What Would A Healtier Puget Sound Look Like?

[gcbryan]

I wonder what a healthier Puget Sound would look like from a diver's perspective. You can't compare this environment to Vancouver Island since that's a rocky wall,high current, and more open to the ocean kind of environment (more like the San Juan's in many ways).

If the waters of Puget Sound were healthier (a good thing of course) I'm just wondering how different it would appear from the perspective of a scuba diver. There still wouldn't necessarily be more fixed habitat for increased marine life to congregate on at local dive sites. There might be more eel grass to serve as breeding grounds for increased numbers of marine life.

Would an increase in water quality along the lines of several orders of magnitude have any appreciable impact on what we see underwater and if so how would that play out?

[Huskychemist]

Gray,

What an interesting post with quite a variety of answers, I'm sure.

Is one aspect of "health" the level of fishing? I certainly don't have much knowledge of how much fishing is allowed in Puget Sound and whether it is overfished...but my local environment here in Thailand is certainly overfished. People that have dived here for a long time reminisce (sp?) about the days of more schools of big fish and more variety on the reefs.

I wonder about folks that have been diving Puget Sound for a long time...what will they say? Is it the same? Is the diversity decreasing?

I can't wait for more responses here.

Lowell

[60south]

Wow, I wonder that same thing on every dive! I think, what would this have looked like a hundred years ago? Two things come to mind...

The south end of Hood Canal has very low oxygen levels and poor visibility. In large part this is due to the lack of tidal flushing, so it may happen without our help. But with all the runoff from farms and development the problem is apparently much worse. My guess is that the visibility in much of Puget Sound is also worse than it would be because of pollution and runoff, and the resulting algae the grows (and dies) when excess nutrients are introduced.

There used to be a 'Salmon Derby' in Discovery Bay every year. On the wall of the PNNL Sequim marine lab is a turn-of-the-century photo showing some of salmon caught there. The salmon are HUGE, and there's lots of them. These days there's no more salmon derby and (AFAIK) very few salmon in the bay.

[dsteding]

http://www.psp.wa.gov/shiftingbaselines.php

An interesting reference point.

I'd say that, from a diver's standpoint, we are seeing mixes of fish that are different than in the past, less salmon, less diversity, less crab, less in the way of clams. Seabirds and other critters like marine mammals are certainly less.

From a water quality standpoint, I'd agree that increased nutrients and sediment probably have an overall negative impact on visibility on average, we'd probably see more good vis days and less in terms of really bad vis days.

[Joshua Smith]

Orcas. More Orcas.

[ArcticDiver]

Guess the answer depends on two things:
What is your definition of "Healthier"?
What is your time reference? Is it contemporary? Geologic? Planetary? What?

From what I've been led to believe most water bodies, including Puget Sound, have had vastly different compositions over time.

[gcbryan]

Guess the answer depends on two things:
What is your definition of "Healthier"?
What is your time reference? Is it contemporary? Geologic? Planetary? What?

From what I've been led to believe most water bodies, including Puget Sound, have had vastly different compositions over time.

What's your guess as to what I meant?

Did you think that I might be asking what did Puget Sound look like right after the planet formed?
What did Puget Sound look like right after the last ice age? Really?

And by "healthier" what is the potential confusion. Healthier than it is now would be the logical inference and would also imply a contemporary time frame. Healthier would imply before man made pollution was at the level of today. I am interested in what it was like 50 years ago as well as 200 years ago. Before than...not so much.

[dsteding]

Guess the answer depends on two things:
What is your definition of "Healthier"?
What is your time reference? Is it contemporary? Geologic? Planetary? What?

From what I've been led to believe most water bodies, including Puget Sound, have had vastly different compositions over time.

Click on the link I provided for context, but I thought Gray's question wasn't that complex.

[ArcticDiver]

Guess the answer depends on two things:
What is your definition of "Healthier"?
What is your time reference? Is it contemporary? Geologic? Planetary? What?

From what I've been led to believe most water bodies, including Puget Sound, have had vastly different compositions over time.

What's your guess as to what I meant?

