Author: Jeff Rice

Ed Kolodziej among finalists for Frontiers Planet Prize

Wearing safety goggles, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe (far left), Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland and Congressman Derek Kilmer watch Dr. Ed Kolodziej as he demonstrates the innovative methods researchers at UW Tacoma's Center for Urban Waters used to identify tire derivative 6PPD-quinone as a killer of coho salmon. Photo by Jeff Rice.
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Puget Sound Institute affiliate Dr. Ed Kolodziej is one of 20 finalists for the prestigious Frontiers Planet Prize honoring “impactful research breakthroughs” in global sustainability science. Kolodziej was selected by an international jury as the United States representative earning him the title of National Champion and advancing him to compete for a prize of one million Swiss francs (about $1.1 million dollars) to support future research. Recipients of the award will be announced on April 27th in Montreux, Switzerland. The prize is sponsored by the Frontiers Research Foundation, a non-profit […]

PUGET SOS brings new funding and a federal makeover

The U.S. Capitol building
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Recently passed federal legislation has increased funding to protect Puget Sound while also changing the way ecosystem recovery efforts are organized. The legislation includes key provisions of the PUGET SOS Act and establishes a national office for Puget Sound recovery based at the Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle. The end of 2022 marked a seismic shift for Puget Sound recovery efforts. Over the course of less than a week in late December, two landmark pieces of legislation were signed and enacted by President Biden. One of them, known informally as […]

A new oral history project looks at the unique development of natural resource policy in Washington state 

From left right: Nisqually Tribe Chairman Willy Frank III, Jim Wilcox of Wilcox Family Farms, and Nisqually Tribe Natural Resource Director David Troutt are shown in a still image from the TVW/Collaborative Leadership Project.
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Our affiliates at the Center for Urban Waters and external partners will examine 50 years of collaborative leadership in the state leading to groundbreaking outcomes on forest, fish, wildlife, land, and water management. Funding secured to date includes generous gifts and pledges from Anchor QEA, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, the Nisqually Tribe, the Puget Sound Partnership, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, the Squaxin Island Tribe, the Suquamish Tribe/Suquamish Foundation, the City of Tacoma, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Washington State University. Billy Frank Jr. was just […]

A network of computer models is predicting the future of Puget Sound

Tacoma Narrows Bridge viewed from Gig Harbor side https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcollinsphoto/47070840014/in/photostream/
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A new $4.8 million dollar project led by the Puget Sound Institute links together a series of computer models to explore future scenarios across the watershed. Some of Puget Sound’s biggest concerns hold the greatest uncertainties.  Will we have clean water? Can the ecosystem sustain species like endangered salmon? How can the region continue to grow and still maintain healthy habitats for wildlife and people? What, in other words, is the future of Puget Sound? No one can travel through time to answer these questions firsthand (science has its limits), […]

Event celebrates the anniversary of the Clean Water Act and new funding for Puget Sound

EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe gave a speech about new federal funding for the environment while visiting the Center for Urban Waters in Tacoma.
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It could have been mistaken for a foggy morning along the waterfront, but the occasional coughs and burning eyes among the crowd of 60 or so people gathered here last Wednesday told a different story. Like much of the Northwest, Tacoma was shrouded in a haze of smoke from a spate of forest fires giving it and its neighbor Seattle the dubious distinction of having some of the worst air quality in the world, topping places like Delhi and Beijing. A group of policymakers, tribal leaders and elected officials were […]

Magazine series looks at salmon returns in the Elwha River

View of the Elwha River above the site of the former Glines Canyon Dam in 2021. Photo: Sylvia Kantor
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It has been more than ten years since the first of the Elwha River’s two dams was breached, and scientists are gaining new perspectives on the resilience of that ecosystem and its species. The dramatic sight of a river suddenly running free, and the swift return of its salmon has captured the public’s imagination. But a key factor driving the return of the Elwha’s fish populations is less visible. It exists in the microscopic realm, in the genes of the species. We are pleased to kick off a new series this week […]

New paper describes PSI’s support of ecosystem-based management

The Center for Urban Waters along the Foss Waterway in Tacoma
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Right now, researchers across Puget Sound are carefully measuring the salinity and temperature of the water, searching for harmful algal blooms and studying the feeding patterns of endangered orcas. They are testing the effects of ocean acidification, counting rockfish and checking the health of our declining kelp forests. Their scope includes salmon genetics and invasive crabs, the flow of rivers and streams. They study thousands of different species and thousands of miles of winding shoreline across a region the size of a small state. Within this region are two pristine national […]

Is it found in Puget Sound?

Map of Puget Sound
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The Puget Sound and Salish Sea watersheds contain many incredible geographic features, but it’s not always easy to tell which ones are truly part of the region. Does Puget Sound really include three active volcanoes? (Yes! See above.) How far north does the Salish Sea extend? And does that reach as far as Canada’s wonderfully named Octopus Islands? (We would hope so.) To help answer questions like these, we have created a simple overlay in Google Maps that includes the geo-referenced boundaries of our ecosystem. We hope you will bookmark it […]

Seattle Aquarium honors work conducted at the Center for Urban Waters

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Congratulations to our recent affiliate Dr. Zhenyu Tian for receiving the Seattle Aquarium’s Conservation Research Award! Tian, who is now an assistant professor at Northeastern University, has been recognized by the Aquarium for his work in 2020 to identify a chemical from automobile tires that has been killing Coho salmon in Puget Sound. Tian and a team of scientists at our parent organization the Center for Urban Waters discovered the deadly compound 6PPD-Quinone which has been leaching into stormwater. Research leading up to the discovery was done in collaboration with many […]

Call for student science writers to report on SSEC 2022

Salish Sea Currents magazine cover image
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The University of Washington Puget Sound Institute is sponsoring up to 10 student writers to report short (300-word) stories about science findings presented at the upcoming Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. The conference will be held online April 26-28. We are offering $200 per story and can cover conference registration costs. Successful writers will publish their work in our magazine Salish Sea Currents. Writers will also be encouraged to promote their work through social media. The project will include a two-hour pre-conference orientation meeting in early April. Preference will be given to […]

A treasure trove of ‘big ideas’ for Puget Sound

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A series of reports from the Puget Sound Institute will synthesize key findings from close to 100 projects funded over the past five years by the Environmental Protection Agency.  Six years ago, the EPA authorized more than $20 million dollars for projects to protect, restore and study critical habitats like beaches and floodplains in Puget Sound. The result is what PSI research scientist Aimee Kinney describes as a treasure trove of new information that will help guide future Puget Sound recovery efforts. “These are the big ideas of the last five […]

Modeling “the blob” in the Salish Sea

Map showing a marine heat wave known as "the blob" which spread across the northeastern Pacific Ocean from 2014 to 2016. Image: Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory, Data: Coral Reef Watch
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In late 2013, a marine heatwave that scientists dubbed “the blob” began warming the ocean throughout the Northeast Pacific, causing temperatures to rise almost 3°C above normal. The disruption severely depressed salmon returns. Whales, sea lions and seabirds starved, and warm water creatures were suddenly being spotted off the coast of Alaska. In Puget Sound, temperatures also jumped, but the effects of the blob here proved difficult to study because of the natural variability of the Salish Sea and the heavy influence of freshwater mixing and circulation in the waterbody. Recently, computer simulations from our partners at the Salish Sea Modeling […]