Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

New Wood Waste Standard Operating Procedures For Canadian Disposal At Sea Program, Adam Larusic, Rebecca Seifert

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Disposal at Sea Program regulates Disposal at Sea activities with the goal of preventing marine pollution. Most of the material that is disposed of at sea is dredged material that must be moved to keep shipping channels and harbors clear for navigation and commerce. In British Columbia dredged material sometimes contains wood waste as a by-product of the wood processing industry. This presentation will provide an overview of new wood waste operating procedures being proposed for the Disposal at Sea Program, based on recommendations from a report by Azimuth Consulting Group of Vancouver, BC.

Working On The Railroad: Coastal Streams Prioritization To Inform Restoration Planning, Paul Schlenger, Phil Bloch, Jennifer Griffiths

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Puget Sound’s nearshore has been substantially modified since the Industrial Revolution with extensive infrastructure developed along the shoreline. In Washington State, the BNSF railroad right-of-way runs along 52 miles of the shoreline, while another 73 miles of railroad is within 200 feet of the shoreline. In many places, the railroad forms a barrier between the coastal watershed and the shoreline preventing the delivery of water, sediment, wood and organic matter into the nearshore. This creates ongoing degradation of habitat quality in the nearshore, including small estuaries and coastal embayments, which provide important habitat to juvenile Chinook salmon. In addition, the …

Using A Design Charrette And State Of The Art Coastal Modeling To Support Local Government Adaptation To Sea Level Rise, Carol Macilroy, John Doyle, Eric Grossman, Guillaume Mauger

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The majority of the Town of La Conner sits at an elevation (MLLW) of 8-13 feet where over the last number of years Town staff have gone from seeing the baseboards of their overwater business district being reached once or twice every four to five years to being reached four to five times a year. These high water events come at great expense to the Town and leave the Town regularly just shy of a major disaster. The Town of La Conner partnered with the Skagit Climate Science Consortium (including USGS, UW Climate Impacts Group and Western Washington University) and …

Monitoring Stormwater Contaminants In The Puget Sound Nearshore: An Active Biomonitoring Tool Using Transplanted Mussels (Mytilus Trossulus), Jennifer Lanksbury, Andrea J. Carey, Mariko M. Langness, Brandi Lubliner, Laurie A. Niewolny, James E. West

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Stormwater delivers a diverse range of contaminants to receiving waters including Puget Sound. Monitoring stormwater pollutants and their effects on biota is critical to informing best management practices aimed at recovering Puget Sound health. In the winter of 2012/13, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Toxics-focused Biological Observation System (TBiOS) team conducted a pilot study using transplanted mussels to characterize the extent and magnitude of contamination in nearshore biota of Puget Sound. Mussels are now a key TBiOS indicator organism for tracking contaminants in the nearshore, and the Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) program has adopted mussels for nearshore stormwater …

Marine Protected Areas And The Role Of Engos In Supporting Mpa Establishment Within The Salish Sea, Ross Jameson, Jacob Chila

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Salish Sea is a marine bioregion of extraordinary biological, cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic value. These waters have sustained indigenous and non-indigenous coastal communities over generations by providing food, cultural, economic, and ecological services. With the growing impacts of human activities and climate change, conservation strategies are needed to ensure the future health of the Salish Sea. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a tried-and-true conservation measure to protect an area’s natural and cultural resources. Public call for the establishment of an MPA within the Southern Strait of Georgia (SSoG), the waters surrounding the Canadian Gulf Islands near Victoria, started in …

When Fish Speak English, Heidi Siegelbaum

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

“What did you just say?” This is the world where cognitive psychology, neural linguistics, risk communication and prose meet the hard sciences. In the Salish Sea, people are aching for meaning, narratives, tools and pathways to help protect what they love or what lines their wallets... but only if they understand the value of Puget Sound as a biological place, a community, an economy and a braided culture. The pathway from data to knowledge to understanding to action is a circuitous and long path which starts with clear communication and first and foremost, understanding our target audiences. These are the …

Is Natural Recovery Occurring At Historic Log Storage Sites In Howe Sound?, Herb Herunter, Steve Macdonald

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Log handling and storage has contributed large amounts of wood waste to the benthic environments of Howe Sound over the last century. Rates of organic matter deposition in these areas far exceed those of natural origin. Debris, in the form of wood chips, bark, and whole logs, quickly overwhelm benthic environments leading to physical disruption and anoxic conditions unsuitable for most biota. It is estimated that these sites may remain relatively devoid of marine life for many years or decades. As such there is considerable interest in the actual size of these sites and remediation opportunities, especially in productive nearshore …

