U.S. EPA Invokes Clean Water Act to Evaluate Ocean Acidification

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is calling for information and data on ocean acidification to evaluate water quality criteria under the nation’s Clean Water Act in the first such use of the Act to address the issue.

The action by the EPA is in response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity seeking stricter pH criteria for ocean water quality and guidance from the agency for states to help protect U.S. waters from further acidification. The agency issued a “notice of data availability” (PDF) that will be published in the Federal Register.

“Ocean acidification is likely the greatest threat to the health of our oceans and is occurring at a frightening rate. 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.’” – Miyoko Sakashita, attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program

The water quality criteria from the EPA “provide guidance to States and authorized Tribes in adopting water quality standards that ultimately provide a basis for controlling discharges or releases of pollutants.” This could be interpreted as pertaining to CO2, as well, and therefore possibly leading to controls on CO2 emissions.

About 22 million tons of CO2 is absorbed by the oceans every single day, which makes changes in the chemistry of seawater, lowering the pH (acidifying it). This change in seawater has adverse effects on marine ecosystems, most noticeable in coral reefs, but also in any marine animal with a shell.

“Ocean acidification depletes seawater of the compounds that organisms need to build shells and skeletons, impairing the ability of corals, crabs, seastars, sea urchins, plankton, and other marine creatures to build the protective armor they need to survive. To make matters worse, fish and other ocean organisms may be adversely affected from the rise in acidity in their ocean habitat. Fish are common ocean prey, and plankton are at the base of the ocean food chain, so when these animals suffer, so do the countless animals that eat them. Ocean acidification could disrupt the entire marine ecosystem.” – Center for Biological Diversity

In order to try to mitigate the continued decline in ocean water pH, CO2 emissions must be reduced below our current levels, which will require regulatory action and controls.

“We must take immediate action to address ocean acidification or the impacts will be catastrophic. 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.” – Sakashita

The data and information on ocean acidification will be accepted by the EPA for 60 days, and if the agency requires stronger criteria for ocean water pH, then the Clean Water Act mandates that individual states must adopt water quality standards at least as strict as those of the agency. These standards may then affect regulations leading to stricter CO2 emissions policies, possible slowing the process of ocean acidification.

Image: jurvetson at Flickr under CC License

Related posts:

1. Busted! Bailin & Associates Fined for Clean Water Violations
2. World’s Biggest Garbage Dump? The Ocean
3. Clean Coal – Hope or Hype? (video)