Locke, Dicks sound alarm on imperiled Hood Canal

By DAVID AMMONS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Hood Canal, a scenic saltwater inlet, is badly polluted and government needs to quickly identify the culprits and reverse the damage before the waterway becomes a dead sea, Gov. Gary Locke and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said Monday.

The leaders announced a crackdown that will include federal, state, local, tribal and volunteer efforts, infused by millions in state and federal dollars. They're hoping to announce a plan of attack by April.

Hood Canal is one of the biggest pollution hot spots on the West Coast, said Brad Ack, chairman of the interagency Puget Sound Action Team.

"This is an area that rises to the top as a flashing red light, a situation that needs attention," he said.

Dicks, D-Wash., and fellow Democrat Locke said it probably will require the thousands of people who live along the 61-mile-long waterway to change their ways - preferably through voluntary compliance, rather than government edict or shutdowns.

The "canal" was formed by glacial action 3 million years ago and got its final hook shape about 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Separating the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas, it has 242 miles of shoreline, compared with the total Puget Sound shoreline of about 2,500 miles.

In the past two years, thousands of fish and shellfish have died and parts of the canal have been closed to fishing. At their joint news conference, Dicks and Locke displayed a jarring set of pictures - one a bucolic seascape, the other a still life of dead fish that washed ashore.

Locke said the pollution includes stormwater runoff from roads and developed areas, failing septic systems, agricultural runoffs and fertilizers from lawns and farms. The pollution causes plankton and algae to grow, robbing fish of oxygen they need to survive. The problem is particularly bad for bottom fish, octopi and sea cucumbers.

Monitoring shows that the problem is growing worse, Locke said.

"It's the development," Dicks said.

As the population grows and the trappings of civilization spring up along the shoreline, pollution seems to follow, he said. It's not a single industrial polluter or U.S. Navy operations on the canal or some other installation causing the bulk of the problem - "It's us," he said.

There are, for instance, an estimated 6,000 cabins and year-round homes in lower Hood Canal, and 5,500 septic tanks in the lower canal watershed. Mason County has one part-time employee assigned to regulating septic tanks, and no ordinance requiring property owners to allow the inspector on their property.

In the past 10 years, Belfair, at the tip of the canal in unincorporated Mason County, has been allowed to grow into a full-scale town, with supermarkets, restaurants and video stores, all without a sewer system.

Many of the cottages and fancy homes lining the shore are not hooked up to sewer.

"It's a death by a thousand cuts," Ack said, referring to the numerous causes of the problem.

"We want everyone to be part of the solution," Dicks said.

He borrowed a line from a TV commercial when asked what the canal contributes to the state economy via the sports and commercial fishery, tourism, the Navy and so on.

"Priceless," he said.

Ack said the immediate challenge is to determine the relative contribution of each type of pollution. After coming up with that list, a team of government, tribal and private experts will devise a plan for dealing with each cause, starting with the worst culprits, he said.

Locke and Dicks said the state and federal governments already have contributed to the crash program, and both will seek special appropriations. State House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said the Legislature is likely to approve Locke's request for $100,000. Dicks and the congressional delegation have secured $850,000 for the action team and the U.S. Geological Survey, and another $3 million will be sought.

Mike Mathews of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Keyport announced that the Navy will help gather more extensive information about the canal's problems. The Navy has its West Coast ballistic missile submarine base on the canal, at Bangor.

He said the Navy isn't adding to the pollution, but is open to improvement.

"We must reduce - and then reverse - key causes of this critical environmental problem," the governor said. "It will take a unified effort to succeed, but I'm confident we can do it.

"No one wants to see Hood Canal become a dead sea."

This sucks...

Especially since I just ate a half dozen hood canal oysters


Wish I would've seen it an hour ago...

Sorry Piper

Actually compared to the rest of the Sound the Canal is pretty clean. The real nasty stuff, like PCB, DDT, PAH, etc. is pretty low as there has been little if any industrial development. Contrast this to Tacoma and Seattle where there are superfund sites all over the place. The problem with the Canal is circulation, or actually lack thereof. The standard load of crap from failing septic systems and municipal sewer outfalls has no where to go in the Canal, so the nutrients just hang around and grow plankton, which use up large amounts of dissolved oxygen when they die, thus killing everything else that needs O2 to live. Dilution is not the solution to pollution here, the solution is to keep it all out. And the only way to do that is get the houses and septic systems off the beach, get people and their septic tanks out of the floodplain, get sewage treated to class A standards and infiltrated back into the aquifer, outlaw fertilizers on lawns, capture and treat stormwater runoff from roads and parking lots, fence the cows, horses, and pets out of the creeks, and get the tribes to quit dumping millions of pounds of dead fish into the water after they strip out the eggs. Piece of cake. Anything short of this and you can kiss the Canal goodby - or actually if you did that hepatitis or worse would kill you

You will be okay, Piper, don't the bivalves hava filtration system?
However, if you glow in the dark you may have a problem. Were the oysters taken near the base?

