Puget Sound becoming more acidic, study by UW scientists finds

Scientist reviewing data collected in the winter and summer of 2008 have determined that Hood Canal and Puget Sound's main basin are becoming more acidic. The study, conducted by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory and School of Oceanography, along with the Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, laid blame for much of the increasing acidification and corrosiveness of the waters on carbon dioxide absorption. They warn that the changing conditions could have dramatic impact on the region's shellfish industry in decades to come.

“We observed unusually low pH values in the deep waters of southern Hood Canal,” said Richard Feely, Ph.D., director of the Ocean Acidification Program at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, in an article on NOAA's website. “Our calculations suggest that ocean acidification can account for a significant part of the pH decrease in this region.”

In the same article, Jan Newton, Ph.D, of UW, said the study marked the first time combined impacts of ocean acidification and other natural and human-induced processes had been studied in a large estuary such as Puget Sound.

“We are concerned," she said, "that ocean acidification may be contributing to the recent loss of oyster larvae reported by oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest including within Puget Sound.”

The findings are scheduled to appear in the August issue of Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science.

For more on the story, see the Post Intelligencer story here.