Interactive Effects Of Ocean Acidification And Ocean Warming On Pacific Herring (Clupea Pallasi) Early Life Stages, Brooke Love, Cristina Villalobos, M. Brady Olson

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The synergy of ocean acidification and ocean warming may lead to negative marine organism responses not apparent under single stressors. While adult fish are effective acid-base regulators, and presumably less affected by environmental stressors, early life stages may be more susceptible. Pacific herring are ecologically and economically important forage fish, native to the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW). However, the herring populations in the PNW have experienced reductions in stock abundance. This study focused on the combined effects of ocean acidification and ocean warming on Pacific herring embryo and larval life stages. Pacific herring embryos were incubated under a factorial design …

Providing Modeling Tools On Extreme Events Of Climate Change To Puget Sound Managers, Andrea Copping, Zhaoqing Yang, Ian Miller, Jude K. Apple, Guillaume Mauger, Nathalie Voisin, Aimee Fullerton, Ning Sun, Mikaela Freeman

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

As climate change becomes a reality for the management of Puget Sound, water resource and fisheries managers should consider incorporating predictions and outcomes of future climate drivers into their long-range plans and daily operations. Modeling tools that focus on climate impacts and predictions show that extreme events are more often responsible for large impacts than the long-term press of climate change. Working with water resource and fisheries managers in the Dungeness and Skagit watersheds, this project uses outputs of existing climate and estuarine models to define thresholds and metrics associated with extreme climate-driven events that are of importance to the …

Hood Canal Bridge Effect On Hydrodynamics And Nearfield Zone Of Influence, Adi Nugraha, Tarang Khangaonkar

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Hood Canal is a deep and long estuarine sub-basin within the Salish Sea that exhibits characteristics of classic fjords. Presence of the Hood Canal Bridge (HCB), a floating barge-like block near the mouth of Hood Canal is under investigation for potential environmental impacts on water quality and pelagic ecosystem. In this study, the effect of HCB on Hood Canal stratification and transport were evaluated using the Salish Sea Model, a 3-D hydrodynamic model with Hood Canal Bridge embedded at a high local resolution. The effects of the bridge as an obstruction to tidal currents and circulation were examined near the …

Ambient Monitoring To Inform The Protection Of Beneficial Uses And Achieve Water Quality Goals In Sinclair And Dyes Inlets, Puget Sound, Wa, Robert Johnston, Michelle Aylward, Gunther Rosen, Jonathan Strivens, Nicholas Schlafer, Marienne Colvin, Jill M. Brandenberger, Paul Caswell

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Currently discharge limits enforced under the Clean Water Act are focused on meeting National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) limits at the end of the pipe and environmental performance is measured based on meeting the NPDES discharge limits; but meeting discharge limits has very little to do with achieving water quality goals for coastal and estuarine ecosystems. Therefore an effective monitoring and assessment program is needed to assess continuous process improvement, evaluate the ecological conditions, and provide metrics that can inform effective management of coastal and estuarine water quality. Here we report on an ambient monitoring program within Sinclair and …

Understanding Shoreline Landowner Views On Water Quality Best Management Practices And Outreach, Robert C. Simmons, Darcy Mcnamara, Heidi Keller

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Place-based research targeting rural shoreline property owners provided valuable insights into water quality issue awareness, viewpoints, and willingness to adopt best management practices (BMPs). This information can improve the efficacy of outreach programs designed to motivate shoreline homeowners to protect adjacent waterways. Between 2009 and 2016, 7 different sets of audience research were conducted to determine how to increase the voluntary adoption of water quality BMPs on private land. The studies focused on shoreline landowners and were conducted in rural areas in the South Puget Sound and Hood Canal regions of Washington State. Barriers and motivators for a variety of …

Identifying Areas Of High Conservation Value In Howe Sound To Strengthen Regional Marine Spatial Planning, Fiona Beaty, Jessica Schultz, Bill Wareham

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Marine spatial planning is a crucial step in the transition toward ecosystem-based management. It allows multiple users to co-manage marine spaces, minimizes user conflict, and informs marine conservation strategies. Spatial planning tools, such as web-based interactive maps, are especially useful in regions with complex and overlapping jurisdictions, where understanding processes outside of district boundaries can be both critical and difficult to achieve. Howe Sound/Atl’kitsem is one such region. The area is a fjord adjacent to Metro Vancouver and is within the traditional territory of the Squamish First Nation. Additionally, Howe Sound is governed by three regional districts, five municipalities, and …

Past, Present, And Future Water Quality In Lake Union/Ship Canal, Elliott Bay, And The Duwamish Estuary And The Benefits Of Combined Sewer Overflow Control And Other Projects, Jim Simmonds

