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Pictured in Bath, Susie Arnold, a marine scientist at the Rockland-based Island Institute, is one of the leaders of the Maine Ocean and Coastal Acidification Partnership, a volunteer effort. Staff photo by Gregory Rec<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite a bipartisan recognition of a threat to Maine’s shellfish industry, leadership on the issue has fallen to a group of concerned volunteers.<\/p>\n At last week\u2019s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Germany, an issue of vital importance to Maine fishermen and shellfish growers took the international spotlight: the increasing acidity of the sea, which is making it harder for some shellfish to grow their shells.<\/p>\n The governors of Washington state and Oregon joined the fisheries minister of Fiji, the meeting\u2019s official host nation, to announce the expansion of a year-old international alliance to combat the problem. It now includes four states, two Canadian provinces and nine national governments.<\/p>\n Maine isn\u2019t one of them, nor was anyone from Maine state government at the conference.<\/p>\n Nearly three years ago, a bipartisan panel of experts convened by the Legislature concluded that ocean acidification \u2013 a byproduct of global warming \u2013 represented a potentially catastrophic threat to Maine\u2019s marine harvesters, and issued a series of recommendations<\/a> for Maine policymakers to enact, many of them focused on closing the information gap about the threat.<\/p>\n But state government and legislators have done little to implement the panel\u2019s recommendations. A Republican-sponsored bill to put a $3 million bond issue on the ballot that would have funded targeted data collection, monitoring, and assessments of the impact on wildlife and commercial fish species never got a floor vote, while lawmakers last year declined to endorse allowing the 16-member panel to continue its work.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a state whose identity and economy is so heavily dependent on marine resources, I think it is really shameful that we are not doing enough to look at the threats of changing ocean chemistry,\u201d says Bill Mook, founder of Mook Sea Farm, who had to develop water treatment systems after watching acidic water kill crop after crop of newly hatched oysters<\/a>. \u201cI think it\u2019s really abdicating responsibility by the leaders of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead, leadership has fallen to a volunteer group of Maine scientists and conservationists who, without state funding, are trying to coordinate the expansion of a monitoring system, apply for grants to fund research and participate in meetings with colleagues from other parts of the world working on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a volunteer partnership with no money, but this bottom-up, \u2018let\u2019s do it together and see what we can get done\u2019 is kind of a Maine story,\u201d says Aaron Strong, an assistant professor in marine policy at the University of Maine who sits on the ad hoc group\u2019s steering committee and attended Monday\u2019s international ocean alliance event in Bonn, Germany. \u201cWe\u2019re making substantive progress on all the recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Mick Devin, D-Newcastle, co-chaired the ocean acidification panel and is participating in the volunteer body that\u2019s replaced it, but he says it is no substitute for official action. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the weight of the state government bearing on the ocean acidification problem,\u201d he says. \u2018When the Legislature establishes policy for the state, it\u2019s there, it\u2019s concrete. But when we\u2019re forced to do it with volunteers and on a shoestring budget, it isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n A THREAT TO MARINE LIFE, INDUSTRIES<\/strong><\/p>\n Acidification, driven by increased carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and freshwater runoff from extreme rainfall in river basins, has been implicated in failures at oyster hatcheries and mussel farms, and has been shown to weaken clams and other shell-building animals vital to Maine\u2019s fishing and aquaculture industries. Nearly 90 percent of the value of Maine\u2019s commercial fish catch comes from such creatures.<\/p>\n Researchers in the Gulf of Maine have documented that free-floating softshell clam larvae avoid burrowing into more acidic mud, which means they spend more time exposed to predators as they seek appropriate habitat; that acidic water conditions stunt clam growth; and that baby oysters have so much trouble building their first shells in acid conditions they often die before they\u2019re completed. The effects on lobster \u2013 far and away Maine\u2019s most valuable fishery with a landed value of $630 million last year \u2013 remain unclear pending additional research.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an issue that\u2019s not going to go away and that we need to understand,\u201d says Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, who told legislators two years ago that the future of his industry was at stake.<\/p>\n With the official ocean acidification panel disbanded and the Legislature declining to endorse a bond to fund monitoring, many members of the panel decided to convene on a voluntary basis to keep momentum going. Members of the group, the Maine Ocean and Coastal Acidification Partnership<\/a>, have added ocean chemistry monitoring sites in Casco Bay, agreed among themselves what the priority research projects are to find funding for, and hold public meetings and seminars.<\/p>\n \u201cThe disadvantage is that it doesn\u2019t have the obvious public stamp of approval of being approved by the state, but we do have participation from the state agencies,\u201d says Susie Arnold, a marine scientist at the Rockland-based Island Institute who is one of the leaders of the effort. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of support from the state to have the departments participate mandatorily, but they have been coming on a voluntary basis, which we\u2019ve found is a really successful way for them to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Devin puts blame for inaction squarely on the governor. \u201cIt\u2019s the governor and a few of his minions that have blocked the ocean acidification bills,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to do anything environmental with Governor LePage in office.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Steele, a spokesman for Gov. Paul LePage, would not provide a statement on the administration\u2019s position and reasoning on the issue, forwarding instead a copy of former Environmental Protection Commissioner Patricia Aho\u2019s 2015 legislative testimony opposing the continued operation of the ocean acidification panel on the grounds that existing efforts were sufficient.<\/p>\n Unable to secure funds for monitoring and research, Devin says he personally made sure the wording of the $50 million research and development bond put forward to and approved by voters in June allowed applications for this purpose. University of Maine researchers are preparing an application for the associated grant competition administered by the Maine Technology Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cI counted this as a victory given who the governor is,\u201d Devin says bluntly.<\/p>\n FEDERAL LEVEL ALSO DISENGAGED <\/strong><\/p>\n The situation has parallels on the federal level, according to U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, the Democrat representing Maine\u2019s 1st District, who has for two years been trying to pass a bill<\/a> that would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the likely impacts of acidification on coastal communities and identify gaps in knowledge. It has four Republican co-sponsors \u2013 2nd District Rep. Bruce Poliquin is not one of them \u2013 but faces slim prospects on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s always a chance the Republicans will take it up, but the committee chair is particularly resistant to anything related to climate change,\u201d says Pingree, referring to Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, the panel that would review the bill.<\/p>\n The stakes for Maine, she says, are high. \u201cWe not only have an economic dependence on fisheries, but we have a very strong cultural dependence on fisheries and because ocean acidification concentrates its impacts on the shellfish industry and we don\u2019t know very much about it, it is very critical that we do more research and that we prepare for it.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House, for its part, is seeking to eliminate many of the programs<\/a> that fund key members of Maine\u2019s volunteer ocean acidification committee, including those supporting the University of Maine Sea Grant program<\/a> (whose website hosts its activities), the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership<\/a> (which maintains many of the monitoring devices), and the Wells Reserve<\/a> (which maintains another). However, neither chamber of the Republican-controlled Congress appears interested in cutting these programs<\/a>, according to current versions of their 2018 budget bills and reports.<\/p>\n