Corals are integral (essential) in ocean life

From an Article by Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch.com, February. 20, 2020

Researchers have released a sobering study showing that all of the world’s coral reefs may be lost to the climate crisis by 2100. The bleak outlook means that restoration efforts will face Herculean challenges, according to the research presented by researchers at this week’s Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020 in San Diego, California.

Rising sea temperatures, acidic water and pollution are proving too much for the reefs to handle. About 70 to 90 percent of the world’s existing coral reefs are predicted to disappear in the next two decades, according to scientists from the University of Hawaii Manoa.

“By 2100, it’s looking quite grim,” said Renee Setter, a biogeographer at the University of Hawaii Manoa in a statement.

While pollution poses a large threat to many ocean creatures, corals seem most at risk from emissions, according to the researchers. “Trying to clean up the beaches is great and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. We need to continue those efforts,” Setter said in a statement. “But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors.”

To make their predictions, the scientists simulated future ocean conditions like sea surface temperature, wave energy, acidity, pollution and overfishing in areas where corals are today. Looking at those models, the scientists found that most parts of the ocean will not sustain habitats for corals by 2045, and almost no suitable habitats will exist by 2100.

“Honestly, most sites are out,” said Setter in the statement.

Coral reefs nurture about 25 percent of marine life and support local economies worldwide. The new research is disheartening for efforts to restore corals by growing them in labs and then putting them back into the ocean. While those efforts have had a 60 percent success rate, the research suggests that lab-grown corals will not stand up to warming oceans and increased acidification.

Corals are extremely sensitive to ocean temperatures. When the temperature rises just a couple of degrees, corals experience mass bleaching, where coral turns white as it sheds the algae it relies on not only for survival, but also for its magnificent colors. Bleaching does not kill the coral, but it does weaken them, making them vulnerable to disease.

Scientists are predicting a mass bleaching within the next couple of weeks in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The reef, which is nearly the length of Italy, is undergoing heat stress right now, with patches starting to bleach. While a major widespread bleaching has not occurred yet, scientists have warned that it is likely if high ocean temperatures around the reef do not drop in the next two weeks.

Already, temperatures across two-thirds of the reef are about two to three degrees Celsius above normal, with typical peak temperatures still one month away.

“We are down to the wire,” said professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed the Great Barrier Reef on Alert Level 1 for the next week, meaning significant bleaching is likely, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company.

“Unfortunately we are a whisker away from bleaching disaster yet again because of global warming-driven marine heatwaves,” said Shani Tager from the Australian Marine Conservation Society to the Australian Broadcasting Company.

“As underwater heatwaves threaten once again to cook our corals, our politicians must move beyond half-baked plans to tackle global warming.”

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See also: Stony Corals Seem to Be Preparing for a Mass Extinction, Scientists Report – EcoWatch, Jordan Davidson, March 4, 2020

Sediment pollution in Grassy Run of Upshur County, WV

By Jake Lemon and David Kinney, Trout Unlimited, August 5, 2019

Over the past few years, developers and regulators have assured Virginians and West Virginians that sound construction practices and the effective use of erosion controls would limit impacts to the hundreds of streams in the path of proposed Marcellus Shale country pipelines.

“Based on the avoidance and minimization measures developed . . . and our recommendations,” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrote in a typical assessment of one of the pipelines, “we conclude that surface water and wetland impacts would be effectively minimized or mitigated.”

And yet since the work began on the Mountaineer Express, the Mountain Valley (MVP), and the Atlantic Coast (ACP) pipelines, citizens have reported impact after impact on their streams and rivers: TU and West Virginia Rivers volunteers alone reported 275 water quality incidents to regulators, who in turn issued 84 notices of violation.

Just last week, Virginia officials were forced to stop work on a two-mile stretch of the MVP after inspectors discovered that “construction priorities and deadline pressures” had contractors working without proper erosion and sediment controls.

As outlined in a new snapshot (link to full report below) compiled this summer by Trout Unlimited and West Virginia Rivers, these pollution events “threaten critical habitat for aquatic species and clean water supplies for citizens, farms, and industry.”

>>> TU-WV-Rivers-Pipeline-Report-8.1.20192Download

What’s happening on the ground demands a response. Work on both the MVP and ACP is in limbo amid court challenges. Regulators should use this hiatus to take a hard look at what has worked and not worked over the past year, and take steps to prevent a repeat if and when construction restarts on these pipelines.

In the short term, state agencies should require the use of more effective erosion and sediment controls, and dedicate more staff and resources to inspections during construction. That would help ensure proper installation and maintenance of these measures, which protect streams from damaging stormwater pollution events.

Over the long term, regulators must reevaluate how they permit pipeline infrastructure by, for example, requiring site-specific plans for all stream crossings.

Hundreds of people—anglers and non-anglers alike—have attended citizen science trainings hosted by TU and West Virginia Rivers to help us monitor pipeline construction. They have learned how to collect water quality samples in their local waters along the route of proposed pipelines, and how to visually identify pollution events. This army of volunteer stream stewards has built a wealth of baseline data and flagged several hundred incidents, and they’ve done it in their spare time.

