tagged w/ marinelife
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I agree. We need to start putting people in jail who represent companies that do this. We need a corporate death penalty that shuts down operations of corporations that deliberately commit environmental crimes and economic fraud. The reason why this spill is continuing to be allowed to get worse is because they know they can do it and get away with it! And as you listen to this, listen to what BP lawyers are now doing to mom and pop shrimpers to take away their rights to justice to save their own asses. That isn't even considering what this is doing to marinelife and wildlife. I agree with Mr Papantonio here, Transocean will fall on their sword to save BP, and they will get away with this while screwing the planet. BOYCOTT BP.I agree. We need to start putting people in jail who represent companies that do this.... more
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Two Louisiana shrimpers have filed a lawsuit accusing the operators of the rig behind a Gulf of Mexico oil spill of negligence, seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court late Wednesday, alleges that "the fire, explosion and resulting oil spill was caused by the joint negligence and fault" of the defendants, a copy of the document read.
The shrimpers are seeking class-action status on behalf of "all Louisiana residents who live or work in, or derive income from," the Louisiana coastal zone, and who have sustained losses as a result of the oil spill.
Defendants in the suit include British energy giant BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon platform which sank last week causing the spill, rig owner Transocean, and Cameron International, the company which manufactured a key safety valve that failed to fully shut off the oil.
The plaintiffs are seeking "economic and compensatory damages in amounts to be determined at trial, but not less than five million dollars," the legal minimum, the document said.
A BP executive on Thursday agreed with a US government estimate that the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be pumping up to 5,000 barrels a day of crude into the ocean, far more than previously thought.
The Deepwater Horizon platform sank April 22, two days after a huge explosion that killed 11 workers, and a giant oil slick from the site threatens to pollute Louisiana's fragile wetlands.
Among other things, the lawsuit claims that the defendants failed to operate the oil rig properly; failed to properly inspect the rig "to assure that its equipment and personnel were fit for the intended purpose"; acted "in a careless and negligent manner without due regard for the safety of others"; failed to "react to danger signs"; and employed "untrained or poorly trained employees."
Furthermore, "the fire, explosion, sinking and resulting oil spill were caused by defective equipment," and the defendants "knew or should have known of these defects and ... are therefore liable for them."
Daniel Becnel, a Louisiana-based trial lawyer who filed the suit, saying that the plaintiffs "have a whistleblower on an adjoining rig saying 85 percent of the drilling pipe was not properly inspected" by the US Minerals Management Service.
"We knew that BP and Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon weren't telling the truth," said Becnel.
continuedTwo Louisiana shrimpers have filed a lawsuit accusing the operators of the rig behind... more
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Two thirds of the Earth is covered by water, and our oceans are the barometer of all life. On Earth Day this year, Disney Nature will release "Oceans" to show us the wonderment of a world on which all life depends.Two thirds of the Earth is covered by water, and our oceans are the barometer of all... more
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Only hours after President Obama opened up vast tracts of America’s coastline to exploration, Royal Dutch Shell said yesterday that it plans to start drilling for oil in the Arctic Sea, north of Alaska, within weeks.
Marvin Odum, the chief executive of Shell’s North America business, said that Shell was “absolutely ready to drill in terms of infrastructure and manpower” in Alaska and signalled that activity could begin within ten weeks.
“Ideally we would aim to drill two to three wells this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas,” he told The Times, adding that the company wanted to make full use of the three to four months’ ice-free period in the summer.
Mr Odum also said that Shell would bid for new oil and gas leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico that would become available following President Obama’s decision. In 2008, Shell paid $2 billion for exploration licences in the remote Arctic Sea to the north of Alaska.
Since then, the company has been waiting for government permission to drill and has been embroiled in a legal dispute with environmental groups concerned about the impact on the endangered bowhead whale.
However, Shell said it had received a government permit yesterday allowing it to drill in Chukchi, the sea between northwest Alaska and northeastern Siberia. It is believed to hold 15 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cu ft of gas, according to US government figures.
Shell cautioned that an appeal could still be made against the permit within 30 days. The group said it was waiting for a final permit for the Beaufort Sea, which is also thought to be rich in oil.
Mr Odum said that Shell was “absolutely” interested in bidding for new exploration licences in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which had previously been off-limits. He said: “We have made discoveries right up to the area where leasing had been stopped. We know a lot about that trend and think those discoveries will continue. It’s a very good fit for us.”
