How you can help save the Salish Sea

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It’s called the Salish Sea. It stretches from Tumwater, (site of the first American settlement in 1845) north up through Canada, to Squirrel Cove, B.C. “Our” portion of the Sea, the Puget Sound Basin, has a watershed (drainage area) encompassing 13,700 square miles and more than 4.2 million people call it home.

The Sound is a deep, rich biological resource; an incredibly powerful economic engine; and an inspiration to soul and spirit.

It’s the third largest U.S. estuary — only Chesapeake Bay and San Francisco Bay are larger — and it’s not in good shape. Some even say it’s slowly, inexorably, and by many measures dying … and we’re the ones killing it.

“Not me,” says you. “Yes, you,” says the hydrologists, marine biologists, geologists, water quality scientists, ecosystem modelers, economists, urban planners, waterkeepers and volunteers — those incredibly dedicated, superbly educated, eminently practical men and women who have made the Puget Sound their life’s work.

Chris Wilke is one of those dedicated people. He’s the Puget Soundkeeper and his “job” is to cuddle, coddle and caress Puget Sound. He, his staff, and thousands of volunteers do it daily, spending hours upon hours on the Sound and its tributaries looking for problems, working towards solutions, and cleaning up our mess.

So, you ask, what are the biggest threats to the Sound’s water quality? Water quality is to the Sound what blood chemistry is to the human body. A body filled with bad blood can’t sustain human life. A Sound with bad water — too many nutrients, toxins, garbage — can’t sustain marine life.

It could simply be that so many people, each doing a little to degrade water quality and destroy habitat, is the problem. But population and growth is a trend that isn’t changing, so ways around that reality need to be found.

Wilke explains five significant threats to the Sound’s water quality: stormwater and wastewater; toxins (oxycodone is showing up in Puget Sound fish!); agricultural pollution; pollution from recreational and commercial vessels; marine debris and plastics; and, heaven forbid a major oil spill.


-more-

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/how-you-can-help-save-the-salish-sea/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=175c7d9ff5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-175c7d9ff5-228635337

[cilla4progress]

1. Overpopulation

Of the planet...

[KT2000]

2. #6 Sewage

One day I hope Victoria will get their sewage treatment in order.
Under agriculture we can also add sewage sludge used as fertilizer. It contains drugs people take as well as viruses we don't want. There are ways to incinerate sewage sludge to make it less harmful but no one wants to spend the money. This stuff is sprayed in forests to get rid of it and used on food plants.
Big yukky secret.

[OnlinePoker]

4. We're in the process of building a $750 million sewage treatment plant

It will be in operation by 2020. Many, including oceanographers, think it will have no effect on the salmon and Orca populations.

[KT2000]

5. good to hear!

I live across the Strait (Dungeness) and we have draconian septic rules now. The potential costs, depending on who the inspector is, can run into the tens of thousands - scary.
I've worked with a citizen's group to insist the sediment be clean from the shut down paper mill in Port Angeles and the Port Angeles Harbor. The Strait has been used as a garbage dump by industries for over 100 years.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Good luck in getting this cleaned up...1 step at a time is what's it's going to take...

The Missouri and Mississippi drainage basins are having the same kind of issues w/ water quality that you see in Sound's water quality. It takes a massive effort to get farmers to not use as much fertilizer, or plow their fields better, or to improve sewer and/or septic systems.

Even in the Ozarks, an area known famously for their clear springs and high water quality, the Mo. Dept. of Conservation is offering aid to those who have in ground septic systems that are leaking into the water sheds (not positioned correctly so run off from these systems are not absorbed or treated by bacteria properly). Also in place are rules and regulations providing more firm guidance in putting these types of systems in, as well as water retention ponds.

A little at a time...