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

To help protect regional water quality, in 2012 King County initiated a study to review the impacts of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and other sources of pollution to inform the region of the benefits of CSO control. King County’s Water Quality Assessment and Monitoring Study (Study) explored water quality in Lake Union/Ship Canal, Elliott Bay, and the Duwamish Estuary, where the County is planning projects to reduce the frequency of CSOs to an average of one untreated overflow per site per year over a 20-year moving average. Reducing CSO frequency to this degree is known as CSO “control” and is …

Modeling Wind-Induced Waves In The Salish Sea, Zhaoqing Yang, Wei-Cheng Wu, Taiping Wang, Guillaume Mauger, Ruby Leung

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

There have been on-going efforts for increasing coastal resilience to the risk of coastal inundation as a result of sea-level rise in Washington. Accurate coastal risk projection depends on detailed and accurate information of sea level rise, including waves and storm surge induced by windstorms. This paper presents a modeling study simulating wind-induced waves in the Salish Sea. A nested-grid modeling approach was used to provide accurate and robust model simulations at various scales. The NOAA NCEP’s WaveWatch III (WW3) model is configured at global and regional scales with wind forcing obtained from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). For …

Turning The Ship: A New Direction For Managing Wood Waste In The Salish Sea Of Washington State, Russ Mcmillan, Chance Asher, John Evered, Celina Abercrombie

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Wood waste has been a major driver in numerous large scale, nearshore cleanups in Washington State Its presence has contributed substantially to both the extent and volume of sediment requiring cleanup which is costly and time consuming. Success in dealing with wood waste must start with controlling sources and a reassessment of how timber-related uses of our waters are conducted. Recognizing its ecological impacts and the financial burden of cleanup prompts the change from practices that release wood waste to state waters. While it is tough to change from traditional use of waters for transport and storage of logs or …

Living With The Shoreline: Education For Property Owners, Shannon Davis, Tina Whitman

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

As over 90% of shoreline parcels in San Juan County are in private, residential ownership, shoreline property owners are critical caretakers of marine habitats. Information that is provided directly to shoreline property owners can be beneficial to all who enjoy the resources provided by our marine habitats. And in our changing climate, shoreline property owners’ actions can also help improve resilience to the impacts ahead. So, how do you educate shoreline landowners in a manner that engages and inspires them toward positive choices? Friends of the San Juans took on this challenge and created an attractive, positive, and engaging booklet …

Age Truncation And Portfolio Effects In Puget Sound Pacific Herring, Margaret Siple, Andrew O. Shelton, Tessa B. Francis, Dayv Lowry, Adam P. Lindquist, Timothy E. Essington

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Forage fish undergo dramatic changes in abundance through time. Long-term fluctuations, which have historically been attributed to changes in recruitment, may also be due to changes in adult mortality. Pacific herring, a lightly exploited forage fish in Puget Sound, WA, have exhibited shifts in age structure and decreases in spawning biomass during the past 30 years. Here, we investigate changes in adult mortality as a potential explanation for these shifts. Using a hierarchical, age-structured population model, we indicate that adult natural mortality for Puget Sound Pacific herring has increased since 1973. We find that natural mortality has increased for every …

Changes In Harbor And Dall’S Porpoise In Puget Sound, 1990s To Present, David Anderson, Joseph R. Evenson, Laurie Shuster, John Calambokidis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

No abstract provided.

Changes In Strandings Of Cetaceans In Puget Sound/Salish Sea, Jessica L. Huggins, Amanda Warlick, Stephanie Norman, Jennifer Olson, Dyanna M. Lambourn, Joseph K. Gaydos, John Calambokidis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

No abstract provided.

Advances In Understanding The Drivers Of Change And Potential Conservation Actions For Pacific Herring In The Salish Sea, Tessa B. Francis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Advances in Understanding the Drivers of Change and Potential Conservation Actions for Pacific Herring in the Salish Sea

This session offered the latest results from researchers in the USA and Canada based upon cutting-edge approaches to understanding what limits Pacific herring populations in the Salish Sea, which are in decline in many places, and what management actions can be taken to ensure their recovery and conservation.

Margaret (Megsie) Siple described the importance of population diversity in Pacific herring for maintaining their overall stability (i.e., portfolio effects), and presented population model results showing increased adult mortality and age truncation (i.e., loss …

Biological Impacts Of Underwater Noise From Vessels, Kathy Heise

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

No abstract provided.

Return Of The Giants Of The Salish Sea: Increased Occurrence Of Humpback And Gray Whales In Inland Waters, John Calambokidis, Kiirsten Flynn, Elana Dobson, Jessica L. Huggins, Alie Perez

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

No abstract provided.

