The Quick And Dirty State Of The Sound

Editor's Note: This is the concluding installment in a series of posts delving into some of the the chemical pollutants that have contaminated Puget Sound's fish and wildlife and pose one of the greatest threats to their survival.  Read the other posts to learn in more detail how toxic chemicals are affecting Puget Sound.

In the more than 30 years since PCBs have been banned, we could expect to have made some progress in cleaning up Puget Sound. Indeed, some sediment cleanups have been successful—albeit at huge financial cost—in removing contaminated sediment and reducing problems such as cancerous lesions in fish.

But after decades of effort for a clean Sound, have we been successful? A quick read of the latest scientific assessment, 2007’s Sound Update, suggests otherwise. 

• Southern resident orcas are listed as endangered species, and declined 20% between 1995 and 2001.
• Not as charismatic as orcas, but critical nonetheless, are Pacific herring. Their stocks have continued to decline, with a reduction of 32% between 2002 and 2006.
• Seabirds are in trouble: loons and grebes declined 64 to 95% in the last 25 years, and surf and other scoters declined 57% between 1978 and 1999, a trend that has continued.
• Important predatory fish such as rockfish and Pacific cod are decreasing in number.
• Salmon have taken their place on the Endangered Species list and many stocks continued to decline in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

These disturbing statistics result from a number of factors, including habitat loss, climate change, and toxic pollution. And while individuals, businesses, and government agencies have all worked hard to address each of these factors, clearly their work has fallen short.

This series has delved into five classes of toxic chemicals that continue to threaten the Sound’s health, from the PCBs that still rank as a top threat more than 30 years after being outlawed to the hormone disrupting chemicals that appear to be impacting fish reproduction. Aside from PCBs, all of these chemicals continue in heavy use despite strong indications that they are harming fish, wildlife, and people.

As profiled in this series, our local scientists are doing incredible work piecing together the puzzle of how the chemicals that enter Puget Sound are affecting its web of life. But because of the way chemicals are regulated in the U.S., they can’t help but play a game of catch-up: often, they only discover that a chemical has the potential to harm the ecosystem after it has already built up to toxic levels. 

These researchers are finding new and innovative ways to determine the impacts of toxic pollution, but their work would be much easier and more effective with a regulatory system in place that required testing of chemicals for toxicity before they were put into products. The flame retardants are a perfect example—scientists found that PBDEs were building up rapidly in fish and wildlife at the point where concentrations were high enough to pose a real threat to survival. Now that PBDEs are being phased out, a toxic lineup of replacements with similar chemistry has dashed in to fill the void, leaving researchers to puzzle out what compounds are in use, where they are found in the environment, and what their toxic effects could be.

Until we have policies that require chemical manufactures to do their part in checking for toxicity and moving toward safer chemicals, we’ll be trying to clean up Puget Sound with our hands tied behind our backs. Thousands of Puget Sound residents, scientists, and others are working hard to restore the Sound—it’s time for policymakers to step up and make their job easier with common-sense controls on chemicals.

Our Toxic Chemicals in Puget Sound series was made possible with the generous support of the Russell Family Fund, the Sustainable Path Foundation, the Kongsgaard-Goldman Foundation, the Bullitt Foundation, and many individual supporters. Scientists from the University of Washington, NOAA Fisheries and Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, including Sandie O’Neill, Dr. Joyce Dinglasan-Panlilio, Jim West, Dr. Lyndal Johnson, and Dr. Mary Arkoosh, provided invaluable context, feedback, and interviews.

Image courtesy of flicker user ingridtaylar