June 26, 2014 — With more than $400 million at stake in terms of fishing income, Maine has decided to try to do something about ocean acidification.
This past spring, the Legislature took up the matter of ocean acidification, which many scientists say threatens the health of much of ocean life. Increasing acidity levels in the world’s oceans has been blamed for dead or dying coral reefs in warmer climates and, in Maine, on the spread of lobster shell disease into the state’s cooler ocean climate.
State legislators passed a bill into law that creates a 16-member commission that will look into the issue and make recommendations for how it should be addressed. The new state law is the first on the East Coast that takes a direct approach in trying to address the problem, according to its supporters.
“We who work on the ocean observe the day-to-day effects of small changes in climate and the destruction caused by such things as ocean acidification,” Richard Nelson, a Friendship fisherman, said in a prepared statement about the new law. “We [fishermen] are solely dependent on a resource that must be managed intelligently and effectively in order for it to remain healthy and available to us.”
Nelson is one of seven members of the commission who have been appointed by Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher.
The economic implications of ocean acidification are significant in Maine, where commercial fishermen earned more than half a billion dollars in gross revenues in 2013. Species that depend on hard outer shells for survival are viewed as especially vulnerable to increasing ocean acidity.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News