In early 2016, scientists at NOAA made headlines when they reported finding 81 different man-made chemicals in the tissues of juvenile chinook salmon in Puget Sound. Among those chemicals were drugs such as cocaine and Prozac. This was the first time scientists had made these findings for the region’s salmon, but it has been well-understood that marine […]
October 20, 2016
Removing Puget Sound’s ‘Great Wall’
Can we really wait 700 years to remove all of the armoring along Puget Sound’s shoreline? Let’s do some of the math. Senior Writer Christopher Dunagan reports in Salish Sea Currents this week that armor removal now exceeds new creation by somewhat less than a mile per year. At first glance, that’s a good thing. It is a reversal […]
October 18, 2016
White House announces blueprint for agency cooperation in Puget Sound
The Obama administration today approved the establishment of a new federal task force to prioritize agency actions for Puget Sound recovery. The announcement came from Christy Goldfuss, the managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “We understand we have a critical role to play here in Puget Sound,” said Goldfuss, speaking at a […]
October 13, 2016
CUW scientists among first to receive Amazon Catalyst grants
Center for Urban Waters engineers are among the first to receive a University of Washington Amazon Catalyst Grant. Dr. Andy James (also a member of the Puget Sound Institute) and Alex Gipe received $50,000 from Amazon to improve a process to remove phosphorous from stormwater pollution. Phosphorous can cause increased algal growth in lakes and ponds which in […]
September 28, 2016
Marine Waters report provides overview of 2015 conditions in Puget Sound
The Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program released its fifth annual Marine Waters Report today. The report provides an assessment of marine conditions for the year 2015 and includes updates on water quality as well as status reports for select plankton, seabirds, fish and marine mammals. According to the report, water temperatures broke records throughout Puget […]
September 23, 2016
Second invasive green crab found in Puget Sound
Last month, Puget Sound Institute senior writer Christopher Dunagan’s series on invasive species in Puget Sound highlighted some of the state’s worries about the arrival of the European green crab. The article noted that “the threat could be just around the corner.” It could not have been more timely. Several weeks after the article was published, volunteer crab spotters led by Washington Sea Grant […]
September 19, 2016
The return of the pig
After an almost complete collapse in the 1970s, harbor porpoise populations in Puget Sound have rebounded. Scientists are celebrating the recovery of the species sometimes known as the “puffing pig.” Eric Wagner reports for Salish Sea Currents. Need even more harbor porpoise facts? Read an in-depth profile from the SeaDoc Society prepared for inclusion in the Encyclopedia of […]
August 31, 2016
Clam hunger: environmental impacts on food and well-being
A story this week in Salish Sea Currents delves into the connection between environmental change and culturally important foods. Writer Sarah DeWeerdt interviewed social scientists at the 2016 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference about how this affects the spiritual and physical health of Salish Sea tribes and first nations. “The loss of subsistence and cultural identity cannot […]
August 29, 2016
A comparative study of human well-being indicators across three Puget Sound regions
Puget Sound Institute social scientist Kelly Biedenweg has published a comparative study of three well-being indicators in the Puget Sound region. The article appears in the August issue of the journal Society & Natural Resources. Abstract: Simple frameworks that generalize the best metrics of human well- being related to the natural environment have rarely been empirically […]
August 19, 2016
The secret lives of forage fish: Where do they go when we aren’t looking?
Some of the most important fish in the Salish Sea food web are also the most mysterious. Researchers have only begun to understand how many there are, where they go, and how we can preserve their populations for the future. University of Washington researcher Margaret Siple reports on the secret lives of forage fish in […]