CDF warns of experiment with iron dust near Galapagos Marine Reserve

Press Release
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos – June 14, 2007

An unwelcome visitor, is skirting the borders of the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR): iron dust. Why would one of the most important World Heritage Sites be facing this? Planktos, Inc., a for-profit eco-restoration company based in San Francisco, US, has chosen the international waters near the Galapagos Islands to experiment seeding the oceans with iron dust. The Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) is alarmed about this activity because of the unknown effects it could have on marine life and other ecosystems in Galapagos. Since Planktos, Inc's experiment does not have an Evironmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which guarantees that no harm will be done to the GMR, Charles Darwin Foundation expresses its worry for this unnecessary and risky bet. According to a document released by the US International Maritime Organization on June 1st, the experiments will begin in late June 2007. The same document states that Planktos, Inc. will not use the Weatherbird II, a United States' flagged vessel, nor will the chosen ship leave from US shores as originally planned to avoid being subject to the United States Ocean Dumping Act. Planktos, Inc intends to seed the oceans with the iron dust to stimulate phytoplankton blooms, the microscopic marine plants that soak up the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide in organic matter, and in that way supposedly revert the global warming. This activity of great concern to the CDF also worries the international scientific community because the potential environmental impacts of the project are unknown. "The 'iron hypothesis' was first suggested by John Martin, an oceanographer at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory in California, who died before his idea could be properly tested", said the British newspaper The Independent on May 3rd, 2007 Stuart Banks, an oceanographer with the CDF, is worried about how the unique ocean current system influencing Galapagos could move the iron dust into and around the GMR. Said Banks, "Surface flow would transport most of the surface iron initially to the west. Although a proportion would be metabolized rapidly by surface blooms pushing eastwards, a proportion may sink and return to the reserve in the opposing equatorial undercurrent or via the north ecuatorial current in the surface, then back down through Galapagos". Unknown effects could come into play upon normal microbial processes and create possible toxic effects upon fish and other animals living in the open seas rather than exclusively near land. The phytoplankton/ zooplankton groups at the dust release site could be damaged as well. Another fear is that the presence of iron dust could imbalance the natural oxygen's amount into the water, causing serious problems to some marine life. "Isolated iron dust seeding will probably generate short lived phytoplankton blooms that are ineffective given their objective to improve CO2 sequestration in deep water. Just constitutive release of trace iron as found with natural processes such as along shore, or wind-driven upwelling support high productivity systems over time", according to Banks. CDF researchers fear that large events offshore potentially may deplete nitrates and phosphates, otherwise metabolized where those natural upwelling processes (and their dependant communities) occur, causing imbalance and impoverished systems in other places. Is it worth the risk to be experimenting with one of nature's greatest and best-preserved treasures? The CDF believes that without an environmental impact assessment to validate this experiment so close to Galapagos there is more to lose than to gain. On a global scale the answer to global warming is to review how as individuals and nations we can be more carbon-neutral and not expect the oceans to solve the problems for us.