Pacific herring exposed to stormwater in Puget Sound show some of the same effects as fish exposed to major oil spills. Symptoms include heart and developmental problems. Read the story from Katie Keil in our magazine Salish Sea Currents.
February 5, 2018
New Puget Sound herring research
Herring may not be the most charismatic species in Puget Sound. They don’t breach dramatically out of the water. Fish mongers don’t throw them through the air at Pike Place Market. They find their strength in numbers, schooling around by the thousands and serving as food for other creatures like seabirds, salmon and seals. But […]
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 […]
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 […]
December 1, 2017
The perils of holiday glitter
By Jeff Rice, Puget Sound Institute You might want to think twice before adding that extra bit of sparkle this holiday season. A growing number of environmental activists and scientists are saying it’s time to hold the glitter. PSI Director Joel Baker is quoted this week in The New York Times on the connection between glitter […]
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 […]
October 5, 2017
Puget Sound’s growing nutrient problem
By Jeff Rice, Puget Sound Institute First there was “The Blob” that fed last year’s massive algae bloom in the Pacific Ocean. Now there is another monster getting our attention. You might call it “The slime that ate Lake Erie.” The incredible images of Lake Erie’s expanding blanket of green show the familiar effect of […]
September 28, 2017
PSI will host a wide variety of sessions and panels at the 2018 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference
The announcements are in and Puget Sound Institute researchers will be chairing or co-chairing at least five different special sessions at next year’s Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in Seattle. The sessions will include subjects as varied as Contaminants of Emerging Concern, microplastics, Pacific herring, ecosystem modeling and the potential influence of the region’s technology industry […]
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 […]