must take immediate action to address ocean acidification or the impacts will be catastrophic,” said Sakashita. “Fortunately, we need not wait for new legislation addressing CO2 emissions, as the Clean Water Act already provides us with important tools to confront this problem.”

EPA is accepting data and information on ocean acidification for 60 days. If the EPA strengthens the pH water-quality criterion for oceans, then the Clean Water Act requires states to adopt a water-quality standard at least as protective as the one established by the EPA. Here, stronger water-quality standards for pH could translate into measures that regulate CO2, which is causing ocean acidification.

More information is available from the Center for Biological Diversity at http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_acidification/index.html.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with 200,000 members and online activists dedicated to protecting endangered species and wild places. www.biologicaldiversity.org

# # #

Wednesday, Apr 8, 2009 6:43AM / Standard Entry
FEWER FISH IN CARIBBEAN REEFS
Nils Bruzelius- The Washington Post

Populations of both large and small fish have been declining sharply across the Caribbean in the past 10 years, say researchers, who combined data from 48 studies of 318 coral reefs conducted over more than 50 years.

The data show that fish “densities” that had held steady for decades began to drop significantly around 1995, a trend not reported previously. Although overfishing has long taken a toll on larger species, the drop in smaller species that are not fished indicates that other forces are at work, said author Michelle Paddack of Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Drastic losses in coral cover and changes in coral reef habitats, driven by warming water temperatures and coral diseases, as well as sediment and pollution from coastal development could be among the factors. Overfishing may also have secondary effects by removing species that help keep reefs free of harmful algae.

“All these factors are stressing the reefs and making them less able to recover from disturbances such as hurricanes, which also seem to be occurring more frequently,” Paddack said in a statement.

Paddack and her colleagues reported last week in the journal Current Biology that fish densities have been declining by 2.7 percent to 6 percent every year all across the Caribbean.

“If we want to have coral reefs in our future,” the researcher said, “we must ensure that we reduce damage to these ecosystems,” by such personal measures as not eating species that are in decline and by pushing lawmakers and resource managers for changes in how coral habitats are sustained and protected.

dfenner@blueskynet.as to coral-list 11/4/09

A team of researchers has been making rapid assessments of damage to coral
reefs in American Samoa from the tsunami of Sept 29, 2009. We have examined
about 37 sites so far. There is a wide range of damage, from no damage to
complete removal of one patch of coral. Sites with little or no damage are
more common than sites with heavy damage. Why some places were damaged much
more than others is something that will be examined in the coming months and
years. There is some debris on reefs from the damage on land, but the heaviest
accumulation is likely at the head of the harbor, where there were no reefs.
Efforts to remove debris are underway, with cars being removed from the harbor,
debris removed from villages, streams and beaches, and rags being removed from
young table corals at the one known location where this is common.
On land as well as in the water, it is clear that the tsunami damaged
sites on the north shore as well as the south shore, even though the earthquake
was to the southwest. Computer models predict this correctly.
On land this was a tragedy with loss of life, but training about what to
do in case of a large earthquake had been going on since the Ache earthquake
and tsunami in Indonesia, and many, many lives were saved by villagers knowing
to run uphill after a large earthquake. We have those involved in that
training to thank for the fact that so many lives were saved that would
otherwise been lost.
It is good to keep in mind that this is a natural event. It has happened
here many times before (though not for many decades with such power), and will
happen again. Even if tsunamis this big only happened once in 150 years, the
island of Tutuila is 1.5 million years old, so it would have happened 10,000
times before. The reefs recovered and grew back, or else there would be none
left today. As long as humans have not impacted the reef so as to reduce
resilience, the reefs should recover from this. Although such events are very
dramatic, they are dwarfed in importance to the world’s reefs by the insidious
effects of humans, in particular the looming threat of climate change, which
will likely dwarf previous human impacts.

For the reef assessment team:

Douglas Fenner, Domingo Ochavillo, Lucy Jacob
Dept of Marine & Wildlife Resources of American Samoa (DMWR)

Paul Brown, Jim Nimz
National Parks of American Samoa

For the DMWR reef cleanup team:
Alice Lawrence and many volunteers

And all the support staff, and the support of the agencies

There have also been a whole series of teams of experts on tsunamis from USGS
(U.S. Geological Survey) and Japan, surveying the extent of inundation on land,
and some underwater topography, to understand what happened and why. Such
effort will hopefully continue. Similar teams have been working in
(independent) Samoa, where the island of Upolu was hit very hard.

Also, a team from the American Samoa Coral Reef Advisory Group surveyed damage
on land in many villages, including debris in streams, on beaches, and on the
reef flats. Damaged vehicles likely leaked fluids, but there have been no
major chemical spills discovered so far to our knowledge.

There have been both huge efforts by the villagers to recover from this, but
also an outpouring of aid and effort, from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
Agency), NGO’s, foreign governments, businesses, church groups, and
individuals. Our airport has been the busiest it has ever been with a steady
stream of air force transport planes bringing in generators and other supplies,
and Hawaiian Airlines has brought down plane loads of volunteers and supplies.
The world’s largest transport plane, a Russian-built jet with 3 engines on each
wing, brought ten, 27,000 pound generators in a single flight. The aid has
been deeply appreciated here. We hope similar aid has been sent to (independent)
Samoa, where the need is likely even greater. There are people here who have
been traumatized, and a team has been working to help with that. People have
been deeply touched by all the help. Electricity is back on most places, and
people are putting their lives back together.

—
USGS reports:
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/news/field.html