PORT TOWNSEND — Anne Murphy, who joined the Port Townsend Marine Science Center as a staff member 20 years ago and rose to become its executive director, will receive an award for education from the People for Puget Sound on Wednesday.
“I was very honored, not just for me and my organization but also for the field of education to be recognized,” Murphy said.
The center on the beach at Fort Worden teaches and involves volunteers to help restore and save the health of the Sound.
“If we are going to change the health of Puget Sound, it’s going to take all of us together,” Murphy said.
Murphy, 57, of Chimacum, is the only individual who will receive one of three 2009 Warren G. Magnuson Sound Legacy Awards at a breakfast at the Seattle Waterfront Marriott Hotel.
The citizens’ group, which focuses on protecting and restoring Puget Sound and the Northwest Straits, will also honor two organizations.
They are the Northwest Straits Initiative for habitat restoration and stewardship, with special recognition of Tom Cowan, past director of the Northwest Straits Commission, and Jeff June of Natural Resource Consultants for derelict gear removal work; and Earthjustice, for outstanding policy leadership, with special recognition of Jan Hasselman for work in storm-water protection.
The award “recognizes people who have done extraordinary work over a period of years on behalf of Puget Sound,” said Mike Sato, director of communications.
“In the area of education, Anne has . . . really led that program in getting people to be aware of what’s going on in Puget Sound.”
Take care of Sound
A 2006 Partnership for the Puget Sound survey found that most people thought the Sound was very healthy, Murphy said.
“The truth is, it isn’t very healthy,” she said. “But most people can’t see that. There are many places on our Sound that look pristine.”
The programs of the center, which has doubled in size over the last 20 years, are intended to illustrate the reality of the Sound.
“Education is about making investments in people,” she said, adding that many of the center’s programs serve students in kindergarten through 12th grades.
“When you start out educating people when they’re young, they’re going to feel a sense of connectedness to the Sound and see how they impact it.”
In 2005, the center opened the Foss Maritime Discovery Lab, a community research lab in which volunteers collect data in such areas as dissolved oxygen levels, water quality, harmful algal blooms, stranded marine mammals and invasive species.
“That’s part of our citizenship science program,” Murphy said. “We have been involving people in monitoring the environment since we’ve existed.”
The volunteer work often becomes important to larger regional programs, since results are shared with various agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or NOAA — the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Department of Ecology, as well as several nonprofit agencies.
The center also works with the art center Centrum, Peninsula College and public school districts.
Some projects it participates in are NOAA’s Sound Toxins program, which focuses on harmful phytoplankton — or toxic algae — blooms, a detection network for paralytic shellfish poisoning — a serious illness caused by eating shellfish contaminated with toxic algae sometimes referred to as “red tide” and monitoring for European green crabs, an invasive species that feeds on shellfish and which, so far, has not been detected in the Sound.
This year, the center began an ocean acidification biodiversity study, with “settling plates” placed under its pier to collect sea animals. Volunteers are noting what animals are collecting there and will monitor changes in them as the ocean becomes more acidic because of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Murphy said.
Another center project is to study plastic in the seas.
In 2007, the center became one of five sites in the Salish Sea hydrophone network, enabling youngsters and volunteers to listen to the sounds of the sea, especially orcas.
“The neat thing about that project is that we recently had a training for people who want to monitor the sounds from their own homes,” Murphy said.
“You can be involved through your computer. You can log onto our site — www.ptmsc.org — and listen to our hydrophone.”
Funding
Funding for the center, which operates on just under $600,000 annually, has grown more difficult, Murphy said.
“For the longest time, it was so neat to be a nonprofit, being able to follow our bliss,” she said.
“Now it’s harder to be that independent. We’re not in anybody’s budget. We only have what we can generate.”
The center focuses on strengthening partnerships, both with other agencies and with the North Olympic Peninsula community.
“Our community is so generous,” Murphy said.
The goal for the recent Tides of March auction, the center’s major fundraiser, was to do as well as in 2008, when it raised $65,000.
“We came really close — between $62,000 and $63,000,” Murphy said, and $15,000 went directly into a scholarship fund for students.
Snorkeling
When Murphy has leisure time, she often can be found snorkeling in the kelp beds between Fort Worden and North Beach.
“It’s like going to the Butchart Gardens” in Victoria, “when you’re down there, the colors and the varieties . . . shimmering hues and gorgeous texture.”
Murphy also is a member of the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee, a volunteer group that develops stewardship programs for marine conservation, and a former chairwoman of the Northwest Straits Commission, he said.
Murphy, who earned a bachelor’s degree in natural resource management and environmental education at Oregon State University in 1975, began working as a teacher at the science center, founded in 1982, in 1989.
The Magnuson Puget Sound Legacy Award is named for the late state Senator Warren G. Magnuson for his work in the 1970s to pass legislation protecting marine mammals and keeping supertankers out of the Sound, Sato said.
Murphy is married to Dick Barrows. They have two children and a granddaughter. One daughter and the grandchild are planning to accompany Murphy when she receives her award.
“So we will have three generations at the ceremony,” she said.