Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding

Posted by: Krijack

Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/30/19 11:00 AM

After all these years, has there been any new information about the overall effect the seeding had. From what I can see, there were a ton of articles about the horrible long term effects. In the short term, the only possible short term consequence I could find documented was this "The largest run of Pink salmon occurred between 12 and 20 months after the HSRC’s iron seeding. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the 2013 pink salmon harvest was the second most valuable on record. In the northeast Pacific, the Speaker reports that salmon catches have surged from 50 million to 226 million. In BC’s Fraser River, catches shot past the average 25 million to an unprecedented 72 million." Since then, the there has been very little said or reported on what scientists feel resulted. Most likely, from what I have seen, most feel that any effect was too small to register in terms of carbon sequestration. If this is true, then could it be argued that it had minimal or no negative effects while possibly having a large positive effect, at least towards ocean productivity? I really don't know as I can not find much follow up and am hoping someone might have some better answers. If nothing else, it might just be a great little tibet for my kids to through back at the 20 years to live crowd. I mean, if we are all going to be dead in 20 years, what difference would it make if it turned out to harm the ocean, right? Seriously though, I do wonder it anyone knows what the long term effect of the experiment was. Thanks
Posted by: Tug 3

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/30/19 08:47 PM

I was just thinking about this issue the other day. I hope someone has some info. Wouldn't it be great to fix some of our waters?
Posted by: snit

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/31/19 06:24 AM

I must have been living under a rock, as I missed the entire story back in the day. I had to google it up. Quite interesting, and like everything else do your own investigating as there's always to sides to a story (2 sides to a dollar bill too, follow the money I always say...)
Posted by: Bay wolf

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/31/19 09:22 AM

Originally Posted By: snit
I must have been living under a rock, as I missed the entire story back in the day. I had to google it up. Quite interesting, and like everything else do your own investigating as there's always to sides to a story (2 sides to a dollar bill too, follow the money I always say...)


Absolutely. And it cost a lot of money to "seed" the ocean. You can bet this isn't being considered out of altruistic motives.

As quoted in an article out of BC in April 2016:

One prominent scientist who agreed to provide advice is Ricardo Letelier of Oregon State University,

Letelier said in an interview that he supports the scientific goals of the project but has concerns over the commercial applications and the way the experiment rolls out. There also needs to be an agreement among the scientific community about how these findings can be used, he said.

"These kinds of experiments, if they are well done, can provide a lot of advancement in our understanding of the complexities of ecosystem dynamics in the open ocean," said Letelier, who is originally from Chile.

"You cannot really do them without addressing the fundamental question of why you're doing this. If you're doing it for commercial purposes then I think you are doing it for the wrong reasons."
.....end.....

The real fear is that this is being driven for purely monetary gain for commercial fisheries. And by artificially increasing yield and thus harvest, it sets up the entire ecosystem for a catastrophic disaster if (when) something goes wrong.
Posted by: Carcassman

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/31/19 09:48 AM

"artificially increasing yield, and this harvest, it sets up the entire ecosystem for a catastrophic disaster if (when) something goes wrong." Now, that has never, ever happened before. Is there any time where we have artificially increased yield and not had it blow up our faces?
Posted by: Bay wolf

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/31/19 10:18 AM

Originally Posted By: Carcassman
"artificially increasing yield, and this harvest, it sets up the entire ecosystem for a catastrophic disaster if (when) something goes wrong." Now, that has never, ever happened before. Is there any time where we have artificially increased yield and not had it blow up our faces?