On the Mountaineer Express, for example, dewatering of flooded construction areas caused a sediment plume on Fish Creek. On the Mountain Valley Pipeline, volunteers reported hundreds of sedimentation incidents in Monroe County, WV. Failed ACP erosion controls muddied Grassy Run in Upshur County, WV. A hillside failed in Franklin County, VA, covering a road in a foot of mud and causing sedimentation in a nearby stream.

The MVP was recently fined $265,972 for a series of water quality violations that polluted 33 streams and wetlands.

These incidents are outlined in the new TU/WV Rivers report, which is the first of a quarterly series that will track the water quality impacts of pipeline construction in the central Appalachians. It can be viewed as an ArcGIS Story Map here.

Construction of the Mountain Valley has been held up by legal challenges to permits allowing developers to cross streams and wetlands. West Virginia regulators are responding not by ensuring that pipeline companies comply, but by broadly rewriting permit conditions to allow developers to take more time when completing stream crossings. This would only increase the likelihood of pollution events.

The ACP is appealing a Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that overturned a Forest Service permit to cross the Appalachian Trail on public land. Without the permit, the project is in limbo. At the same time, the Fourth Circuit has rejected permits issued to the project by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, citing a faulty Endangered Species Act review.

>>> Jake Lemon is Eastern Angler Science Coordinator for Trout Unlimited; David Kinney is Eastern Policy Director.

Ocean Day 2014

How Acidification, Overfishing and Plastics Threaten the World’s Oceans

From an Article by Dr. David Suzuki, EcoWatch.com, June 3, 2014

June 8 is World Oceans Day. It’s a fitting time to contemplate humanity’s evolving relationship with the source of all life. For much of human history, we’ve affected marine ecosystems primarily by what we’ve taken out of the seas. The challenge as we encounter warming temperatures and increasing industrial activity will be to manage what we put into them.

As a top predator, humans from the tropics to the poles have harvested all forms of marine life, from the smallest shrimp to the largest whales, from the ocean’s surface to its floor. The staggering volume of fish removed from our waters has had a ripple effect through all ocean ecosystems.

Yet the ocean continues to provide food for billions of people, and improved fishing practices in many places, including Canada, are leading to healthier marine-life populations. We’re slowly getting better at managing what we catch to keep it within the ocean’s capacity to replenish. But while we may be advancing in this battle, we’re losing the war with climate change and pollution.

In the coming years, our ties to the oceans will be defined by what we put into them: carbon dioxide, nutrients washed from the land, diseases from aquaculture and land-based animals, invasive species, plastics, contaminants, noise and ever-increasing marine traffic. We once incorrectly viewed oceans as limitless storehouses of marine bounty and places to dump our garbage; now it’s clear they can only handle so much.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report described how ingredients in the ocean’s broth are changing dramatically. Life in the seas is closely linked to factors in the immediate surroundings, such as temperature, acidity or pH, salinity, oxygen and nutrient availability. These combine at microscopic levels to create conditions that favor one form of life over another and emerge into complex ecosystems.

The oceans now absorb one-quarter of the atmosphere’s CO2. That’s bad news for organisms with calcium carbonate shells that dissolve in acidic conditions. We’re witnessing the effects of ocean acidification on shellfish along the West Coast of North America. Earlier this year, a Vancouver Island scallop farm closed after losing 10 million scallops, likely because of climate change and increasing acidity. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also linked oyster die-offs along the Pacific coast to climate change.

While we may be getting better at figuring out how to sustainably harvest crabs, lobsters and sea urchins, we’re just starting to investigate whether they can even survive in oceans altered by climate change.

Whales also offer a glimpse into our changing relationship with oceans. From the 17th century until well into the 20th, commercial whaling in Canada left populations severely depleted. Now, our most endangered whales are threatened by industrial activity. The St. Lawrence beluga population, for example, was decimated by hunting until 1979. Today’s biggest threats include contaminants, vessel traffic and industrialization, including a proposal to develop an oil port in the heart of their critical habitat.

Although the conservation challenge is daunting, nurturing functioning ecosystems offers hope. Healthy oceans ensure we can continue to enjoy seafood—and they’re more resilient to increasing human impacts. If the global fishing industry wants to ensure its survival, it should advocate for marine ecosystem conservation.

By continuing to improve fisheries, protect habitat, carefully control industrial activities and create marine protected areas, we can maintain marine ecosystems that are better able to adapt to the pressures of climate change and other human activities. That’s happening on the Pacific North Coast, thanks to a partnership between the B.C. government and First Nations to develop marine plans to guide future ocean uses.

Although there’s much to lament about the state of the oceans, I remain inspired by the David Suzuki Foundation’s Ocean Keepers and others working to defend our precious coastal waters. With less than five per cent of the oceans explored, we have much left to discover and learn.

As the late American marine biologist, author and conservationist Rachel Carson wrote, “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.”