Tag: Emerging contaminants

Findings and reports: February 2023

Image of San Juan Islands from the Salish Sea Model
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Salish Sea Model provides insights on circulation and residence times The amount of time water circulates and “resides” in Puget Sound is of intense interest to regulators and emergency response officials who want to understand how quickly wastewater is flushed out of Puget Sound and into the ocean. A paper in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science reports that contrary to expectation, flushing of deeper waters may take longer in wintertime in large fjord-like basins such as Hood Canal. A new, higher resolution version of the Salish Sea Model […]

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. A group of policymakers, tribal leaders and elected officials were […]

Conference highlights latest findings on toxic chemical in tires

Stacked tires. Photo: Kool Cats Photography. https://flic.kr/p/ChFgxf (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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The International Conference on Emerging Contaminants (EMCON), hosted virtually this month by the University of Washington, focused on newly identified threats from chemicals and microplastics in the environment. The conference provided an opportunity to hear the latest research on the discovery of a tire-related compound deadly to Puget Sound’s coho salmon. The cause of what scientists have labeled “urban runoff mortality syndrome” among coho had been a mystery for more than 20 years until it was solved last December by scientists at our affiliate organization the Center for Urban Waters. Their […]

New NSF grant supports toxics research

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Researchers at our affiliate organization the Center for Urban Waters have received a $797,107 National Science Foundation grant for the purchase of new equipment to identify toxic contaminants in Puget Sound. Ed Kolodziej is the project’s principal investigator. Co-principal investigators include David Beck, Allison Gardell, Jessica Ray, and Andy James. The funds were awarded on July 8th and will cover the cost of a new Liquid Chromatograph-High Resolution Mass Spectrometer, an ultra-sensitive device that identifies molecules by their atomic weight. The spectrometer can measure the presence of chemical compounds at […]

International conference at UW will focus on emerging contaminants

Fluoxetine hydrochloride. Photo: Meg (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/disowned/1125134972
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This year’s International Conference on Emerging Contaminants will be hosted virtually at the University of Washington from September 13-14 in partnership with the Center for Urban Waters, the Puget Sound Institute and the Washington Stormwater Center. Abstracts are due June 16th and the deadline for early registration is July 1. The full announcement is available below. Emcon 2021 7th International Conference on Emerging Contaminants Virtual Event, September 13-14, 2021 On behalf of our Scientific Committee, we cordially invite you to Emcon 2021, the 7th International Conference on Emerging Contaminants (https://cvent.me/7kvWG9). […]

Could tire discovery go beyond impacts on coho?

Stormwater picks up contaminants from vehicles. Photo: Daniel Parks (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/parksdh/7014755513
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Scientists have suspected for several years that chemicals from tire wear particles are to blame for the deaths of thousands of coho salmon that have returned to spawn in Puget Sound’s urban streams. Sometimes referred to as “pre-spawn mortality” or “urban runoff mortality syndrome,” these deaths typically occur in streams near roads, and scientists have been analyzing a wide variety of automobile-derived chemicals to see if they produced similar toxic effects. Now, thanks to some painstaking detective work by our partners at the University of Washington Center for Urban Waters […]

New guidance for cleanup of toxics in Puget Sound

Toxics in Fish report cover.
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An EPA-funded team of scientists and other experts has completed draft recommendations for the future cleanup of toxic chemicals in Puget Sound. The group’s Toxics in Fish Implementation Strategy addresses pollutants such as PCBs and a slew of emerging contaminants that can affect species throughout the waterway. The strategy will be available for public review until October 16th after which it may be revised and submitted to the Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council for approval. The Washington State Department of Ecology is co-developing the strategy with the Department of Commerce […]

PSI researcher receives EPA funding to study contaminants of emerging concern in the Columbia Basin

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Reprinted by permission of the Environmental Protection Agency: Puget Sound Institute senior scientist Andy James and his colleagues at the Center for Urban Waters are the recipients of a $76,601 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate and prioritize contaminants of emerging concern in the Lower Columbia River (OR, WA)
. James and his team will use the funding to monitor previously unmonitored contaminants, such as endocrine disruptors, in the Columbia River to determine whether they harm important species. Monitoring will take place from the Portland metro area to Wauna, […]

Kolodziej wins UWT’s 2020 Distinguished Research Award

Distinguished Research Award recipient Ed Kolodziej.
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Puget Sound Institute collaborator Ed Kolodziej is the recipient of this year’s University of Washington Tacoma Distinguished Research Award for his work to identify toxic contaminants in the Puget Sound watershed. The annual award “recognizes a faculty member who has achieved a record of notable scholarship or creative activity, who has generated new knowledge or creativity that impacts their intellectual discipline, and who has contributed to the intellectual climate of the UW Tacoma campus and its communities.” Kolodziej has been with the University of Washington since 2014 and holds a […]

New technique casts a wide net for concerning chemicals

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By Sarah McQuate, UW News Scientists are working to identify which of the thousands of chemicals that flow into Puget Sound are most harmful to the environment. Researchers know that runoff from land in the urbanized areas of Puget Sound often contains harmful chemicals such as PCBs, but many other potentially dangerous compounds have gone undetected until recently. Using a new “non-targeted” approach, researchers at the University of Washington and UW Tacoma screened samples from multiple regions of Puget Sound to look for other concerning chemicals. The team identified 64 […]

PSI in the news: ‘Salmon on Prozac’ and more

The Brightwater Treatment Plant in King County. Image courtesy of King County.
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PSI’s Andy James is collaborating with scientists at NOAA and Washington State University to understand how wastewater affects juvenile salmon in Puget Sound. The study is led by Jim Meador of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Sciences Center and focuses on discharge from three major sewage treatment plants in King County. Wastewater will be analyzed at the University of Washington Tacoma’s Center for Urban Waters for chemical signatures of contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and PCBs. The study was featured this week in the publication Crosscut. “The scope of chemicals monitored in this […]

Video: Identifying sources of pollution in the Skagit Valley

Screenshot from video.
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A video produced by the University of Washington Center for Urban Waters shows how chemical tracers can identify sources of pollution affecting shellfish growers in Puget Sound’s Skagit Valley. Fecal coliform pollution is a widespread problem in Puget Sound, resulting in costly beach and shellfish bed closures whenever it is detected. Analytical techniques can now reveal whether polluted water came from humans or livestock, an often contentious issue when cleaning up contaminants. If scientists can find traces of chemicals such as caffeine or cough syrup, they know to look for […]