Go native to help save the Sound
By MIKE SATO
So here we are at the height of summer and how's your garden doing? Ready to harvest the bounty of fruits, vegetables and flowers? Or have you thrown in the trowel, bandaged up the black thumb and figured that grazing the local farmers markets is the way to go?
Either way, when the harvest is done and the fall and winter rains come again, they will wash much of what we've done on the land this year down to the waters of Puget Sound. The oil, metals and chemicals end up in the water column and mud of the Sound, get into the microscopic plants and animals and, since it's eat and be eaten in nature, move their way up the food chain to the herring, the birds, salmon, orcas and humans that call this great place home.
The decline of our many iconic species is due to habitat degradation and to toxic chemical contamination, which affects reproduction and resistance to disease.
