State of the North Sound and Straits

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist over a great salt marsh…is to have knowledge of things as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”
—Rachel Carson

The marine waters of northern Puget Sound and Georgia Strait are a diverse ecosystem, rich in beauty and abundant with life. Deep inlets, gravel beaches, mudflat estuaries, bull kelp forests and eelgrass beds are just a few of the various habitats found in this complex waterway. Rocky shores make excellent homes for an assortment of intertidal life.

The deep, open waters of the straits provide rich feeding and breeding grounds for marine mammals and bottomfish. The estuaries, where freshwater meets the sea, offer protected rearing areas for young organisms such as juvenile salmon.

But this vital ecosystem is threatened. Dwindling stocks of forage fish, bottomfish, and salmon, as well as declining populations of seabirds and marine mammals, all point to the failing health of these waters.

Closures of recreational and commercial shellfish beds, the degradation and losses of eelgrass and kelp beds and other critical marine habitats are warning signs that the protection and restoration of this amazing ecosystem is necessary if we are to share these wonders with future generations.

Many people place tremendous value on the waters of the Sound and Straits. However, these same people also place great stress on this marine environment. Shoreline development and the subsequent loss of habitat; increased runoff from residential, industrial and agricultural practices; and increases in sewage and other sources of waste all pose threats to these fragile waters.

As more and more people are attracted to the beauty of the area, negative impacts to our waters increase and the future of the north Puget Sound and Georgia Strait ecosystem remains in jeopardy.

These human impacts paint a picture of a diverse marine ecosystem in trouble. But just as we have the power to destroy this precious place, we also have the strength and ability to protect and restore our aquatic environment. The beauty and health of the north Sound and Straits in the future will depend upon our willingness to manage our own behavior today.

In this report, we present an overview of the ecosystem of the northern Sound and Straits and endeavor to assess its health. We discuss the open waters, nearshore areas and shorelines of the waters of northern Puget Sound, from the south end of Whidbey Island north to the Canadian border. This includes the U.S. portion of the shared waters of the Strait of Georgia, which reaches into Canada.

We endeavor to present the status of ecosystem health from two different angles: the status of key species and habitats, and total pollution discharges.

We will explore the various species that play pivotal roles in the ecosystem. We’ll learn a bit about the species’ natural history and the role that it plays in the ecosystem. Each of these key species will then be assigned an overall health indicator.

Healthy and Thriving: This habitat or species is in great condition and little needs to be done aside from the continued care and protection.

Outlook Good: If we are careful, responsible and respectful, this habitat or species could reach healthy and thriving status in the future.

Fair: There is work to be done by all if we are to save this habitt or species from further declines.

Serious Trouble: We will need to act fast and work hard to make up for past actions that have had negative impacts.

Critical: If we don’t take strong actions now, we may loose this habitat or species entirely.

In this section, we present the results of our Add It Up project, wherein we endeavored to tally up the total amounts of key pollutants discharged into area water bodies. This provides a different view of ecosystem health, based on toxicity. As well, it presents an intriguing and maddening view into the regulatory world.

The degradation of our lands and the pollution of our waters are widely recognized as environmental problems. Experts may disagree on the decline in water quality or the rate at which our soils are degraded—few will deny, however, that both are serious threats to a sustainable future.

A decline in the quality of land is often viewed in isolation from the decline in water quality. But, there is an intimate connection between the land and the water. The decline and degradation of our uplands starts a chain reaction with profound consequences for water quality.

Upland vegetation is critical to a healthy aquatic ecosystem, cleaning the air and water, providing protective cover to soils, slowing flood water, filtering pollutants, and contributing to overall biological integrity. As vegetation and soils lose their ability to buffer environmental impacts, water quality declines. Erosion increases, and runoff carries nutrients and contaminants to the water.

Pesticides and fertilizers are applied to the land in order to make up for the losses in soil productivity caused by erosion, further increasing contaminant loading. This domino effect of environmental decay continues as wetlands and estuaries are degraded.

Once the land is no longer fit to store nutrients, regulate water flow, or filter chemical and biological contaminants, water quality is compromised. Treating these symptoms separately causes us to lose sight of the land and water connection. Healthy uplands are the basis for a thriving aquatic environment.

Estuaries are the richest and most productive areas of the coastal environment. They form where freshwater meets the sea. Typically, estuaries consist of mudflats and tidally flooded meadows with grasses, sedges, rushes and even some wildflowers.

However, estuarine scrub-shrub wetlands are now thought to be prominent links in a complicated ecological web. These habitats typically occur at slightly higher tidal elevations and serve as an upland transitional zone for vegetation. Willow, sweetgale and Sitka spruce may dominate in these areas.

Migrating and native birds, salmonids and a host of other animals converge at estuaries for the food, shelter and protection they provide. In an estuary, grasses offer a place for young fish to hide, and insects, worms and small invertebrates provide food for birds. The estuarine environment is especially valuable for young salmon.