He said that the opening of large parts of the American East Coast to oil exploration presented big opportunities but that the impact would be long-term. Years of seismic investigations would be necessary before drilling or production would begin.
Mr Odum was speaking as Shell announced the start-up of its Perdido floating production facility in the Gulf of Mexico, producing 100,000 barrels a day. It is the world’s deepest offshore production platform and stands in water as deep as five Empire State Buildings.
The decision to open up new areas of the American coastline to oil and gas development is part of a calculated political move by the Obama Administration to win Republican support for proposed climate change legislation.
The decision has upset environmental groups, but was welcomed yesterday by other oil companies.Only hours after President Obama opened up vast tracts of America’s coastline to... more
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A lawsuit filed today in federal court against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to compel the Service to uproot genetically engineered (GE) crops from its Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. As many as 80 other national wildlife refuges across the country now growing GE crops are vulnerable to similar suits.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for Delaware by the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety, the federal suit charges that the Fish & Wildlife Service had illegally entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing hundreds of acres to be plowed over without the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”).
In March 2009, the same groups won a similar lawsuit against GE plantings on Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Ironically, Prime Hook has now been administratively incorporated into Bombay Hook, meaning that the same refuge management that is overseeing execution of the Prime Hook verdict is violating its tenets on Bombay Hook. In August 2009, several environmental groups led by the Center for Food Safety and PEER wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to alert him to the implications of the Prime Hook ruling and asking him to “issue a moratorium on all GE crop cultivation in National Wildlife Refuges.” Secretary Salazar has never responded.
“By definition, these refuges are to be administered to benefit wildlife, not farmers,” stated PEER Counsel Christine Erickson, noting that Fish & Wildlife Service policy explicitly forbids “genetically modified agricultural crops in refuge management unless [they] determine their use is essential to accomplishing refuge purpose(s).” “GE crops serve no legitimate refuge purpose, and in fact impair the objectives for which the wildlife sanctuaries were originally established.”
National wildlife refuges have allowed farming for decades to help prepare seed beds for native grasslands and provide food for migratory birds. In recent years, however, refuge farming has been converted to GE crops because that is only seed farmers can obtain. Today, the vast majority of crops grown on refuges are genetically engineered.
Yet farming on wildlife refuges often interferes with protection of wildlife and native grasses. Scientists also warn that GE crops can lead to increased pesticide use on refuges and can have other negative effects on birds, aquatic animals, and other wildlife. In the Prime Hook case, Federal District Court Chief Judge Gregory Sleet found that “it is undisputed that farming with genetically modified crops at Prime Hook poses significant environmental risks.”
“Using genetically engineered crops designed to be used in conjunction with repeated applications of pesticides is a practice in direct opposition to the mission of the National Wildlife Refuges: to serve as safe havens for wildlife,” said Paige Tomaselli, Staff Attorney with the Center for Food Safety. “The fact that farmers can obtain no other seeds underscores the questionable business practices of companies like Monsanto that are trying to limit farmer and consumer choice in order to sell more chemical pesticides.”
continuedA lawsuit filed today in federal court against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service... more
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Rapidly melting Arctic sea ice is changing the world's weather, releasing contaminants into the food chain and threatening the survival of whales and polar bears, a massive international study on climate change has found.
Some 300 scientists from 27 countries spent months on an icebreaker in 2009 studying the effect of climate change in the Arctic and they released their preliminary results Friday at a youth summit in Winnipeg.
David Barber, one of the world's top Arctic researchers, said the rapid sea-ice melt is affecting everything from polar bears to micro-organisms.
"We know we're losing sea ice. The world is all aware of that," said Barber, who holds the Canada research chair in Arctic science at the University of Manitoba. "What you're not aware of is that it has impacts on everything else that goes on in this system. We're just starting to understand that from a scientific perspective."
The expedition discovered there is more open water than ever before in the Arctic, he said. That is creating more cyclones - Arctic storms, characterized by snow and high winds.
The storms further erode the sea ice crucial to the region's ecosystem.
"Those storms are having a very dramatic impact on the sea ice - they are melting the ice from underneath," Barber said. "The other thing the cyclones do is they bring winds with them. Those winds remove snow from the surface but they also break up the ice as well."