Did you think that I might be asking what did Puget Sound look like right after the planet formed?
What did Puget Sound look like right after the last ice age? Really?

And by "healthier" what is the potential confusion. Healthier than it is now would be the logical inference and would also imply a contemporary time frame. Healthier would imply before man made pollution was at the level of today. I am interested in what it was like 50 years ago as well as 200 years ago. Before than...not so much.

I had no guess as to what you meant. But I have observed that most people who use that terminology frame their reference in a relatively recent time frame. From what I have been able to gather, in planetary terms, the environment we live it when compared to historical past is pretty benign. So, we have gotten the apparently false idea that this benign environment is the norm and somehow us humans are the cause of all significant adverse change.

Yep, certain countries, China and India are in the lead, to pour lots of pollution into the enviroment. It is routinely detected in the air over my state. But, it is far from clear, popular opinion not withstanding, that this is causing the climate change we are experiencing.

Yes it is true we have more people on the planet than ever before and that has an effect on the environment. It may very well be that we are "over grazing our range" and will soon be endangered as a species.

In the end I, nor no one else, has a clue as to what Puget Sound, or any other such body of water, would look like without human impact. We just don't know enough and are unlikely to gain that knowledge in the near future.

So, to me, our goal as humans ought to be to clean up our nest, so to speak, not for the environement's sake; but for ours. Having clean air and water, regardless of its' effect on the planet is desireable from a liveability perspective. Plus, like other species we face the danger of extinction as the planet changes. We may not be the cause of the change, who knows, but we have the intelligence, I hope, to recognize it and either cope with it hear, or send life boats to other planets so the species continues.

Long, but this is a subject that has more emotion than thought in the discussions about it.

[Grateful Diver]

I think one significant impact on Puget Sound is known ... and is most definitely human-imposed ... storm water runoff.

As we pave over what for millenia was once forest, we create surfaces that are incapable of doing what nature intended ... which is to absorb, filter, and return rainwater to the ground, streams and rivers. Impervious surfaces change our environment dramatically, primarily through pollution and erosion. And because so much of the area now comprises impervious surfaces, a significant part of the Puget Sound area no longer is capable of absorbing water, which means that more fresh water than ever is being dumped into Puget Sound, unfiltered and loaded with human-induced pollutants. This changes the basic composition of the water in the Sound. More suspended solids, more bioproducts, more chemicals and fertilizers, more petroleum, enters the Sound every year. These are certainly human-induced, and are in no way healthy either to the life within the Sound or to the human population who live here.

The good news is that we're learning more about the effects of runoff ... and we're getting better at finding effective ways to reduce it and treat it before it finds its way back into the Sound. The bad news is that every year more and more acreage is being turned into impervious surfaces ... steadily (and rapidly) reducing the ground's natural ability to act as a pollution filter before that runoff finds its way into streams, lakes, and rivers ... and ultimately back into the Sound.

Whether our efforts will be enough to restore health to the Sound remains to be seen ... but I believe that runoff is the single biggest source of pollution in Puget Sound today, and it is most certainly one that is solely due to human activities.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Edit: A few months back while I was working on the documentation for our City's NPDES permit I came across a Dept. of Ecology document that mentioned the Puget Sound receives the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez worth of pollutants per year through untreated storm water runoff. Based on what I have learned through working on these documents over the past year, I find that statement entirely plausible.

[60south]

In the end I, nor no one else, has a clue as to what Puget Sound, or any other such body of water, would look like without human impact. We just don't know enough and are unlikely to gain that knowledge in the near future.

Wow, that's a... broad statement. Based on what I've been reading, determining baselines after-the-fact does appear to be difficult but not impossible. Also, the OP asked what a healthier PS would look like, not what it looked like before any human impacts (although that would be nice). Many changes have been visible in our lifetimes; the loss of some birds (puffins, surf scoters), mammals (orcas, whales, otters) and fish (salmon) is well documented.

I'm not an ecologist or biologist, but I have been studying the Puget Sound environment for the past few years. It is clear that damage is being done, and things used to be better. What is your background that leads you to think that we can't know what it used to look like? Just curious.

glenn

[ArcticDiver]

One of the real problems in discussing subjects such as this is establishing a common set of definitions. Another is to differentiate political perspectives, social activism, established fact, theory, and, very important, time perspective. Often these get so intertwangled that it makes it difficult to get agreement on much of anything.