As juveniles, salmon migrate to brackish estuaries, where they feed primarily on zooplankton in and around eelgrass beds. Here, they gain the size and strength necessary for life in the open ocean. Young salmon also need the estuary to acclimate to the salt water environment. Upon reaching adulthood, they move out to open marine waters for three to four years to feed on plankton, fish and marine invertebrates.

When the flow of water and sediments is interrupted, the estuary is starved of its necessary building blocks. When such interruptions are permanent, such as channeling and hardening for shipping berths or diking for agricultural land, the estuary starves and begins to shrink. Over 80 percent of our estuaries have disappeared. Lost with them are important habitats and many of the species that can depend on them.

The Nooksack River, which drains to Bellingham Bay, represents one of the last unimpaired mudflat and saltmarsh estuaries in Puget Sound. In fact, the Nooksack River delta is the only major river delta in the Puget Sound that is still growing.

Historically, the waters of the Nooksack flowed into both Bellingham and Lummi bays. In the late 1800s, a two-mile-long logjam diverted the flow of the river so that it all flowed into Bellingham Bay. This diversion was made permanent via a dike at the Lummi River in 1926.

The Nooksack River carries a large load of sediment from the foothills of Mount Baker, through agricultural lands of its flood plain and finally to the sea. Annual deposits of 526,000 metric tons of sediment into the bay have caused the delta to extend more than one mile into Bellingham Bay since 1873.

Sedimentation from the Nooksack River affects both natural and human systems in the bay. Natural systems are affected because the rapidly growing delta has not yet stabilized, allowing for the development of a range of estuarine vegetation that provides important feeding and rearing habitat for a variety of organisms. Human systems are affected because sedimentation along the industrial waterfront interferes with navigation.

By contrast, the Skagit River delta has lost the majority of its estuarine habitat. Historically, the river flowed through approximately 25,766 acres of tidally influenced wetlands. By the 1880s, however, estuarine areas were already being diked to drain the land for agricultural use. Today, estimates are that the Skagit has lost more that 23,825 acres of estuary habitat–a loss of 93 percent. (People for Puget Sound, 2001)

The Skagit River once hosted some of the largest salmon runs in Puget Sound. The extreme loss of estuarine habitat in what is the largest watershed draining to the sound has had profound implications for chinook salmon. This salmon species relies heavily on the estuary, spending up to a month in the estuary before heading out to sea. Loss of this important transitional habitat has been implicated in the decline of chinook populations throughout the sound.

Restoring this watershed’s estuary will be a challenging endeavor. Much of the land in the former delta is in private ownership, making any sort of restoration project expensive, given the purchase costs. As well, without a continual flow of water, sediment and woody debris into the estuary, restoration efforts will meet with marginal success. Restoration efforts will have to look upstream into issues surrounding forest management, farming and residential development.

In addition to the two major river deltas discussed above, many small rivers and streams drain to the marine waters of the north Sound and Straits. These small creeks and their estuaries are vital links in the nearshore ecosystem. Their estuaries are especially important to a variety of salmon species, such as coho, pink, chum and steelhead salmon, as well as coastal cutthroat trout, that rely on small streams or spend large amounts of time in the estuary.

Additionally, the small estuaries provide habitat connectivity for migrating salmon as they migrate in and out from the sea. As with the larger estuaries, these smaller deltas are also important breeding and feeding habitat for a variety of other species.

There are 25 year-round streams between the Skagit River and the border, each with its own small estuary that existed historically. Some of these creeks still have most of their original estuary intact, but most have seen their deltas impacted by human activity, such as channeling, dredging, diking, or even installing culverts right at the outflow.

Other deltas in Whatcom and Skagit counties have been altered due to upland activities. Forestry, agriculture and development activities (sometimes in combination with one another) can result in increased sediment loads in streams and their estuaries.

Conversely, other river deltas have been starved of necessary sediment and nutrients as the land is increasingly covered with impervious surfaces. Paving increases the volume and flow of these small creeks while removing the slow addition of sediment needed to maintain the delta.

Outlook Good: The Nooksack River delta is not the thriving system it could be because it has not stabilized. But the delta is undeveloped and, perhaps with a little help, could become a showpiece estuary.

Fair: The Skagit has lost 93 percent of its estuary. Restoration efforts are underway, but they are confounded by the high amount of property in private ownership.

Fair: The small estuaries are in mixed condition. While a few are relatively healthy, most have been degraded to some extent. These smaller drainages may, however, be easier to address due to their smaller scale. §

Publication Date: October 2002
Editing Assistance
Lisa Friend
Summer Groff
Research
Lauren Mulroy
Erika Whitman
Kristina Miles
Bree Yednock

RE Sources is a nonprofit environmental education and advocacy organization that provides information on local environmental issues and opportunities for active citizen involvement.

Next Month — Marine Vegetation