Blake Feist of the NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center on:

New predictive, spatially explicit model of coho pre-spawn mortality rates for the eastern Puget Sound basin.

Notes from his talk:

Over the past 10 years, people have been seeing coho salmon dying before they spawn. Sometimes within hours of returning to the streams.

What is causing the prespawn mortality?

Car exhaust? There are a lot of chemicals (lead, benzine, etc) coming from cars and car exhausts.

In Longfellow Creek, there seems to be a correlation between rain and prespawn mortality. There is something being washed out by the rain that is killing the fish.

The purpose of the study was to create a pre-spawn mortality model to predict the phenomena.

The study focused on largely urbanized creeks, the least urbanized (and reference creek) was Fortson Creek. Forston had a .9 percent pre-spawn mortality.

The study looked at variable such as traffic flow, road types, tree cover.

There is a relationship between heavily used roads and pre-spawn deaths of coho salmon.

Questions and Answers:

Why aren’t all the fish dying in the stream?

Chum and chinook are not impacted. Even coho smolts are not impacted. Don’t know why.

Was there pre-spawn mortality more than 10 years ago?

It was likely that it was going on longer.

Casey Rice of the NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center talks about Jellyfish in South Puget Sound.

Study explores whether changes in fish and jellyfish distribution are natural history footnotes or potential indicators of ecological health.

From Casey’s talk:

Among his conclusions:

Jellyfish is a major competent of biota.

There is an inverse relationship between jellyfish and overall fish abundance and diversity.

Jellyfish are not bad. They are a widely diverse group. “Jellyfish are people too.”

More research is needed, “we really need to do these field studies.”

Questions and Answers:

Are they being impacted by same factors, but they’re just more resilient?

They can be. Diets, passive feeding, won’t starve and die in a low oxygen environment.

You may miss some needed data by looking at only a portion of the year.

They would get more year round data if they did the research again. Not just across the year, but across the entire area.

Jennifer Ruesink of University of Washington talks about:

Study of trophic support (stable isotopes) and productivity (growth rates) has revealed spatial and temporal patterns relevant to coastal zone management.

Notes from her talk:

Whether aquaculture in Totten Inlet was reducing overall health of the area. They also looked at areas in Budd Inlet and Squaxin Inlet.

What happens with anthropegenic inputs. At you go further into Totten, you get more nitrogen, which is the “signal” of anthroprogenic inputs.

For carbon, you see “light carbon” which is the signal that terrestrial inputs are increasing as you move inside Totten inlet, much more than Tacoma or Seattle.

Clam growth rates were much higher in Totten and South Puget Sound than rest of Puget Sound

Carbon sources were similar in Totten Inlet than rest of Puget Sound.

Question and Answers

What was the variability inside Totten?

There was variability inside and outside Totten. The growth rates were higher inside than outside.

But, with the isatopes, there was a gradual increase as you went inside Totten Inlet.

Skip Albertson of the Washington Department of Ecology, talks about “Going with the flow: South Sound water circulation.

Description of the particularly complicated circulation patterns in South Sound that determine the marine equivalent of upstream and downstream.

From his talk:

Generally, places closer to the Tacoma Narrows, flush easier than places deeper in the South Sound. Upper Case and Pickering Passage flow much slower than Nisqually Reach and Budd Inlet.

Flushing helps in Oakland Bay in the winter because of the number of creeks that flow into the bay. “A little stick” stirring the bay.

From the summary: the biggest impact is the tides. On top of that is the estuarine flow from the rivers, which in turn is impacted by the wind.

Questions and Answers:

How do you use the term flushing? Usually it is used to describe water flowing out of Puget Sound.

Really talking about residence time, but was calling it flushing to keep it simple.

Clint Bowman from the state Department of Ecology gave a talk about airflow and air pollution in South Puget Sound. I wasn’t able to take notes on his talk, but I did catch the question and answer session:

Recently we saw a plane had to return to the airport and dump fuel Puget Sound. How does that impact air quality?

Fuel releases a hydrocarbon, but they have to dump fuel high enough that it will evaporate before it gets too low.

You would see and increase in hydrocarbons for an hour or so, but unlikely it would reach ground level.

Heather Trim, People for Puget Sound: What are the dirtiest and cleanest parts of Puget Sound?

Different areas have different sort of pollutants. For example, ozone is highest from Enumclaw to Pack Forest area.

Most of the air from urban centers comes down to South Sound. What kind of health impacts does that mean for people in South Sound?

The air in South Sound, except for Puyallup River valley, is good. Pollution does get high in the winter though.

We don’t have monitors for toxics though, which is focused on Seattle.

The first break of the morning is upon us. Just a reminder that if you’re at the symposium, please email your observations to me: eoconnell (at) nwifc (dot) org.

Wendy Gerstel, Qwg Applied Geology, talks about: “Review of South Sound geology and influences on the ecological landscape.”

Wendy:

Instead of fitting into the “threats an indicators” boxes, better to think about geology in materials and processes.

Materials: clay, silt, sand, gravel.

