A novel experiment to study ways to slow climate change that includes dumping thousands of pounds of sodium hydroxide, commonly referred to as lye, into waters about nine miles from Nomans Land has raised concerns among some regional environmental entities and local fishery groups.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, or WHOI, applied for two ocean dumping permits to test a climate change mitigation technique in an experiment never done before. One of the permits would approve a phase of the study to take place off the Island’s coast over five days within a few months.
The experiment is a response to calls for increased research into marine carbon dioxide removal technologies, partly a result of an inability to rely solely on reducing carbon emissions.
Though the experiment hopes to investigate a potential technique to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some local and regional stakeholders, including the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, argue that the experiment poses hazards to marine life and lacks potential to be scaled up safely.
But scientists and federal officials say the experiment would outweigh any environmental concerns and that the substances used would be safe.
The area off the Island’s south coast was chosen partially because it is already a well-studied area. Also, the water has stratification tendencies — warm water on top separated by cold water on the bottom — in the late summer, which would be beneficial to the experiment.
The Vineyard Conservation Society, however, thinks the choice is suboptimal as an important commercial and recreational fishing area, site of current and future wind farms, and a feeding ground for an endangered whale species.
“While the proposed experiment may be small in comparative impact, we believe this area should be spared any additional pressure,” Jeremy Houser, director of science and policy at the Vineyard Conservation Society, said.
The location is merely a testing ground and not where the technique would ever be used on a larger scale, Suzanne Pelisson, public relations director for WHOI, told The Times.
WHOI associate researcher Dr. Adam Subhas applied for permits to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, in May. Officials with the federal agency have already said that the benefits of the experiment could outweigh any environmental damage, citing the project’s intentions to keep water quality mostly at drinking water standards.
The project is called LOC-NESS, also known as Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope (and the experiment doesn’t resemble the fabled sea creature from Scotland, though they share a similar name).
The first phase of the experiment involves the gradual release of 6,600 gallons of a sodium hydroxide solution approximately 9.5 miles south of Nomans Land. The release would take about 90 minutes and then be monitored for up to five days.
The researchers hope to test the effectiveness of ocean alkalinity enhancement, or OAE, as a technique to increase the ocean’s natural ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
The ocean naturally absorbs about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, but WHOI has suggested that adding a base, in this case sodium hydroxide, to the surface of the water would speed up that process. The carbon would then be stored in the ocean.
The compound proposed to be dumped off Nomans is a water-diluted solution where 50 percent is sodium hydroxide; it is simultaneously dispersed with another water-diluted solution that is 3 percent Rhodamine WT, a pink or dark red dye used to track movement. The alkalinity would be dispersed in a 250-meter radius circle.
The scientists would be able to measure changes in pH, alkalinity, and dissolved carbon for around 36 to 48 hours and follow the dye patch for a little longer. The team previously tested the effectiveness of the dye tracer to label a patch of water in August 2023.
If the initial leg of the experiment goes well, Phase 2 would take place next summer in the Wilkinson Basin, Gulf of Maine, 38 miles northeast of Cape Cod’s nearest shoreline. This stage would involve 66,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide disseminated for three to six hours and monitored for about 14 days.
The EPA doesn’t expect the experiment to cause any unacceptable adverse impacts of human health, the marine environment, or other uses of the ocean. “Upon review of the complete permit application for Phase 1, the EPA tentatively finds that the scientific merit of the proposed Phase 1 activities outweighs the potential environmental or other damage that may result from the activities,” the agency wrote. The same is true for Phase 2.
These research permits are tentatively supported by the EPA in accordance with the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, which regulates the intentional disposal of material into ocean waters.
The agency accepted public comments for consideration from May 30 until July 11.
Both individuals and groups submitted 80 comments to the agency. Many wrote in criticizing the experiment.
Environmental and a commercial fishing group have attempted to dissuade approval by the federal agency because they fear long-term impacts to the ocean ecology and doubt this experiment could lead to larger-scale climate change mitigation.
