Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change · Wil Burns and Anna Madlener

Community Engagement and Trial Monitoring with Ebb Carbon’s Kyla Westphal and Dr. Mallory Ringham

·48 min·3 clips

Ebb Carbon developed a juvenile coho salmon study with a local tribe before selecting its Washington site.

1. Plan C covers Ebb Carbon’s community engagement, permitting, and monitoring plans for Project Macoma in Washington State. 2. Host Will Burns, co-executive director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, leads the regulatory discussion with co-host Anna Madlainer, MRV manager at the Carbon to Sea Initiative. 3. Kyla Westphal and chemical oceanographer Mallory Ringham explain how Ebb Carbon is preparing a first-of-a-kind ocean alkalinity enhancement pilot while addressing regulatory, ecological, and community concerns. 4. Kyla Westphal says Ebb Carbon’s safe-deployment framework rests on permitting and regulatory approval, ecological safety, and stakeholder engagement. 5. Ebb Carbon’s electrochemical ocean alkalinity enhancement approach uses the ocean and inorganic carbon cycle to address atmospheric carbon dioxide. 6. Ebb Carbon previously demonstrated its technology with Pacific Northwest National Lab SQUIM before planning a temporary pilot near Port Angeles. 7. Kyla says Washington State was selected partly because Puget Sound faces ocean acidification and 30% of its species are vulnerable to that pressure. 8. Ebb Carbon engaged the shellfish industry, treaty tribes, local groups, and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission before selecting a specific site. 9. A local tribe donated juvenile coho salmon for a laboratory study designed to simulate conditions the salmon might encounter in the wild. 10. Kyla says Ebb Carbon was willing to cancel the project if tribal communities did not want it located in their area. 11. Ebb Carbon is exploring further research with tribal partners, including experiments involving shellfish. 12. Ebb Carbon is also developing educational materials with the Fiero Marine Center and considering outreach to a nearby yacht club’s sailing program. 13. Project Macoma required a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit because it discharges alkaline-enhanced seawater from a point source. 14. Kyla explains that the permit regulates pH and other water-quality effects at the edge of prescribed mixing zones rather than treating the project as a conventional pollutant source. 15. Mallory says permit monitoring includes input alkalinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, total suspended solids, metals, aquatic vegetation, and sediment. 16. Mallory distinguishes immediate near-field changes in pH and alkalinity from atmospheric carbon dioxide uptake, which can take days, weeks, months, or years. 17. Ebb Carbon has collected more than a year of chemistry data to characterize seasonal and tidal variation around its Washington pilot site. 18. The hosts discuss how near-field mixing-zone models must connect with regional Salish Sea models used for ecosystem management, fisheries, and nutrient pollution. 19. Climate-technology practitioners, ocean scientists, regulators, and coastal communities. 20. Listeners seeking a short, nontechnical discussion of climate solutions.

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