Puget Sound Report Card

[ljjames]

http://earthfix.kuow.org/water/article/ ... -sediment/

On Earthfix today:

Puget Sound Gets Troubling Report Card On Sediment Contamination - Ashley Ahearn

Do you ever remember getting a bad report card - the kind of report card you’d purposefully leave in the bottom of your backpack, underneath the dirty lunchbox in the hopes that your parents wouldn’t notice it?

Washington Department of Ecology just released that kind of a report card on Puget Sound. https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publication ... 303021.pdf

Back in 1998-1999 Ecology sampled the muck at the bottom of Puget Sound from Tacoma up to the southern tip of Whidbey Island. Ten years later they took samples from the same area and then compared the results.

The scientists tested for 133 potentially toxic chemicals including flame retardants, mercury and PCBs:

1998-1999: 4 percent of the study area had contamination levels above the standards.
2008-2009: 11 percent of the study area had contamination levels exceeding the standards. The contaminated area had almost tripled.

Back in 1998 Ecology judged that invertebrates – like mollusks and worms - were being negatively impacted at 7 percent of the study area.

Ten years later that figure had jumped to 28 percent of the study area.

Chemical contamination near the cities of Seattle and Tacoma showed some improvement.

But overall the report concludes that “the declining sediment quality… seen almost everywhere throughout Puget Sound should be a concern for environmental managers.”
© 2013 KUOW

[greenacarina]

So depressing! I recently was looking into fishing (never had the patience for it as a kid, so I essentially know nothing about it...other than I like to eat fish). Between the extensive and hard to follow rules, the art of truly being able to actually catch fish, and the chart that shows how much of each type of fish you shouldn't be eating from each area....I gave up on that idea pretty quickly.
The price of fish at the grocery store seems more reasonable now, but with the toxic conditions of the waters here and just about everywhere it seems...makes a guy want to go vegan! :(

Chris

[LowDrag]

Sorry to hear this Laura...too bad it is so easy to get by with polluting rather than doing the right thing.

So depressing! I recently was looking into fishing (never had the patience for it as a kid, so I essentially know nothing about it...other than I like to eat fish). Between the extensive and hard to follow rules, the art of truly being able to actually catch fish, and the chart that shows how much of each type of fish you shouldn't be eating from each area....I gave up on that idea pretty quickly.
The price of fish at the grocery store seems more reasonable now, but with the toxic conditions of the waters here and just about everywhere it seems...makes a guy want to go vegan! :(

Chris

Man ain't that the truth?!?!?!

[ljjames]

I try not to think of it as too depressing or overwhelmingly hopeless, if you take into account the population increase in that time frame, it could be a heck of a lot worse.

On a whole, we are getting better about things, from what I can tell, this is a combo of extensive legacy pollution issues, having to manage an 'old' (read not the best) stormwater + sewer system that is very expensive to upgrade, along with archaic regulations that don't put enough pressure on some of the polluters to discharge 'less' whatever into the water (be it stormwater that runs off streets or agricultural waste from farmlands or pollutants from major industrial areas).

We have so many people living on the shores of Puget-tropolis now that if each person did a bit of good, either actions that helped reduce pollution directly or voting/signing petitions/lobbying to help get more stringent rules passed for the big polluters/clean up existing stuff, I believe we can have some positive impact, or at least slow the degradation until a larger scale fix can be implemented. (by larger scale fix and example could be more green and more efficient grey infrastructure in place to reduce both polluted stormwater and CSO discharges into Puget Sound)

I won't even pretend to know the full scope of answers as its all very complex. I know we as a culture are not going to give up our cars anytime soon or make large scale sweeping changes to our lifestyle, and of course are already hard pressed for spare time, but i do think that if we all do little things like pick up the plastic and trash on the side of the street when we are out walking, or learning more about other simple solutions at EPA site or http://www.tox-ick.org (I'll even come give a presentation on it to pretty much any group, workplace, rotary, school, coffee club, gun club, church, synagogue) that we can have a cumulative effect for the health of Puget Sound.