Our May 9th report on the discovery of opioids in Puget Sound mussels continues to be picked up by many national and international news organizations. The research was conducted by PSI’s Andy James in collaboration with scientists at the Puget Sound Mussel Monitoring Program at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Traces of oxycodone […]
January 29, 2018
PSI welcomes Tanya Roberts as Research Scientist
Tanya Roberts is PSI’s newest research scientist, and comes to us from the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Environmental Assessment Program. While with Ecology (2005–2012; 2016–2017), Tanya worked with teams monitoring natural resources throughout the state, assessing groundwater, forest streams, and toxics, as well as serving as a data coordinator for a variety of Ecology […]
January 29, 2018
Dispatches: Herring rescue
A Puget Sound scientist’s work is never done. PSI’s Lead Ecosystem Ecologist Tessa Francis sent us this e-mail about a recent call to identify some wayward fish on Vashon Island. It didn’t hurt that she happens to study the same species of fish — Pacific herring — as part of her research at PSI. By Tessa […]
January 5, 2018
Study looks at climate change impacts on zooplankton
PSI’s Lead Ecosystem Ecologist Tessa Francis is co-author of a paper describing the impacts of climate change on freshwater zooplankton communities. The 2017 paper in the journal Climate Change Responses analyzes plankton communities in an Alaskan lake and predicts that some copepods in the study area will decline while other plankton such as cladocerans will […]
December 6, 2017
What makes stormwater toxic?
Stormwater may be Puget Sound’s most well-known pollutant, and at the same time its least known. While the state has called stormwater Puget Sound’s largest source of toxic contaminants, scientists are still having a tough time answering two basic questions about it: What is stormwater, exactly, and what does it do? Our magazine Salish Sea […]
November 27, 2017
PSI social scientist receives EPA early career award
PSI visiting scholar and lead social scientist Kelly Biedenweg has received a $400,000 EPA early career award to study the connection between human wellbeing and ecosystem health in Puget Sound. Biedenweg is currently an assistant professor at Oregon State University and the award continues some of the work she began at PSI to establish Human Wellbeing […]
September 20, 2017
Interview: Can ’Silicon Valley North’ change the way we think about Salish Sea recovery?
By Jeff Rice, Puget Sound Institute A strong economy driven by a world-leading technology industry is expected to draw millions of new residents to the Salish Sea region within decades. This changing population brings with it new strains on the environment but also new perspectives. Incoming residents may not see Puget Sound the same way […]
September 8, 2017
New project searches for contaminants of emerging concern
PSI research scientist Andy James has been funded by the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Estuary Program to identify contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the waters of Puget Sound. There are literally thousands of man-made chemicals known as CECs circulating in local waters, but very little is known about their impacts on wildlife. They are […]
September 8, 2017
Detecting organic contaminants in highway runoff and fish tissue
This much we know: Stormwater is nasty stuff. The state of Washington has called it one of the leading threats to the Puget Sound ecosystem — it can kill salmon within hours and it contributes to all kinds of health problems for species ranging from orcas to humans. What we don’t know is exactly what’s […]
September 8, 2017
PSI scientists are working to identify chemicals in stormwater
This much we know: Stormwater is nasty stuff. The state of Washington has called it one of the leading threats to the Puget Sound ecosystem. It can kill salmon within hours and it contributes to all kinds of health problems for species ranging from orcas to humans. What we don’t know, however, is exactly what’s […]