Tidal_PAD_V1_Sec4.pdf - Snohomish County PUD

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Snohomish County PUD –Pre-Application Document 4 – Existing Environment • Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (fish contaminants, fish abundance and marine birds and mammals) • Washington State Department of Health (shellfish growing areas publications) • Washington State Department of Natural Resources (nearshore habitat) • King County Department of Natural Resources (marine water, sediment and shellfish) • National Marine Fisheries Service (fish health) • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Established in 1988, the PSAMP is one of the nation’s longest-running marine monitoring programs (Puget Sound Action Team 2000b). Approximately every two years, the PSAMP releases a report entitled the Puget Sound Update, which summarizes the findings of research and monitoring efforts. The latest Update (PSAT 2007a) included the following key findings related to water quality in Puget Sound: • Overall dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in Puget Sound appear to be continuing a downward trend. • Analysis of sediment samples collected from 1997 to 2003 indicate that approximately 1 percent of Puget Sound sediments are highly degraded, 31 percent are of intermediate quality, and 68 percent are of high quality. The 1 percent of highly degraded sediments is located primarily in urban bays. • Chinook salmon sampled from Puget Sound in 2005 had three to five times the polycholorinated biphenyl (PCB) levels of Chinook from Alaska, British Columbia, and Oregon. • Flame retardants or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) occurred in 16 percent of the samples from 10 Puget Sound sampling sites in 2005. Scientists estimate that PBDE levels 4-28 January 31, 2008
Snohomish County PUD –Pre-Application Document 4 – Existing Environment are doubling every four years in marine mammals, including harbor seals and orcas, and will surpass PCB levels in these species by 2020. • Pre-spawn mortality occurred in 25 to 90 percent of female coho salmon returning to urban streams between 2002 and 2005, suggesting that contaminants from stormwater were posing a threat. • The most recent water quality assessment lists 76 water bodies in Puget Sound with fecal coliform problems, although data suggests that there has been an overall decline in this contaminant from 2001 to 2005. • Twenty percent of the 428 recreational beaches in 12 Puget Sound counties are threatened by fecal pollution, while 5 percent of these beaches are closed because of biotoxins. • In 2003, a short-lived pseudo-nitzschia bloom occurred near Port Townsend and in 2005 blooms occurred in four northern Puget Sound locations (Sequim Bay, Port Townsend, Holmes Harbor and Penn Cove). All four areas were closed to shellfish harvest. Concurrent with the release of the Update document, the Puget Sound Action Team produces a State of the Sound report. This study traces more than two dozen environmental indicators, providing a rating on both their current condition on a scale from one to five (with one being the worst) and their overall trend (positive or negative). The findings related to water quality (includ ing the condition rating) in the most recent report (PSAT 2007b) are as follows: • Marine water quality (rating = 2, negative trend): Out of 39 monitoring sites, eight were rated as highest concern and ten were rated as high concern. • Marine and fresh water health (rating = 2, negative trend): In 2004, approximately 1,474 fresh and marine water bodies in the Puget Sound Basin were deemed to be “impaired”. Fifty-nine percent were found to be impaired as a result of toxic contamination, pathogens, low dissolved oxygen, or high temperatures. • Toxics in sediments (rating = 2, no trend): In a study of 2360 km 2 of submerged lands, about 1 percent were found to have high levels of toxic contaminants while another 31 percent were moderately contaminated. 4-29 January 31, 2008
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