Scientists found the loss of that sea ice has both far-reaching and immediate consequences, from boosting temperatures further south to threatening whales and releasing toxic contaminants.
Steve Ferguson, who studied marine mammals on the expedition, said the melting ice has removed a barrier that once kept killer whales and other predators from entering the Arctic. Now there are more killer whales in the region and the loss of ice means there are fewer safe havens from the predator, he said.
Polar bears and other species who live on the ice are running out of room, he added.
"I think we will have ice for a long time, at least for part of the year, but it may only be located in a certain area in the world," said Ferguson, a biologist at the University of Manitoba. "These species are going to be crowded into a small area so that's going to be challenging."
The eroding ice is also threatening mammals in another way - by releasing contaminants into the Arctic food chain. Gary Stern, who studied the level of PCBs and mercury on the expedition, said the contaminants latch on to the increased carbon in the surface water, which is drawn downwards.
The contaminants are then consumed by zooplankton, fish and, eventually, beluga whales.Rapidly melting Arctic sea ice is changing the world's weather, releasing... more
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The increasing acidity of the world's oceans - and that acidity's growing threat to marine species - are definitive proof that the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is causing climate change is also negatively affecting the marine environment, says world-renowned Antarctic marine biologist Jim McClintock, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Biology.
"The oceans are a sink for the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere," says McClintock, who has spent more than two decades researching the marine species off the coast of Antarctica. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by oceans, and through a chemical process hydrogen ions are released to make seawater more acidic.
"Existing data points to consistently increasing oceanic acidity, and that is a direct result of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere; it is incontrovertible," McClintock says. "The ramifications for many of the organisms that call the water home are profound."
A substance's level of acidity is measured by its pH value; the lower the pH value, the more acidic is the substance. McClintock says data collected since the pre-industrial age indicates the mean surface pH of the oceans has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 units with another 0.4 unit decline possible by century's end. A single whole pH unit drop would make ocean waters 10 times more acidic, which could rob many marine organisms of their ability to produce protective shells - and tip the balance of marine food chains.
"There is no existing data that I am aware of that can be used to debate the trend of increasing ocean acidification," he says.
McClintock and three co-authors collected and reviewed the most recent data on ocean acidification at high latitudes for an article in the December 2009 issue of Oceanography magazine, a special issue that focuses on ocean acidification worldwide. McClintock also recently published research that revealed barnacles grown under acidified seawater conditions produce weaker adult shells.
Antarctica as the Ground Zero for Climate Change
McClintock says the delicate balance of life in the waters that surround the frozen continent of Antarctica is especially susceptible to the effects of acidification. The impact on the marine life in that region will serve as a bellwether for global climate-change effects, he says.
"The Southern Ocean is a major global sink for carbon dioxide. Moreover, there are a number of unique factors that threaten to reduce the availability of abundant minerals dissolved in polar seawater that are used by marine invertebrates to make their protective shells," McClintock says.
"In addition, the increased acidity of the seawater itself can literally begin to eat away at the outer surfaces of shells of existing clams, snails and other calcified organisms, which could cause species to die outright or become vulnerable to new predators."
One study McClintock recently conducted with a team of UAB researchers revealed that the shells of post-mortem Antarctic marine invertebrates evidenced erosion and significant loss of mass within only five weeks under simulated acidic conditions.
McClintock says acidification also could exert a toll on the world's fisheries, including mollusks and crustaceans. He adds that the potential loss of such marine populations could greatly alter the oceans' long-standing food chains and produce negative ripple effects on human industries or food supplies over time.
"So many fundamental biological processes can be influenced by ocean acidification, and the change in the oceans' makeup in regions such as Antarctica are projected to occur over a time period measured in decades," McClintock says.
contThe increasing acidity of the world's oceans - and that acidity's growing... more
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Record levels of algae have plagued U.S. coastal areas this year, sickening swimmers and hampering shellfish harvests, oceanographers say.
Wayne Litaker, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Tuesday's USA Today that toxic algae blooms have spread for hundreds of miles along some sections of coast, a phenomenon known as "red tides," which cause harm to fish and can trigger paralysis in human swimmers.
Litaker told the newspaper the blooms, which scientists say have spread out over much larger areas in recent years, have caused an estimated $100 million per year in damages to the seafood and tourism industries.