Dolphins In The Salish Sea: Are Warmer Water Species Expanding Into Our Region?, Laurie Shuster, David Anderson, Jessica L. Huggins, Annie B. Douglas, Nathan Harrison, John Calambokidis, Susan Berta

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

No abstract provided.

Techniques For Understory Kelp Salvage And Recolonization Of Disturbed Sites To Mitigate Temporal Habitat Loss, Ashley Park, Gina Lemieux, Brian Emmett, Doug Mcmillan, Peter Troffe, Shauna Davis, Michael Bodman, Mike Waters, Cliff Robinson

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Defence Construction Canada, on behalf of the Department of National Defence (DND), undertook dredging in Constance Cove, Esquimalt Harbour, as part of DND's multi-year, harbour-wide sediment remediation program. One of the mitigation measures recently implemented with the Constance Cove remedial dredging is the salvage of understory kelp within the project's dredge footprint prior to the dredging; the relocation of salvaged material to a temporary storage area, and restocking once construction is complete. These kelp salvage measures are intended to address impacts of temporal fish habitat loss due to dredging activities in an area with an existing kelp bed, and to …

From Data To Decisions: Navigating The “So What?” And “What’S Next?” Conversation Around Nearshore Data, Dawn Spilsbury Pucci

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Ever wonder what happens to all those data being collected? In Island County, we are fortunate to be the focus of a plethora of data collection efforts. We have comprehensive nearshore assessments that describe where our habitats are and how those habitats are built. We have habitat assessments that are a collaborative effort between citizen science groups and state agencies. We have long-term status and trends data sets on intertidal habitats and presence for a few specific species. We have a high resolution shoreline armor dataset and we have a predictive probability model for coastal flood risk. But what do …

Understanding And Managing Underwater Noise From Vessel Activities, Michelle Sanders, Jeff Pelton

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Part B Presentation Topic: Understanding and Managing Underwater Noise from Vessel Activities. Abstract A complex mix of threats have resulted in nineteen of Canada’s whale populations being listed under the Species at Risk Act, including eight as endangered. Factors such as insufficient access to food, contaminants, and acoustic and physical disturbance – including vessel noise and vessel strikes - have contributed to population declines and hindered recovery, particularly for three of these endangered species - the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW), the St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga, and the North Atlantic Right Whale. In November 2016, the Prime Minister of Canada …

Survival Of Hatchery-Origin Juvenile Pinto Abalone (Haliotis Kamtschatkana) Outplanted To Restoration Sites In The San Juan Islands, Henry Carson, Michael Ulrich, Josh Bouma

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Puget Sound Restoration Fund, and other project partners have outplanted thousands of hatchery-reared pinto abalone in annual cohorts to ten sites in the San Juan Archipelago since 2009. We measured the “success” of each outplant site by the proportion of total juveniles placed that survived to a reproductive size. In winter 2017 surveys we observed a range of successes, from 0% at the worst site to 5.6% at the best. When nearby individuals are included, this success ranges as high as 7.5%. These percentages do not account for the probability of detection for …

Urban-Related Distribution Patterns Of An Iconic Salish Sea Mesopredator, The Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus Dofleini), Eliza C. Heery, Amy G. Olsen, Blake E. (Blake Edward) Feist, Kenneth P. Sebens

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Like many coastal areas globally, the Salish Sea has undergone rapid urbanization over recent decades. Terrestrial research suggests urbanization facilitates a variety of mesopredators by enhancing food and shelter resources and by limiting apex predation. Yet urbanization’s effect on mesopredators in the marine environment has rarely been examined. The giant Pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, is an iconic mesopredator of the Pacific Northwest due to its size and cognition, and is thought to reach a particularly large maximum size in inland waters of the Salish Sea. We examined the spatial distribution patterns and habitat use of giant Pacific octopus in Puget …

A Collaborative Approach For Evaluating Agricultural Contributions To Nonpoint Source Pollution In The Deschutes Watershed, South Puget Sound, Stephen Bramwell, Nicole Warren

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The 2015 Deschutes River Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report by the Washington State Department of Ecology (ECY) recommended actions to improve water quality parameters in this watershed, including reduction of agricultural non-point source pollution. Farmers in the watershed were suspected of contributing to violations of state water quality standards for fecal coliform and nutrient loading, among other parameters, but basic information on crop production, livestock numbers and stocking rates, and the presence or absence of exclusion fencing, among other data, was unavailable. A local research effort was initiated in 2016 to address these issues. A local collaboration was established …