“I get it. People have been burned before…the oceans have been beat up. Caution is great,” Peter Raymond, Yale School of Environment professor and senior associate dean, said about pushback to these types of experiments. But for Raymond, the criticism isn’t “well-focused,” he said. He has trained as an oceanographer and studies the carbon cycle; he also has an interest in testing carbon-removing technologies.
Twenty years ago, most scientists weren’t fully engaged on natural climate solutions or carbon dioxide removal technology because the principal goal was to cut emissions, Raymond said. But about two or three years ago, that sentiment changed.
The message from the economists and policy makers shifted from the idea that carbon-removing technology would stray focus from cutting emissions to the understanding that both must happen. “Not only do we have to cut emissions, we have to actively remove [carbon dioxide] from the atmosphere in order to not enter catastrophic warming,” Raymond said.
Raymond is often part of larger discussions on whether or not marine carbon dioxide removal technologies can be safely scaled up sans human health and environmental impacts.
“These technologies need these initial experiments to determine their efficacy, if it’s even worth having those broader discussions, or do we have to think of other technologies,” he said.
“Our oceans in this region are warming faster than almost everywhere else on the planet,” Jennie Rheuban, research specialist of marine chemistry and geochemistry at WHOI and a co-principal investigator on the LOC-NESS project, said. “It’s not enough at this point to stop emitting carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
Ocean alkalinity enhancement is one of many strategies to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but Rheuban emphasized that the project isn’t endorsing this tactic.
“This is a research project designed to investigate the efficacy at how well does this strategy remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but also what are the potential environmental impacts of this work,” she said.
The flip side of increasing ocean storage of carbon is that when the ocean absorbs the gas, a type of acid forms that causes the waters to become more acidic, also known as ocean acidification. Ocean acidification has led to numerous issues, including softer clam shells. Rheuban argues, however, that OAE can help mitigate ocean acidification by raising the pH level. “It’s essentially turning back the clock of acidification,” she said.
But some don’t think the experiment is worth the risk.
“These experiments pose a significant threat to marine life, including endangered species. Further, they lack scientific merit, fail to consider a full life cycle assessment of environmental impacts, and are devoid of a plausible path for scale-up that is humane and safe,” Benjamin Day, senior campaigner for the Friends of the Earth U.S. nonprofit, wrote to the EPA.
Many commenters apart from Day were also concerned about the effect on marine life.
Sodium hydroxide can be dangerous to humans and animals; it’s actually caustic at a high concentration.
There are also innocuous uses for sodium hydroxide, however. Tisbury Water Works, for example, uses sodium hydroxide at 13 ppm to raise the pH of the town’s drinking water from about 6.5 to 7.5. It makes the water less acidic and safer to drink.
“It’s not harmful if you use it as a pH balancer,” James Cleary, Tisbury Water Works superintendent, said.
In this experiment, researchers estimate that within one minute after dispersal, sodium hydroxide would be 21 ppm, and then 9 ppm after the first hour.
Sodium hydroxide isn’t the only substance that can be used for ocean alkalinity enhancement. Other businesses and entities are also testing magnesium hydroxide and alkaline sand. Sodium hydroxide was chosen for this project because the material has very limited concentrations of other metals. The high purity ensures safety is maximized, Rheuban said.
The institute’s project designed and engineered the dispersal of sodium hydroxide so that the base dilutes rapidly and is within safe drinking water standards within a matter of minutes, Rheuban said. They expect pH levels to be below nine within about 30 seconds to a minute, she said, and that there would be a very limited environmental impact.
The EPA’s Water Quality Criteria for Aquatic Life in open ocean waters does state that pH shouldn’t change more than 0.2 units from natural variation, which would occur in this experiment.
“Initially, the pH will be significantly higher than 0.2 units outside the naturally occurring variation in pH. However, this feature will quickly be diluted on the timescale of hours to days back to baseline variation,” the proposal states.