In this case I made the assumption that the OP was thinking in terms of reduced human impact, or maybe free of human impact. That logically leads back to the times when there were essentially no humans to have an impact.

I operate with a pretty simple definition of "pollution". Polution is the inability of a species to clean up after itself. That is different from letting the planet clean up the mess. For the most part our ancestors handled pollution by being nomadic, or razing and re-building. This is the way many species handle pollution today. What limits their population is food supply and disease. In a basic way we are no different.

Frankly, I'm not at all worried about the planet's future. Many species have come and gone over the millenia. Some, like the dinosaurs, left their demise a mystery. In other's case we can figure it out pretty clearly.

So, in the case of Puget Sound less human impact would definitely help our quality of life. It definitely would go a long way to helping assure we have something to eat. That, I think, would be the case with all the world's water bodies. But, in the face of uncontrolled population growth would it make a difference in the ultimate fate of our species?

[gcbryan]

One of the real problems in discussing subjects such as this is establishing a common set of definitions. Another is to differentiate political perspectives, social activism, established fact, theory, and, very important, time perspective. Often these get so intertwangled that it makes it difficult to get agreement on much of anything.

In this case I made the assumption that the OP was thinking in terms of reduced human impact, or maybe free of human impact. That logically leads back to the times when there were essentially no humans to have an impact.

I operate with a pretty simple definition of "pollution". Polution is the inability of a species to clean up after itself. That is different from letting the planet clean up the mess. For the most part our ancestors handled pollution by being nomadic, or razing and re-building. This is the way many species handle pollution today. What limits their population is food supply and disease. In a basic way we are no different.

Frankly, I'm not at all worried about the planet's future. Many species have come and gone over the millenia. Some, like the dinosaurs, left their demise a mystery. In other's case we can figure it out pretty clearly.

So, in the case of Puget Sound less human impact would definitely help our quality of life. It definitely would go a long way to helping assure we have something to eat. That, I think, would be the case with all the world's water bodies. But, in the face of uncontrolled population growth would it make a difference in the ultimate fate of our species?

I think you are trying to comment on or answer a question or set of questions that weren't asked. My original post had nothing to do with determining the ultimate fate of our species! It seems to me that you have an agenda that you want to get out there even though it has nothing to do with the original post.

[ArcticDiver]

Everyone, including all who post on this forum have an agenda, or agendas. Whether they are positive or negative depends on point of view. Something like the old saw: "I'm firm in my beliefs; but you are bullheaded".

I guess, like all us folks, I interpret things from my experience. In that experience the phrase "healthier..." is usually nuanced as meaning "without human impact", or "in recorded history". Both of which are rather short term views from a planetary perspective. Both of which are ripe with political and economic power conflicts. So, I jumped right into interpreting your post in that genre.

Unlike most people, especially Americans, I've always taken a rather long term view of things. That was further amplified when I started researching what we are experiencing, climate change. It turns out that, given a long enough time line, the earth has been hospitable to different kinds of life. Climate change is the norm, not the exception.

So, I want us humans to stop polluting, not for the planet's sake; but for our own. If we overpopulate and thus pollute the enviroment that allows us to live we place the species in danger. The planet will continue and other species will flourish. But, I would rather that ours would be among those that continue for millenia.

[Grateful Diver]

Would an increase in water quality along the lines of several orders of magnitude have any appreciable impact on what we see underwater and if so how would that play out?

Sorry Fred, but I think you read way more into the question than was actually there.

I think Gray's asking a pretty straightforward question ... completely devoid of agendas, beliefs, or politics.

And I think it's a good question, worthy of thought. Often we do things with the best of intentions, without really understanding all the implications of our actions.

Often we take stances on issues based not on the long-term best interests of the community as a whole, but on our own short-term self-interest.

Suppose we take action to "clean up the Sound" ... what will that mean to us as divers, both in the short-term and in the long?

