Category: Water quality

Latest Puget Sound marine waters overview now available

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Announcement from the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program: Today, the Puget Sound Marine Waters Work Group of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program released the eleventh annual report on marine water conditions in Puget Sound. The report combines a wealth of data from comprehensive monitoring programs and provides a concise summary of what was happening in Puget Sound’s marine waters during 2022. It covers areas such as climate and weather, river inputs, seawater temperature, salinity, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification, phytoplankton, biotoxins, bacteria and pathogens, shellfish resources, and more. The […]

Puget Sound ecosystem holding on, but recovery remains uncertain, says latest status report

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Efforts to restore ecological health to Puget Sound have largely failed to meet recovery goals, yet fish and wildlife populations are still hanging on, according to a new report that describes many struggling populations as neither increasing nor decreasing to a significant extent. The latest State of the Sound report, released last week by the Puget Sound Partnership, reveals the ongoing difficulty of recovering the Puget Sound ecosystem in the face of rapid population growth, climate change and a legacy of pollution and habitat damage. Yet the report, produced every […]

Warm ocean waters work their way into Puget Sound

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Unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean — now pushing up against the Washington coast — are keeping oceanographers on alert for changes that could reverberate through the food web, potentially affecting fish, birds and marine mammals in coastal waters and in Puget Sound. Rising ocean temperatures may be related to recent sightings of warm-water fish not usually seen in the Northwest, including a bluefin tuna that washed up on Orcas Island and large schools of mackeral observed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Worrisome levels of domoic acid, […]

Salish Sea Model tracks pollution, currents and climate change

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This article is the latest in a series about computer models and their uses within the Puget Sound ecosystem. Today, we look at the Salish Sea Model, one of several models in the region helping to predict water circulation, water quality and food-web relationships. Read the full series: Where and how the water moves The waters of Puget Sound contain complex chemical mixtures arising from natural and human sources. The waters are blended and pushed around by currents and other physical forces, creating conditions that vary from place to place. […]

Symposium grapples with long-lasting PCBs

An aerial image of the lower Duwamish River as it flows into Puget Sound. The river is heavily contaminated with PCBs and other toxic chemicals. Photo courtesy of NOAA.
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Researchers at the Puget Sound Institute hosted a two-day symposium last month to share information about the science and management of PCBs in the environment. The online workshops, held January 24th and 25th, were organized by PSI researchers Andy James, Joel Baker, and Marielle Larson, in coordination with colleagues Will Hobbs (Washington State Department of Ecology) and Katrina Radach (PSP), along with Greg Allen and Doug Austin (US EPA Chesapeake Bay). Despite their ban in the U.S. in 1979, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) remain one of the most pressing and stubborn […]

The quest continues for a nutrient reduction plan

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The quest continues for a large-scale plan to reduce human sources of nitrogen and improve the health of Puget Sound. This article is part of the Puget Sound Institute’s effort to explore the technical uncertainties related to the science of Puget Sound water quality. The project, jointly funded by King County and PSI, includes online workshops and discussions, along with informational blogs and articles. By Christopher Dunagan Human sources of nitrogen in Puget Sound have been blamed for increasing the intensity of algae blooms, lowering oxygen to critical levels, and […]

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. Against this smoky backdrop, a group of policymakers, tribal leaders […]

Six things that people should know about ecosystem modeling and virtual experiments

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The Puget Sound Institute is facilitating a series of online workshops and discussions to explore the technical uncertainties related to the science of Puget Sound water quality. As part of the project, we are publishing informational blogs and articles, including this look at how computer models are becoming increasingly important to our understanding of the natural world. The project is jointly sponsored by King County and the Puget Sound Institute. By Christopher Dunagan If you are planning a hike, picnic or other outdoor activity, it might be wise to take a look at the local […]

North Pacific expedition gets underway aboard four ocean-going research ships

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A North Pacific research expedition is underway, with projects said to be bigger, bolder and more scientifically sophisticated than cruises in 2019 and 2020. Four research vessels carrying more than 60 scientists from various countries will span out across the Pacific Ocean to increase their understanding of salmon — including migration, environmental stresses, availability of prey and risks from predators. Researchers aboard a U.S. ship operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration left from Port Angeles this morning. There has never been a research cruise as involved as this […]

Ecology, EPA now under the gun to adopt new water quality criteria for aquatic creatures

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Long delays in updating state water-quality standards to protect orcas, fish and other aquatic species appear to have finally caught up with the Washington Department of Ecology and its federal counterpart, the Environmental Protection Agency. In a court ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle found that Ecology has “abdicated its duties” to update certain water-quality standards, as required by the federal Clean Water Act. Meanwhile, she said, EPA has failed to meet its legal oversight obligations to ensure that adequate water-quality standards are protective of aquatic […]