Processes: glaciation, deposition, plate techtonics.

Water is a big part of geology as well. Surface run-off, groundwater and waves, for example.

She also refers back to Charlene’s talk, that this give us an understanding of how things change over time.

Wendy is showing slides that give a picture of the geologic layout of South Sound, the glaciation of the entire Puget Sound (I wish I could show these to you).

Another slide with a map on debris flows. These provided a lot of sediment into Puget Sound drainages.

A lot of the effort from geologists has been put into creating these geologic maps.

Glacial till covers most of the South Sound, with the latest glacial till being, loose sandy till.

Most of the “layering” (that she’s now showing in her picture presentation) are from glacial deposits.

It is important to set a geologic framework to what you’re studying.

Questions:

Does the Squaxin oral tradition refer to geoglogic events and their impacts?

Wendy answers that while she doesn’t know specifically for the Squaxin Island tribe, there are references.

Jeff Dickison (Charlene Krise has left), there is a time when things were different geologically. For example, there are stories in Squaxin tradition that include salmon running up the Deschutes River above where the lower falls are.

Marianne Seifert, Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, speaks on:

Newly implemented environmental health indicators for shellfish growing area pollutants, swimming beach advisories, mercury and PCBs in salmon, and stream flow, precipitation and aquifer levels.

Marianne moved down from the stage is moving around the room:

In addition to talking to scientists, in deciding what to measure as environmental indicators in Pierce County, they also talked to policy makers. It is important to track indicators that will actually gets peoples’ attention.

They also wanted to make their eventual report easy for people to digest and make the connection between land, water and air obvious.

Economic impacts were important to note because “not all people are motivated by health, but practically everyone is motivated by economics.”

Not just personal actions, but also policy decisions that would encourage good land use and recycling, for example.

One of the things that Charlene talked about that really was interesting to Marianne is “why are we doing this.” For scientists it may be as easy as “we’re scientists, this is what we do.” But, for most people, that isn’t enough.

That is what the indicators report is about, to motivate people to action. After the report is done in June, they will be holding a series of forums in September.

They will also be trying to fill in data gaps, so she asks the people in the room to help out, even if they are outside Pierce County. The scientists in the room know what is going on out there, so they can help out.

At the forums, they’ll also start deciding what the community values are for restoring the ec0-system.

Questions/Answers:

Can you talk about no change as being as important as trends? How does one interpret no change?

Marianne: Think about what causes change or no change. For example, population growth. There is an asumption with population change, that everything should be getting worse.

What are the things, policy decisions for example, that are preventing things from getting worse? What are the assumptions that make us think that things should get worse?

What are the top 3 environmental health issues in South Puget Sound?

Outdoor air quality is a big issue. We’re (at the county health department) not doing much about it. We’d like to do more, but because of funding problems we can’t.

Transportation is another issue. It will take large scale policy decisions being made. It will involve everyone and it impacts so many things like air quality and stormwater runoff. Also a lot of heart disease.

And, transportation related to stormwater.

UPDATE: Audio selection from her presentation here.

Jeff Dickison, assistant natural resources director for the tribe, introduces Charlene Krise, a tribal council member and director of the tribe’s museum and research center.

Jeff:

Science in the restricted sense, that many of us think of it today, is the scientific method. But, science refers to any knowledge base than can predict events.

I’ll hopefully also have audio of Charlene’s presentation later in the day.

Here are some pieces from Charlene’s talk:

There are stories from the 1930s of Budd Inlet when the beaches “were white with shellfish” and that if you went to these beaches today, they would be covered with silt, with no shellfish.

The tribe is known as the “People of the water” and their traditions and stories are connected to the land and to the water.

Traditional teachings, Squaxin tribal members are taught about protocol and respect for the earth.

During tribal events, many people wear read and black. Red is the signify mother earth, black is to signify honor.

The tribe also has sacred places that are very much like churches, and that birds and animals are the best teachers.

“Our people believe that if you watch, look and listen you can learn so much about the beaches.”

The potlach ceremony is not meant to show who has the greatest wealth, but rather to share and help other people understand knowledge of the earth.

Sometimes, we don’t pay attention to the land and end up doing damage.

At one time, when the tribe was going through hard economic times, she came upon a clear cut near the reservation. It impacted her deeply, and “changed her.”

She eventually came to visit the tribe’s natural resources department and learned that the long term damage of the clear cut was already being repaired. That led to her volunteering with watershed groups.

Initially, she was shy during the meetings, but always talked about the tribe’s “love of the land.”

She thinks the people in the room today really do have the same passion. “Keep on doing the research and talk to tribal members.”

I’m probably not the only one here today with a laptop open, so if you have any of your own updates or observations, please feel free to email them to me. Just let me know who you are and what you’re seeing and thinking.

eoconnell (at) nwifc (dot) org

Thanks!

UPDATE: 9:03 a.m. Just a note on these updates. I’m trying as hard as possible to get direct quotes from presentors. When I do, I’ll surround them with “quotes.” But, typically when I write what a presentor says, it will be an indirect quote.