WA Wild Oyster Reproductive Failure Now In Year 6 - Puget Seawater Acid Enough To Dissolve Larvae

[hatrack]

The waters in Puget Sound's main basin are acidifying as fast as those along the Washington Coast, where wild oysters have not reproduced since 2005. And in parts of Hood Canal, home to much of the region's shellfish industry, water-chemistry problems are significantly worse than the rest of Puget Sound.

Scientists from the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned Monday that the changing pH of the seas is hitting Puget Sound harder and faster than many other marine waters.

That increasingly corrosive water — a byproduct of carbon-dioxide releases from industries, power plants and vehicles — is probably already harming shellfish, and over time it could reverberate through the marine food chain. "We are concerned that ocean acidification may be contributing to the recent loss of oyster larvae reported by oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest, including Puget Sound," UW scientist Jan Newton said.

EDIT

On the pH scale, strongly alkaline materials such as oven cleaner measure about 13. Hydrochloric acid has a pH of 1. Seawater usually measures around 8.1. In some places, the waters of Puget Sound measured 7.7, similar to some of the lowest measurements taken along the Washington Coast. Parts of Hood Canal were as low as 7.4. "The pH levels we saw there were far lower than anything we've seen in the open ocean," said oceanographer Richard Feely, with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, the lead author of the new study.

EDIT

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012338264_acidification13m.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. We are destroying the very planet on which we depend for life....

;(

[phantom power]

2. The words "fucking catastrophe" spring to mind.

:puke:

[pscot]

3. Hood Canal is a basket case

There are wide spread dead zones caused by thousands of innefective septic systems as well as the usual urban and industrial polluters. The Sound is dieing.

[depakid]

4. It's degraded substantiall in the past 20 years

due in no small part to Washington's poor excuse for land use planning.

[pscot]

5. The handwriting was n the wall

when they let the nets into the Sound back in the 70's. Fish stocks plummeted after that. The nets took everything. Even the hake and pollock have been fished out.