The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe is the first tribe in the nation to receive EPA certification for its watershed-based plan. It focuses on goals…
For those of you who still don't think Puget Sound and the ocean environments are in trouble, here's some food for thought: If a dead orca were to wash up on your local beach, technically, it would have to be handled as toxic waste. Concentrations of poisons are so high in local orcas that the whale might have to be disposed of in a special incinerator used to clean up material from highly polluted Super-Fund sites. How could it ever come to this? How could the mighty killer whale ever decline so far as to be listed as an endangered species? How could these magnificent animals, that thrill and amaze us all every time we see pods of them slash through the translucent Northwest waters, ever get so polluted?
OLYMPIA (August 2, 2005) ─ Think about it. Nothing is more important than water. You drink it every day. You bathe your children in it. Water quality is the foundation of salmon recovery efforts. Yet, nothing is so neglected.
The state’s water quality standards should be updated to fit the needs of society and the environment—at least annually. They’re just too important to disregard. But it has been a decade and a half since the standards have been comprehensively updated, and that is a tragedy in the making.
Diminished water quality is more than a nuisance; it’s a killer. Worldwide, millions of people and untold numbers of fish and wildlife die from water-borne diseases and impure water every year. Whether you’re talking viruses, bacteria, complex chemicals or heavy metals, we have many of the killer poisons in our own fresh and salt water back yards. And, sure enough, Pacific Northwest fish, wildlife and people do die as a result.