Right?
Posted by: darth baiter

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 12/31/19 10:43 AM

Skimming through the various google search articles on this event, it appears that this was mostly a con job by a California businessman to get some money ($2.5M) from a Haida Gwaii community under the guise of increasing plankton which would feed salmon and also create carbon credits. The salmon part was the carrot for the money from the Haida Gwaii village, the carbon credit part was probably what the CA business guy thought he could make the real financial killing on. The project was described as dumping 100 metric tonnes of "iron fertilizer" in a 1 Km area in a known current eddy about 200 KM off of Haida Gwaii. Description of post application assessment was not included in the project by the sponsors. But they said "it worked". Even though that's a lotta fertilizer, it's a nightly big ocean and it's hard to think that the effect would be anything other than short term and localized and only by chance would some salmon benefit.
Posted by: Krijack

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 01/02/20 01:03 PM

I think it is clear that the original experiment was done poorly and with questionable motives, but the fact remains that there were a lot of doomsday type predictions. There was talk of criminally prosecuting people involved. Then, as time went by, it simply disappears from any real discussion among scientists. There is still a movement abroad to test seeding, but the opposition is stiff. If scientists really believed the earth was doomed, it seems they would be more open to experiments, regardless of the chance of some long term negative effects. The fact that they are not, leads me to question the true movement against global warming. Is the lack of follow up and opposition to further testing due to economics? I talked to my kids, who are constantly bombarded with the dangers of global warming. None of them had heard of the theory of carbon sequestration through iron seeding. One has to weigh the cost vs. benefit. Imagine if we could end deforestation in the amazon through proper fertilization of the existing soil. One may argue run off would damage the ecosystem, but a unless a full study is done, it would be impossible to tell the cost vs. benefit. Right now it does not appear anyone has a cost benefit for seeding, nor are there any real plans to do one. This seems very strange, as it could be the best approach to combat global warming. Just because there are strong motivations that are different from the primary motivation of combating global warming does not necessarily make seeding wrong. There is a strong economic benefit to planting trees, but also a strong environmental benefit. In fact, in some cases, land owners can also get carbon credits through forestry practices.
From the response here, it does not appear anyone has any solid reports of damage done by the Haida Gwaii seeding. If you have heard of any, I would love to hear about it. The fact is, I am looking but still have not found any.
Posted by: bushbear

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 01/03/20 04:58 PM

Just pulled this link from Smithsonian magazine about the impacts of iron on the environment and its possible impacts on ice ages.....an interesting read.

The next to the last article mentions the Haida Gwaii experiment.

"Meanwhile, the controversy over iron fertilization as a geoengineering approach rages on. As the vision of a climate-tweaking tool has waned, some companies have attempted to apply the idea to revitalize fisheries. In a highly controversial 2012 example, American businessman Russ George persuaded members of the Haida Nation to fund the dumping of roughly 100 tons of iron sulfate off the coast of Canada, fertilizing a 10,000-square-kilometer algae bloom. George sold the controversial project as a way to boost salmon populations and sequester carbon, but follow-up studies failed to find conclusive evidence that it worked."


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n...ange-180973893/
Posted by: NickD90

Re: Hiada Gwaii Iron Seeding - 01/04/20 08:16 AM

Originally Posted By: bushbear
Just pulled this link from Smithsonian magazine about the impacts of iron on the environment and its possible impacts on ice ages.....an interesting read.

The next to the last article mentions the Haida Gwaii experiment.

"Meanwhile, the controversy over iron fertilization as a geoengineering approach rages on. As the vision of a climate-tweaking tool has waned, some companies have attempted to apply the idea to revitalize fisheries. In a highly controversial 2012 example, American businessman Russ George persuaded members of the Haida Nation to fund the dumping of roughly 100 tons of iron sulfate off the coast of Canada, fertilizing a 10,000-square-kilometer algae bloom. George sold the controversial project as a way to boost salmon populations and sequester carbon, but follow-up studies failed to find conclusive evidence that it worked."


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n...ange-180973893/


That was a very informative article. I'd hypothesize that a potential reason for the less-than-expected results is the fact that the Ocean is a HUGE space with constantly moving water (dilution). It's next to impossible to have an unspoiled 'control sample' within that environment because you are not really in 'control' of any part of said environment. Look at the Marshall Islands and Fukashima as examples of dilution. Radiation is still around the immediate source sites, but it drastically tapers off once you get a very short distance away. The ocean is very good at cleaning herself.