I dont know...
I kinda feel a little funny...
a little green around the gills you might say...

seriously, I have been practically living off of fish and shellfish for the last couple of years. I think hood canal is still the cleanest of the waters around the puget sound.

I am a little concerned with what I hear and what I see. there are houses poping up all over the place and I know darn good and well what is going to leech into the water.

I have seen first hand these algea blooms. really ruins the fishing, with only a few feet of visiblity. I'm at a loss as to a way to stop it. Hope for a change in weather and water cycles I guess.

I grew up in Belfair, a resident of that town for twenty three years and I have seen huge changes in the population in that area. They are working on a long overdue sewer system that will run down the north and south shores one towards Belfair State Park and the other Toward Twanoh State Park. This is of course will take care of just a portion of the problem. I too believe that the tribal netters contribute to the problem with their dumping of the carcasses but I also believe that the hatcheries contribute just as much. Over the last few years there have been record returns of chum, the primary fish raised in the hatcheries. Over the last two years there have been close to a million chum returning to the canal each year, numbers never before seen in this body of water. If the tribe doesn't get these fish most of them go up the rivers and then as soon as there is a good rain end up at the bottom of the canal scavenging needed oxygen. I would like to see a more balanced effort on the hatcheries part to raising less chum and more kings and silvers. This would take care of much of the wasted fish flesh rotting at the bottom of the canal. My reasoning is that more fish caught by the tribe would be sold, more fish would be kept by fishermen catching more fish that are actually palatable, and there would be a less overall number of fish returning, I would much rather see 200,000 chum, 200,000 kings and 200,000 silvers than a million chum and a 10, 000 kings and silvers. Those are numbers that I just threw out there but I just removed about 4,000,000 lbs of rotting fish and I truly believe this would help more than making people quit fertilizing their lawns and a sewer system. The amount of oxygen depleted by one rotting fish is astronomically high let alone millions of pounds of rotting fish. Just my two cents.

I also have a summer house close to Hoodsport and see the changes like the seaweed dead ,oysters well less of them, clams not as many,and the indians bonking the chum and tossing the males back in this doesn't help any.

Could the over abundance of seals crapping all over the place have something to do with it?

Its all the septic systems and Pesticide/herbicide and fertilizer use. You will find polluted alluvial plains at the mouth of small creeks that are drainages for housing developments for miles up stream. All the run off from yards and septic systems collects and spews into the canal.

Here is something I have known for years from my wanderings as a youth in small streams of the NW.

Fewer mussels indicate ailing stream - Bear Creek activists studying cause of shellfish's decline
2004-02-10
by Chris Winters
Journal Reporter

When Wendy Walsh moved into her home on Bear Creek in 1962, she thought the bottom of the creek bed was covered with large black stones.

Several years later, she learned she was looking not at rocks but western pearlshell mussels. The shellfish covered the bottom of the creek, and her 60 acre parcel east of Woodinville was dotted with middens, the remnants of discarded mussel shells at old Indian campsites.

For a number of years, however, the numbers of mussels in the creek have been dropping. In 1990, runoff from Paradise Lake Estates construction caused the creek to silt up.

``It looked like coffee with cream,'' Walsh said. ``It wiped out 80 percent of the mussels, and the developer was never fined.''

Her neighbor, Juanita Verschuyl, has also noticed a drop in population.

Where previously ``they were just clustered together in huge areas,'' Verschuyl said, now only a couple dozen remain in the section of creek near her home. ``There's so much silt covering everything now.''

The mussels, or Margaritifera falcata, function as natural filters in the streams, pulling nutrients and contaminants out of the water. More than 600 species of mussels exist in the U.S. and Canada, making the region the most diverse in the world for the critters.

Mayflies and caddis flies, which spend part of their lives underwater, function the same way, but they only live about four years, said Jen Stone, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife in Lacey. The mussels can live up to 120 years, each year adding a ring to their shells.

They're a good record of history, Stone said. ``You can almost pinpoint it down to when an environmental disturbance occurs.''

Mussels also have a quasi-symbiotic relationship with fish, presumably with salmon. While it is unknown exactly which species western mussels attach themselves to, in the eastern U.S. the larval-stage mussels attach themselves to salmon gills for a year, then are dropped off later elsewhere in the stream, where they settle near the banks to grow.

The problem is that until very recently no one has really studied them to track long-term trends, and most federal resources have gone toward protecting salmon, Stone said.

``There are species of higher priority in the region,'' Stone said.

In an effort to better understand mussels, a number of scientists and academics -- including Stone, with Walsh in a communications capacity -- have formed the Pacific Northwest Native Freshwater Mussel Workgroup. Part of their efforts include educational outreach to university zoology departments in an attempt to add courses.

