Eudeline shows off the complex system that neutralizes the acidity, a carefully monitored filter system keeps the pH of the water flowing over larvae at a healthy 8.2. He turned off the filter, letting untreated sea water into the tanks. Within seconds, the pH plunged to 7.6. He turned the filter back on, before it could fall any farther. Oysters subjected to water with a lower pH – that is, more acidic water – cannot form the calcium carbonate shells they need to survive.
Policymakers have tried to help. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., secured $500,000 in federal funding to study the impacts, and search for solutions, to the crisis threatening Washington’s oyster industry. Then-Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., who represented the Olympic Peninsula, got the Environmental Protection Agency to help clean up Puget Sound. Then-Gov. Christine Gregoire, D, established a blue-ribbon task force to make recommendations, and scientists from Oregon State University and the California Ocean Science Trust created the West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel to craft solutions.
The impacts go far beyond oysters and crabs. In a paper published in April in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had found evidence that acidification is dissolving the shells of pteropods, tiny free-swimming marine snails, off the West Coast. Pteropods are a staple food source for salmon, mackerel and herring. When one food source disappears, the impact is felt up and down the food chain; fishing industries based on the West Coast could see their stocks move away, in search of food.
Acidification means the threads that mussels use to hold onto rocks don’t stick as well in low-pH environments. Bivalves searching for muddy ocean floors to settle upon are moving away from acidic coastal fields into deeper, less accessible water. Low-pH environments make clown fish more aggressive, and therefore more vulnerable to predators. Across the world, corals are dying at an astounding rate; they may be completely gone by 2070.