A 43-year-old male orca named Mega, now missing and presumed dead, was one of the first new calves that researcher Ken Balcomb spotted when he began his extensive census of Southern Resident killer whales back in 1976. Ken didn’t know it at the time, but the baby orca — one of nine born in 1977 — would grow to become a large, powerful whale, living up to his name by fathering at least 20 offspring of his own. Designated L41, Mega was around throughout Ken’s career at the Center for […]
When thinking of air pollution, I used to think only of breathing toxic chemicals into our lungs, with uncertain health effects. That’s bad enough, but air pollution — which is everywhere — is also getting into our waterways and penetrating deep into our food webs. Rivers, lakes and Puget Sound, no body of water escapes toxic chemicals dropping out of the sky. Until recently, I never gave much thought to the chemicals riding on air currents, secretly falling to the ground, especially during rainstorms. I began to look at the […]
It is the year 2020. You could say that the time has run out for restoring Puget Sound to a healthy condition. But time marches on. When the Legislature created the Puget Sound Partnership in 2007, lawmakers included this sentence in state law: “It is the goal of the state that the health of Puget Sound be restored by 2020.” The Partnership then proceeded to establish “Vital Signs indicators” to measure progress along the path to restoration, along with “targets” that describe the conditions that should be observed by 2020. […]
It was fairly alarming, even to scientists, to hear the latest research regarding ocean acidification — a powerful change in ocean chemistry that results from excess carbon dioxide passing from the atmosphere into the oceans of the world. One of the most alarming reports came from Richard Feely, senior scientist at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. Dick talked about how changes in ocean chemistry will soon accelerate, with damaging consequences, as the ocean’s buffering capacity begins to break down. It’s all a bit technical, but I worked carefully […]
Welcome to “Our Water Ways,” a new blog I’m writing for the Puget Sound Institute with a name that will sound familiar to some. For the past 12 years, I’ve been writing a blog called “Watching Our Water Ways” for the Kitsap Sun. Now, my blogging efforts will have a new home. I’ve outlined the reasons for the move in a farewell blog post on the “Watching Our Water Ways” website. It makes sense to publish my blog on the PSI website, where I have been writing in-depth stories about […]