Their efforts are starting to pay off. At a scientific symposium at which 20 people were expected last year, 120 showed up. A second is scheduled for April 20 in Vancouver, Wash., where the day will be devoted to mussels.

Aquatic canaries in the coal mine

As an indicator species, mussels reveal the overall health of the stream, and the reduction in their numbers may be related to that of salmon and other fish.

``We call them the aquatic canaries in the coal mine,'' said Jayne Brim Box, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife biologist hired by the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation in Pendleton, Ore., to study mussel populations in the Umatilla and John Day Rivers, which drain into the Columbia.

``We do recognize right now that they're the most endangered animal in the United States,'' Brim Box said. The Umatilla, which historically used to have mussel populations, is now nearly empty, compared to the John Day, which runs through protected national wilderness areas and has many populations.

Brim Box estimates that 70 percent of the species nationwide are imperiled, and she knows of four in the southeast -- where most of the species are located -- that are thought to be extinct. According to a study published in a 1995 National Biological Service report titled ``Our Living Resources,'' 85 percent of all mussel species in the U.S. are listed as special concern, threatened, endangered or endangered and presumed extinct.

Many species back east have been listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, but none of the western species is similarly protected.

``We just don't know their population status,'' Brim Box said.

Walsh tried for years to raise concern with local, state and federal officials but couldn't get any help.

``What I was told is they can't be protected until you demonstrate they exist,'' Walsh said. ``The problem is, no one had ever done a study.''

That's what she's doing now. Along with other activists, she formed Bear Creek Water Tenders and secured $25,000 in grant money from Washington Trout in Duvall to conduct a three-year study.

No juveniles to be found

In the study's first two years, the group focused on tallying the mussels in the creek and comparing first-year populations to second-year populations. The initial tally, finished last year, showed no short-term decrease in the remaining beds.

But there was one alarming conclusion: there were no baby mussels.

``There was no recruitment,'' said Water Tenders president Dick Schaetzel, using the technical term for how larval mussels join established beds. ``We couldn't find any.''

The smallest of the mussels were about an inch long, or about 15-20 years old.

That squared with the first study done on western mussels, a University of Washington graduate thesis written by Kelly Toy, who works as a shellfish biologist for the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in Sequim. She has tried to get mussels listed as a species of concern in Washington state and has studied mussels in Bear Creek and Battle Creek, on the Tulalip Reservation near Everett.

``On Bear Creek, just by looking at the age structure, you had a lot of mussels that were 70-80 years old,'' Toy said. She said that was ``a little worrisome'' when compared to the Battle Creek population, which had plenty of juveniles.

Walsh is hoping the third year of the study will shed light on Bear Creek. Mussels are being analyzed in King County labs to see what contaminants they may be exposed to. Testing of the stream has confirmed growing levels of ammonia, nitrates and phosphorous, Walsh said. The question is what its effect on the mussels.

While waiting for the results, Walsh continues her efforts to understand what's going on.

The Water Tenders have set up an infrared-triggered camera to try and capture predatory activity, but it hasn't revealed anything conclusive.

It is known that beaver dams also contribute to siltation and strangling mussel beds. While beavers, otters and raccoons eat the mussels, that hasn't been cause for concern until recently, when the mussel populations were already reduced. In addition, top-of-the-food-chain predators like bear and cougar have all but disappeared, allowing beaver to multiply.

Walsh has wrapped most of the trees along the banks of the creek in chicken wire to deter them. But in much of the creek that runs by her property, once-plentiful mussels are now scarce. Only one bed has a significant population, and most of the others have only a handful and can't be seen from the shore.

``The creek is in big trouble,'' she said.

Chris Winters can be reached at chris.winters@kingcountyjournal.com or at 425-453-4232.

MUSSELS STUDIED IN SYMPOSIUM

The Pacific Northwest Native Freshwater Mussel Workgroup is meeting April 20 in Vancouver, Wash. More information about the group is available online at http://columbiariver.fws.gov/musselwg.htm.

PHOTOS: by Maxwell Balmain/Journal: 1) Juanita Verschuyl looks over a section of Bear Creek near the Woodinvill-Duvall Road that contains freshwater mussels, which may be in danger of dying out. She and other homeowners near the creek are concerned about the health of the water. 2) Experts say fresh water mussels in Bear Creek are declining.

Not in the south end .The seals got there's when the killer whales came through est 600.

Thank you YBNorml, that is what I love about this board, all the information. As I was reading the article you posted I had a light go on in my head as far as fertilizer is concerned. There are huge amounts of Christmas trees produced around the canal that receive tens of thousands of tons of fertilizer each year and I am sure that doesn't help any. I was a little confused also while reading the article though because there is a Bear Creek near Belfair that is a trubutary to the Union River which runs right into the end of the hood canal. But I see they were talking about Bear Creek in Woodinville.