WITH A LITTLE more than two weeks until the calendar turns to 2020, metrics used to gauge the health of Puget Sound have the Puget Sound Partnership, a state agency formed in 2004 to clean up the water body by 2020, ringing alarms.
Only four of the 31 indicators used by the group to quantify the Sound’s health are at or near their target levels for 2020, according to a State of the Sound report published by the partnership last week.
On the plus side, the amount of forest land lost to development has dropped from 5,400 acres a year in the 1990s to 840 acres from 2011 to 2016.
And an index of toxic contamination (covering 40 petrochemicals and eight heavy metals) in seafloor sediment shows “minimum exposure” levels in most of Puget Sound. Elliott Bay in Seattle still has high levels of contaminants.
The negatives are pretty well known.
Chinook populations, listed as threatened more than 20 years ago, have not recovered.
The number of southern resident killer whales — declared endangered in 2005 — are at a 40-year low.
Thousands of acres of shellfish beds are still closed to harvesting due to poor water quality.
Floodplain habitat restoration work since 2011 has only reached 20 percent of the target amount.
The partnership decried a lack of funding was the onus of failure for many of the indicators and asked for a five-fold growth in funding for near-term actions to assist efforts in Puget Sound through 2022.
“The primary barriers between us and more food for orcas, clean and sufficient water for people and fish, sustainable working lands and harvestable shellfish are funding and political fortitude,” said Laura Blackmore, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership.
“The single greatest step we could take to ensure a durable, systematic and science-based effort to recover Puget Sound is to fully fund the implementation of habitat protection and restoration, water quality protection and salmon recovery programs.”
That’s a tough ask in an area that sees more and more population growth each year.
“The continued growth of the region’s human population and development of land for residential, commercial and industrial uses threaten to further degrade habitat, pollute marine and fresh waters and impair the viability of a number of species such as salmon and orca whales,” the report said. “Impacts from a changing climate and ocean — including higher temperatures, more intense weather, new patterns of high and low stream flow, rising sea levels, and acidification of marine waters — only add to our challenge.”
Snowpack low
In a Twitter post Monday, the state Department of Ecology pointed out that November was the fifth driest November since 1895, the statewide snowpack is 28 percent of normal and the Olympic Mountains are even further behind with snowpack at 18 percent of normal.
So the expected bout of winter weather headed for higher elevations is more than welcome.
Razor digs underway
Razor clam digs are set through Monday at the following ocean beaches and low tides:
• Today: 6:45 pm, -0.9 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks.
• Friday: 7:26 pm, -1.0 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
• Saturday: 8:08 pm, -1.0 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
• Sunday: 8:53 pm, -0.8 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
• Monday: 9:41 pm, -0.4 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks.
No digging is allowed before noon for allowed digs, when low tide occurs in the evening.
“We also were able to pencil out tentative dates, and upcoming digs bring a ton of opportunity to harvest clams well into the new year,” said Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish manager with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Proposed digs through the end of 2019 are:
Monday, Dec. 23: 4:35 pm, -0.4 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
Thursday, Dec. 26: 6:47 pm, -1.1 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Friday, Dec. 27: 7:26 pm, -0.9 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
Saturday, Dec. 28: 8:05 pm, -0.6 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Sunday, Dec. 29: 8:43 pm, -0.2 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
Ayres notes that low tides around New Years Day are not low enough for successful razor clam harvest, so digging will be open for the holiday.
Other proposed digs are Jan. 8-14 and 21-26 and Feb. 6-12 and 20-23.
Ayres said there are plenty of clams left on beaches as diggers have reached just 12 to 18 percent of harvest totals and at this stage, diggers have normally been closer to 30 percent.
Crowds are smaller due to more opportunity, and Ayres said this season could see hundreds of thousands of diggers on ocean beaches.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