It doesn't necessarily stand to reason that actions taken to clean up the Sound will make diving more attractive. The removal of pilings that we all enjoy using as a dive site is a perfect example ... while it may restore natural habitat, and while it may contribute to improving the overall health of the Sound, it also removes some of our most popular dive sites.

Are we, as divers, willing to look past our own specific interests and consider the overall impact of such decisions?

Or is it justifiable to rationalize why these decisions are bad ones because they have a negative short-term impact on things we like to do?

Would it be easier to suffer the loss of dive sites if we somehow had a long-term goal that would improve the diving experience several years from now?

Can we even know whether or not that would be the outcome?

An ecosystem is a very complex thing ... and we humans tend to view it not as a complex community of interacting species, but as a resource to support our own self-interest. And we impact it according to that self-interest, without really understanding (or caring) what long-term impact our actions will have. Is it worth the effort to try to restore? Or will those efforts simply produce more unintended consequences that will further reduce our ability to enjoy the underwater environment as divers?

I don't think we need to discuss, or attempt to resolve, global issues here ... I think it's more an introspection of what we, as divers, are willing to do in order to preserve a unique resource, both for ourselves and the activity we love, and for those who will inherit what we leave behind. Sometimes, those two goals are at odds with each other ... which do we consider more important?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Sounder]

How I do my little part to make the Sound a better place...

As many of my regular buddies will confirm, whenever I'm diving and I see something like a plastic bag, or chip-bag, or 6-pack holder thingy, I stop and put it in my pocket. Bottles and cans are sometimes habitat for critters, which is fine, but the real reason I don't pick them up is that there are too many and that more than 1 or 2 don't travel well in drysuit pockets.

I try to leave the dive site better than I found it and respect the critters and other divers. I believe this includes grabbing what garbage (especially the plastic stuff) I can and bringing it back with me, caring enough to not silt the place out for other divers and critters (poor critters have to inhale all that stirred-up silt crap in the water they're breathing after someone leaves a silt trail), and try not to really bother or interact with the marine life so they're not unnecessarily stressed or accustomed to divers.

Finally, I try to give back a bit. I collect data for REEF and other projects the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Project, and I try to be a good steward of diving to people as they come by or as I gear up at 3am in front of their house (not purging tanks, being extra-quiet, using lights carefully, etc). I'll let the kid at Redondo purge my regulator (which probably just made his day and made a positive impression on his parents), I'll bring up a starfish or a crab when you know there are kiddos on the beach and give them a 2 minute show, touch (carefully), and tell before putting it back safely and respectfully (not hurling it back in), and I answer the same old questions like "is there anything to see down there?" and "isn't it cold?" kindly and informatively each time with a smile - people love to hear about something you saw.

I leave only bubbles, take only pictures (well, I find stuff for my photographer buddies to shoot), data, garbage, and memories, and I do my part to make scuba divers look like nice people in the eyes of the public... which includes my friend Mr. Angry at DIW whom I ALWAYS, without fail, greet with a big smile and "good morning/afternoon/evening!"

So that's what I do to help make it a little better. Let's quit the theory, politics, and other BS here, and instead let's give each other ideas of the little things we can do to make the Sound a better, healthier place. Real things you actually do.

So, how do you do your part? What do you do?

[60south]

So, how do you do your part? What do you do?

Educate myself. And when I see I can make a positive difference, take action. (Like you, I already pick up the plastic trash. Kudos.)

FWIW, I do agree with ArcticDiver on one of his main points: No matter how badly we screw things up, in the end Nature will take care of herself. It's only a matter of how miserable we make ourselves in the mean time.

g

[ArcticDiver]

I guess I presented a little different perspective on the viability of the planet and our role on it. So often what is presented is egocentric. That is a view is presented as if us humans were the focus and the planet depends on us taking care of it. When a longer term perspective would be that the planet is the focus and we are just another species whose survival depends on adapting to it as it evolves over time.

In that perspective the answer to the original question would be something like: A healthy Puget Sound, or ocean for that matter, would provide a good environment to grow the maximum amount of food and other products needed for the human population.

The change in focus points out that the elements that determine ups and downs of other species apply to us as well.