Still, Day said organisms exposed to higher pH levels in that time period in the dispersal’s path could be permanently harmful or lethal.
And these waters are home to at least eight endangered species, as noted by others that submitted public comments to the EPA.
“These regions are important for commercial and recreational fishing because they are spawning grounds for commercially and recreationally important species, and provide habitat for many resident and migratory fish, invertebrates, sea turtles, and marine mammals,” Corrin Flora, marine resource management coordinator for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told The Times. “In addition, the Phase 1 area is an important North Atlantic right whale habitat.”
The project, as per EPA permit requirements, guarantees a marine mammals observer on board for the dispersal. If there’s a documented marine mammal or school of fish nearby, the observer can shut down the experiment immediately.
Some critics argued that an observer wouldn’t be able to see animals below, but because the experiment takes place on the surface as OAE has to interact with the atmosphere to be effective, Rheuban said they don’t pose as much of a risk.
Regardless, there “is no guarantee that upon seeing a marine mammal, the observer could stop the experiment in time to prevent the creature from coming into direct contact with the chemical,” Day said in his comment to the EPA.
The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association also fears for the long-term implications of the projects on commercial lobstermen, which are already “under siege” from offshore wind, increased predations, and settlement decline, they said. Association executive director Beth Casoni worries about increased carbon stored in the ocean and how alkaline might impact commercial fishermen “in ways we will not even know of until [it’s] already done,” she wrote to the EPA.
The department of marine resources for Maine and others don’t see how researchers have the ability to measure impacts as well.
Though Rhueban said that they can measure how much carbon dioxide goes from the atmosphere into the ocean, measuring the storage of the carbon for a long period of time is much more challenging.
The carbon storage signal is going to be small because of rapid dilution, but measurable, she said.
This is what worries the department. The project goals don’t seem achievable while maintaining water quality for marine life with quick dilution. Should future projects be scaled up — which it would need to do to have an impact on climate change — they’d need to cover larger regions of the ocean.
In their statement to the EPA, the department cautioned the agency against setting a precedent that could “impact already impaired ocean communities and economically important species populations.”
Other comments agreed that they couldn’t see how the experiment could be scaled up safely.
Rheuban addressed these concerns, emphasizing that this project is designed to be phased. “The goal of the LOC-NESS project is to test the efficacy,” she said. “How good is this technique at actually removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? And what are the environmental impacts of that through our sampling? And then also, what are the tools that are actually needed to verify that carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored reliably in the ocean for longer periods of time?”
“The next step in the phase of this research is to try to actually do this at a small enough scale, but out in the field,” she added. “Part of this work is to essentially throw the entire kitchen sink at the sampling and the monitoring for this experiment, to try to evaluate what are the best tools to do that…both from the perspective of the environmental impacts, but also from a carbon perspective.”
But environmentalists are weary. “If these experiments cannot be safely scaled up, it calls into question the value of measuring alkalinity dispersion and impacts on one particular patch of ocean at all,” Day wrote.
Rheuban also noted that some critics have questioned the material’s life cycle analysis, carbon emissions needed to produce and transport sodium hydroxide. But that isn’t the purpose of this work, she said.
Day disagrees that if the project hopes to bring about a reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, then carbon emissions caused by the supply chain, transportation, and deployment of sodium hydroxide should be measured.
But to Rheuban, that’s not critical at this stage. “The goal is really to try to provide concrete, independent scientific information for managers and regulators to be able to make decisions as to whether or not ocean alkalinity enhancement as a strategy should be pursued,” she said.
The project is tentatively supported by the EPA in their permitting process but is awaiting final determination pending an analysis of public comments and reviews from other agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Phase 1 of the experiment was proposed to take place between August 2 and 12, but after the EPA extended the comment period for the permit application from July 1 to July 11, WHOI had to shift back their proposed start date.
“While EPA intends to follow the process under the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act — implementing regulations as expeditiously as possible — the agency does not have a specific date by when final determinations will be made,” a spokesperson from the media relations office told The Times Monday.