State officials reportedly blame widespread algae with forcing the closure of Maine's harvest of clams, oysters and mussels, and the killing of more than 4 million fish off the coast of Texas.
Donald Anderson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, said some algae blooms are now stretching for up to 1,000 miles, adding that overfishing and global warming may be helping to spur their growth.Record levels of algae have plagued U.S. coastal areas this year, sickening swimmers... more
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“Today, the very agency tasked with conservation and management of our national fish resources, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), failed to protect fishing communities and the marine environment by allowing an unpopular and potentially harmful ocean fish farming plan for the Gulf of Mexico to pass into effect. NMFS was involved for the entire five years this plan was under discussion, and had since January of 2009 to decide whether ocean fish farming is the right thing to do for the Gulf. Time for indecision ran out today. Rather than taking a stand, the agency looked the other way and chose to stay silent, letting the plan pass by default. The agency’s silence is a choice in itself: to allow development of what are essentially factory farms of the sea—dirty, crowded mass-production facilities that can harm the environment and produce lower-quality fish for consumers. The plan lacks specifics about important issues: unknown types of facilities will be able to grow unspecified types of fish in locations approved by NMFS on a case-by-case basis, from three to 200 miles offshore in the Gulf. The development of these facilities will likely cause major ecological problems, and could undercut prices local fishermen receive for their catch, threatening an already vulnerable job market.
“In addition to the overwhelming public opposition to this plan, its legality is highly questionable. Under existing federal law, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and NMFS do not have the authority to permit ocean fish farming.
“Further, offshore fish farming is not the solution to the nation’s demand for seafood. A May 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office points out significant environmental concerns associated with ocean fish farming that have not yet been addressed. Problems include: flow of concentrated amounts of fish food, wastes, and any chemicals or antibiotics that may be used in farms straight into ocean waters; escaped farmed fish intermixing with or outcompeting wild fish for food and habitat; the spread of parasites and disease to wild populations; effects on predators and marine mammals, and others. Existing offshore farm facilities in Hawaii state waters have proven extremely unpopular with native Hawaiian fishermen and many others, for failing to recognize and respect cultural and historic ocean uses and impacts to the marine environment.
“Better alternatives exist for meeting the ever-rising demand for seafood and growing a cleaner, greener, safer seafood production industry to supplement, rather than overtake, wild-catch fisheries in the U.S. Land-based, recirculating aquaculture systems—commonly called RAS—are closed-loop facilities that retain and treat the water in the system. This method of fish farming can reduce discharge of waste, the need for antibiotics or chemicals used to combat disease, and fish and parasite escapes. RAS are not connected to open waters, and therefore can be used to grow a wide range of plants and fish without threatening the environment or competing with fishermen. Innovative technologies are being used to reduce energy usage and wild fish in feed for RAS.
"Rather than pushing an ocean fish farming industry forward that is likely to undermine ecosystems health and local jobs, NMFS and other agencies should work to promote a more sustainable option, like RAS.”
To read Food & Water Watch’s comment letter on the Gulf Offshore Aquaculture Plan, visit
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fish/fish-farming/offshore/Gulf-OOA-Comment-Letter“Today, the very agency tasked with conservation and management of our national... more
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Germ-killing chemical from soaps, toothpaste building up in dolphins
Triclosan is the germ-killing chemical of choice in hundreds of products, including liquid hand soaps, toothpaste and deodorants. Now some scientists are calling for its removal from consumer products because it is building up in the ocean's food web. A new study found that one-third of the bottlenose dolphins tested off South Carolina and almost one-quarter of those tested off Florida carried traces of triclosan in their blood. The concentrations found in the dolphins are known to disrupt the hormones and growth and development of other animals.
By Brett Israel
Environmental Health News
August 11, 2009
Dolphins are swimming in waters tainted with germ-killing soaps, but they aren't winding up squeaky clean.
Triclosan, an antibacterial chemical found in everyday bathroom and kitchen products, is accumulating in dolphins at concentrations known to disrupt the hormones and growth and development of other animals.
Scientists have found that one-third of the bottlenose dolphins tested off South Carolina and almost one-quarter of those tested off Florida carried traces of triclosan in their blood. It is the first time the chemical has been reported in a wild marine mammal – a worrisome finding, researchers say, because it shows it is building up in the ocean’s food web.
