No easy solutions to die-off at Hood Canal
UNION, Mason County — It's been three years since the last major die-off in Hood Canal, when thousands of sharks, sculpins, sea stars, octopi and other creatures suffocated in Hood Canal from lack of oxygen.
But that's not to say it has been an uneventful period.
Eelgrass beds — nurseries for crab and salmon — have declined more here than in the rest of Puget Sound. Bottom-dwelling rockfish continue to disappear. Algae blooms, which suck oxygen from the canal's deep waters, have become more common. And annual "bubbles" of low oxygen are growing, lasting longer and showing up at unexpected times of the year.
Septic tanks and sewage have long been fingered as culprits. But lately scientists have been learning that the canal's deterioration may be far more complex than first thought.
A year into a three-year investigation, they are learning that the ways damaging nutrients flow into the fjord may be as important as the amount that does. They're questioning whether other changes, from the Skokomish River, with flows altered by the Cushman Dam, to deforestation and global warming, are adding to the problem.
And they're recognizing that just finding the exact sources of Hood Canal pollution is a far cry from figuring out how best to breathe new life into a waterway whose banks are now home to 50,000 people.
"Do we go after trying to deal with forest practices? Put in billion-dollar sewer systems? Work with river managers?" asked Jan Newton, a University of Washington scientist helping lead the investigation. "It's important to know which actions will be the most effective because we have limited dollars."
From a boat on Hood Canal recently, Lalena Amiotte, program coordinator for the Skokomish Tribe's natural-resources department, tested a vial of water from its most frequently distressed spot, Lynch Cove.
Scuba divers recently found a handful of dead crab and fish on the bottom nearby. Tribal shrimpers don't bother to fish in the cove anymore. Even so, Amiotte shook her head when her vial turned cloudy white, a sign the sample was nearly free of oxygen.
"We're going to have a tough summer," she said.
Continue reading this article from the Seattle Times:
No easy solutions to die-off at Hood Canal
