Front Page Featured Items – Puget Sound Institute

February 3, 2025

February 12: Modeled and historical monitoring insights on water quality differences throughout Puget Sound

We’re excited to continue the Science of Puget Sound Water Quality workshop series, which explores emerging science and insights to help protect water quality in Puget Sound. Join us on February 12 from 10 am – 12 pm to dig into emerging research on nutrients, hydrodynamics, and dissolved oxygen in Puget Sound with two University of Washington […]

Events

February 3, 2025

February 4 roundtable: A Tale of Three Auks

Co-hosted with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife The Salish Sea Science Roundtable online speaker series continues on Tuesday, February 4 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm. The Tufted Puffin, Marbled Murrelet and Rhinoceros Auklet are all in the same family (Alcidae), but show different seasonal dependencies on the Salish Sea. In addition, their nesting strategies […]

Events

December 17, 2024

$1 million awarded for new approach to removing PBDEs from municipal wastewater

The University of Washington has been awarded a $1 million grant by the Stormwater Strategic Initiative Lead for Piloting Solutions for Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Wastewater. The project will be led by Heidi Gough, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and Andy James, University of Washington Tacoma, Center for Urban Waters and the Puget […]

Grants

December 17, 2024

Jim Waldo, Billy Frank Jr., and other collaborative leaders at a meeting in the early 2000’s. Photo by Michael Kern.

Grant will support training in collaborative leadership

The Collaborative Leadership Program at the Puget Sound Institute (PSI) will receive almost $500,000 to train the next generation of collaborative policy makers. The new project will build on lessons from Puget Sound’s groundbreaking history of salmon co-management and other natural resource policies. The support comes from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Puget Sound […]

Grants

December 16, 2024

Protecting the health of people who eat fish: The long battle over water quality standards

Culminating more than a decade of fierce debate, Washington state officials formally adopted new water-quality standards for toxic chemicals to protect the health of people who eat fish from our local waterways. On its face, this action appears inconsequential, considering that these numerical criteria were already in place, having been imposed two years ago by […]

Blog Post

December 16, 2024

A distributary channel created by The Nature Conservancy as a shortcut for juvenile Chinook as they move from freshwater to saltwater environments. Photo: Sylvia Kantor/PSI

Ask a scientist: What is a distributary channel?

In a natural state, a river passing through a floodplain will have many side channels and tendrils that distribute the water, fanning it out across the delta. However, these channels are often lost when rivers are diverted to make room for farmland or other human development. In many cases, even after the dikes and levees […]

Blog Post

December 12, 2024

Photo credit: C̀háʔba· and NEMO moorings. Photo: John Mickett/UW

Annual report documents Puget Sound’s marine conditions

The Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP) has released its 13th annual overview of Puget Sound’s marine water conditions. The report is funded in part by the Puget Sound Institute and is produced by 67 contributors from federal, tribal, state, and local agencies, academia, nonprofits, and private and volunteer groups. The compilation looks back on the […]

Findings

December 12, 2024

The “unstructured grid” used in the Salish Sea Model allows for greater resolution (smaller triangles) when studying complex water circulation, such as around the Hood Canal bridge. Graphic: Tarang Khangaonkar

Featured paper: Salish Sea Model examines new way to reduce ocean acidification

Mixing and dilution controls on marine CO2 removal using alkalinity enhancement In the human body, dialysis is used to remove waste, a process that helps to reduce acidity in the blood. Scientists are using a similar process to withdraw seawater, remove acid, and return the high alkalinity water to the ocean. Ocean alkalinity enhancement is being […]

Research

December 11, 2024

January 7 roundtable will share insights from ‘End-to-End’ ecosystem modeling of the Strait of Georgia

Co-hosted with the Fisheries & Oceans Canada from 12:30 – 1:30 pm PT The Salish Sea Science Roundtable online speaker series continues on Tuesday, January 7 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm. How have ocean conditions, lower trophic level dynamics, and species interactions shaped the Strait of Georgia’s marine ecosystem over the past 40 years? What long-term […]

Events

November 18, 2024

Mysterious sharks gain recognition as scientists explore their contributions to Puget Sound

This past summer, two science papers documented, for the first time, the presence of two species of sharks not known to exist in Puget Sound. These species are commonly called sevengill and soupfin sharks. I am sorry to say that I did not know much about sharks in Puget Sound, and I had never written […]

Blog Post

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