Triclosan is the germ-killing chemical of choice in hundreds of products, including liquid hand soaps, toothpaste, deodorants and cutting boards. Now some scientists are calling for its removal from consumer products.
“The fact that this chemical is found in the environment and is being detected in a top level predator certainly warrants concern,” said Patricia Fair, a research physiologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author of the dolphin study, which was published online in the journal Environmental Pollution in May.
Scientists cannot say what effect triclosan might have on dolphins, but lab studies conducted on other animals suggest that it could be jeopardizing their health. Studies in bullfrogs found that triclosan disrupts the endocrine system — blocking the tadpoles’ development into frogs at concentrations found in the environment. Another study found triclosan alters thyroid hormones in rats, which is another sign of endocrine system disruption.
Many scientists weren’t surprised to see triclosan turn up in dolphins, due to the chemical’s widespread use. In the United States, 76 percent of liquid soaps and 26 percent of bar soaps contain triclosan, according to a 2001 study in the American Journal of Infection Control. In Europe, approximately 350 tons are used in commercial products.
“With the sheer amount being used, it’s actually starting to accumulate [in more top predators],” said Caren Helbing, a molecular biologist at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada, who was not involved with the dolphin study.
After spitting your toothpaste down the sink or washing your liquid soap down the drain, it ends up in a sewage treatment plant, where 90 to 98 percent of the chemical is broken down, before the wastewater is discharged into freshwater or directly into oceans along the coasts. Triclosan was one of the most frequently detected chemicals in a survey of streams in 30 states conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Triclosan builds up in fatty tissues, so it passes up the food chain from animal to animal, including humans.
Three-quarters of people tested in the United States have triclosan in their urine, according to a 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also has been found in breast milk of Swedish women. The concentrations reported in humans are similar to those found in dolphins.
Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration regulate triclosan in consumer products.Germ-killing chemical from soaps, toothpaste building up in dolphins
Triclosan is... more
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Excerpt:
'A team of NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University, and the University of Michigan is forecasting that the "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record.
The dead zone is an area in the Gulf of Mexico where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters.
Scientists are predicting the area could measure between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Jersey. However, additional flooding of the Mississippi River since May may result in a larger dead zone. The largest one on record occurred in 2002, measuring 8,484 square miles.
Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.
The dead zone size was predicted after researchers observed large amounts of nitrogen feeding into the Gulf from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. The rivers experienced heavy water flows in April and May that were 11 percent above average.
"The high water volume flows coupled with nearly triple the nitrogen concentrations in these rivers over the past 50 years from human activities has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone," said Gene Turner, Ph.D., a lead forecast modeler from Louisiana State University.
This forecast helps coastal managers, policy makers, and the public better understand and combat the sources of the dead zones. For example, the models that generate this forecast have been used to determine nutrient reduction targets required to reduce the size of the dead zone.
This hypoxic, or low-to-no oxygen area, is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries by destroying critical habitat."
End of excerpt
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It isn't enough that we are killing the land and air with toxic waste and poisoning our food with an overuse of pesticides and herbicides... we are now literally sucking the life out of our water.Excerpt:
'A team of NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities... more
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Scientists who have just returned from an expedition to an erupting undersea volcano near the Island of Guam report that the volcano seems to be continuously active, has grown considerably in the past three years, and its activity supports a unique biological community thriving despite the eruptions.
An international science team on the expedition captured dramatic new information about the eruptive activity of NW Rota-1.
“This research allows us, for the first time, to study undersea volcanoes in detail and close up,” said Barbara Ransom, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. “NW Rota-1 remains the only place on Earth where a deep submarine volcano has ever been directly observed while erupting.”
Scientists first watched eruptions at NW Rota-1 in 2004 and again in 2006, said Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University volcanologist and chief investigator on the expedition. This time, however, they found that the volcano in the Pacific had built a new cone 40 meters high and 300 meters wide.
“That’s as tall as a 12-story building and as wide as a full city block,” Chadwick said. “As the cone has grown, we’ve seen a significant increase in the population of animals that lives atop the volcano. We’re trying to determine if there is a direct connection between the increase in the volcanic activity and that population increase.”
Animals in this unusual ecosystem include shrimp, crab, limpets and barnacles, some of which are new species. “They’re specially adapted to their environment,” said Chadwick, “and are thriving in harsh chemical conditions that would be toxic to normal marine life. Life here is actually nourished by the erupting volcano.”
Verena Tunnicliffe, a biologist from the University of Victoria, Canada, said that most of the animals are dependent on diffuse hot-water venting that provides basic food in the form of bacterial filaments coating the rocks. “It appears that since 2006 the diffuse venting has spread and, with it, the vent animals,” Tunnicliffe said. There are profuse populations of shrimp on the volcano, with two species able to cope with the volcanic conditions, she added.
“The ‘Loihi’ shrimp has adapted to grazing the bacterial filaments with tiny claws like garden shears,” said Tunnicliffe. “The second shrimp is a new species—they also graze as juveniles, but as they grow to adult stage, their front claws enlarge and they become predators.” The Loihi shrimp was previously known only from a small active volcano near Hawaii, far away. It survives on the fast-growing bacteria and tries to avoid the hazards of the volcanic eruptions. Clouds of these shrimp were seen fleeing volcanic bursts, researchers said.
The other species attacks the Loihi shrimp and preys on marine life that wanders too close to the volcanic plumes and dies. “We saw dying fish, squid, etc., raining down onto the seamount, where they were jumped on by the volcano shrimp,” Tunnicliffe said.
NW Rota-1 provides a one-of-a-kind natural laboratory for the investigation of undersea volcanic activity and its relation to chemical-based ecosystems at underwater vents, where some biologists think life on Earth originated.
end of excerptScientists who have just returned from an expedition to... more
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After a decade of nothing being done to address this serious environmental problem, let's see what Lisa Jackson does under the Obama administration. She will have to coordinate her efforts with Tom Vilsack of the USDA, and that may prove to be a sticky situation if he has to put pressure on Monsanto and other agribusiness companies (factory farms) whose phosphate herbicides and fertilizers are contributing in great part to this problem. Monsanto knowingly poisoned an entire town in Alabama with PCBs. Now their chemicals along with other toxic runoff and fertilizers poison our waterways. It has to end.After a decade of nothing being done to address this serious environmental problem,... more
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The Center for Biological Diversity today notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its intent to file a lawsuit against the agency for its failure to respond to the threat of ocean acidification. Last year, the Center filed a formal petition asking EPA to impose stricter pH standards for ocean water quality and publish guidance to help states protect U.S. waters from ocean acidification. Todays notice of intent to sue urges EPA to promptly respond to the Centers petition.
The oceans cover about 70 percent of the Earths surface and absorb about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide each day. The absorption of carbon dioxide is changing seawater chemistry, causing it to become more acidic. This process, known as ocean acidification, impairs the ability of marine animals to build the protective shells and skeletons they need to survive.
Already, the pH level of the ocean has decreased 0.1 units on average due to carbon dioxide pollution caused by human activity — especially emissions from such sources as automobiles and electrical power plants. If carbon dioxide emissions continue unabated, seawater pH may decrease an additional 0.4 units — more than a 100 percent change in acidity. A recent article in the journal Science noted that rapid changes in pH would have adverse effects on a number of marine organisms and highlighted the need to update EPAs water-quality standard for pH, according to the authors of the July 4 Science article, "Carbon Emissions and Acidification. The seawater quality criteria of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency date back to 1976 [t]hese standards must be re-evaluated based on the latest research on pH effects on marine organisms, the authors wrote.
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.
Ocean acidification is global warmings evil twin, said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversitys oceans program. The EPA has a duty under the Clean Water Act to protect our nations waters from pollution, and today, carbon dioxide is one of the biggest threats to our ocean waters.
According to the Centers notice of intent to sue, the EPAs current water-quality criterion for pH is outdated and woefully inadequate in the face of ocean acidification. A decline of 0.2 pH allowed under the current standard would be devastating to the marine ecosystem. Twenty-five leading scientists researching ocean acidification concluded in a Sept. 25, 2007 commentary in the Geophysical Research Letters that a decrease of this magnitude would pose a risk to the physiology and health of a variety of marine organisms.
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The EPA needs to face many lawsuits for their total apathy to the environment and the dereliction of their duties. However, in addressing ocean acidification they will then have to address the CO2 emissions that are soaked up by the oceans in the first place and their sources. I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.The Center for Biological Diversity today notified the U.S. Environmental Protection... more
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