As a new member of People for Puget Sound (new to the world of advocacy as well), Environmental Lobby Day was an exciting experience. There was something special about meeting the legislators that represent my neighborhood, and without Lobby Day I likely never would have taken the opportunity to do it. Putting a legislator’s face behind the name and stump speech that appears in the annual voter’s pamphlet was also illuminating. The handouts covering some of the environmental legislation making its way through the State Congress were comprehensible, concise, and skillfully compiled, and I was impressed with the efficiency with which the day proceeded.

More importantly, Lobby Day presents a very important (to me, at least) example of effective outreach. “Outreach” is more than emails, booths, and marketing, though these are also important components. These are the means to a crucial end, which I believe to be “enablement”. The degree to which someone has been enabled to affect change is truly the most accurate measure of a good outreach effort.

“Enablement” through outreach is also about meeting people more than halfway. We, in the Puget Sound region, live in a particularly well-educated and conscientious environment. We care about the ecosystem in which we live and our natural surroundings uniquely define us. However, most people simply cannot be as active or involved as they would like ordinarily, and one of our jobs at People For Puget Soundis to provide the opportunity to maintain and restore the Puget Sound to anyone who wants to. We try to accomplish this on an individual as well as institutional level. Sometimes this involves updating a listserv with our restoration events or setting up an informational booth at an Earth Day festival. On January 25^th, People For Puget Sound, along with its sponsoring partners, organized Lobby Day.

Robert Franco-Tayar is the Outreach Coordinator  or People For Puget Sound

If you have ever been to a habitat restoration event with People For Puget Sound, you know we are always tackling those pesky invasives, digging out blackberry to make room to plant a variety of native plants in their place.  But what’s so bad about those blackberries?  They provide food, shelter and organic matter for the soil don’t they?  And why are native plants so great?  Two intertwining concepts set native plants above the invasive ones, diversity and timing.

Diversity-

Invasive plants like blackberry and scotch broom create big stands of only blackberry and scotch broom.  This doesn’t provide a whole lot of options for a varied group of animals, birds and insects.  Low diversity in vegetation results in low diversity of animals.

Timing:

This also ties into the timing factor.  Within a huge stand of blackberry, the plants all flower and fruit at about the same time.  There is abundant food for birds and critters at that time, but pickings are pretty slim otherwise.  Timing is where native plants really shine.  The plants and animals here in the Northwest, and in other areas of the world, have been growing and living together for thousands of years.  They have had time to work out pretty intricate relationships.  Bird migrations are often timed to coincide with the flowering and fruiting of a particular plant.  Even garden cultivars of that native plant, bred for color or ease of maintenance, may flower and fruit at a slightly different time and the migrating birds are too late or too early to benefit.  Also, a diverse stand of native plants provides a continuous source of food as each species flowers and fruits at different times throughout the season.  Even insects have developed attractions to certain plants over the years, and when those plants are next to a stream, and the wind blows the insects into the water, they become food for the fish in the stream, which have developed instincts toward eating just those insects that those native plants attract.

So that’s a quick look at why we plant native plants on our restoration sites and spend so much time and energy, with all our fabulous volunteers, pulling out blackberry roots and yanking out scotch broom.

Katrina Beach is a Sound Steward who works on restoration ecology projects with People For Puget Sound.

Recently, I have been inspired that we have found a part of the solution- in the web of mushroom mycelium that runs through soil and rotted log, and can be found just about anywhere in Puget Sound with dirt and green growing things. Mycelium are akin to the roots of plants, growing into a network of fine thread-like tendrils that penetrate the soil or wood substrate the mushroom prefers. One cubic inch of soil can contain over 8 miles of mycelium, creating a vast and diverse ecosystem made up of a multitude of species of fungi and their associated microorganisms.

Over the last decade or so, researchers have explored the amazing capabilities of fungi to contribute to restoration in two key ways- by processing and eliminating contaminants and by improving soil quality and thus plant survivability.  People For Puget Sound is applying this innovative science at restoration sites around the Sound in a couple of ways:

• Mycoremediation of contaminants such as fecal coliforms and petroleum products using material inoculated, or seeded, with native mushroom species to either filter out toxins (i.e., mycofiltration) or break them down into harmless byproducts.  Essentially, the mushrooms “eat” the toxin, or alter it so it is no longer dangerous.  We are applying mycoremediation at our Cayou Lagoon site on Orcas Island. For more information, see our mycoremediation page.
• Mycorestoration to improve soil quality at restoration sites via the use of mycorrhizal mushrooms that form associations with the roots of plants, resulting in a beneficial nutrient exchange and greater plant survivability.  Native plants are treated with mushroom “spawn”, made up of native varieties that are known to form mycorrhizal bonds.   In our case, the native trees and shrubs were inoculated with a root dip before planting. We are using mycorestoration to improve plant survival at Union Slough near Everett, Terminal 105 along the Duwamish, and Maury Island Marine Park.  Want to know more? Check  out the mycorestoration information on our Echo-Tech page.

The key to this exciting and experimental technology is the ecology of the mushrooms themselves.  Fungi are decomposers.  Threadlike mycelium, the underground bodies of the mushrooms we see emerging from tree trunks or the forest floor, secrete enzymes that break down cellulose and lignin.  These complex molecules are the building blocks of plant tissue.  Made up of long chains of carbon and hydrogen, they are similar in composition to many organic pollutants such as pesticides, industrial chemicals, and petroleum products- substances that humans produce and release into the environment. The challenge is to identify the appropriate mushroom species to remediate for a given toxin- once you get this right, the results can be amazing.  In one field trial, Oyster mushrooms were found to remove 95% of the PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) from soil heavily contaminated with diesel fuel.  In addition, a pilot project near the Dungeness River found that mycoremediation was significantly more effective at removing fecal coliforms and ammonia than rain gardens alone.

The potential of these technologies to provide solutions to some of the most widespread and problematic inputs of pollutants to Puget Sound is inspiring.  Mycoremediation can address a wide array of contaminants- from fecal coliform bacteria like E. coli, to complex man-made chemicals including pesticides and industrial pollutants such as dioxin, to petroleum products and more. Mycologist Paul Stamets from Olympia-based Fungi Perfecti, who pioneered many of the mycoremediation techniques we are applying in the field, captures this potential perfectly in his inspiring and informative book Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. “Our fungal friends equip us with tools to act responsibly and repair our shared environment, leading the way to habitat recovery.”

This is fascinating and exciting science, and People For Puget Sound is working hard to bring this research out of the lab and into the field.  Our partners and colleagues around the region and the country are eagerly watching and waiting for the data that will come from the experimental mycoremediation and mycorestoration projects at our restoration sites.   Data that will hopefully document the incredible potential of the mushroom kingdom to provide the tools we need to harness ecology to heal the ecosystem.

Author Rachel Benbrook is a Restoration Ecologist for People for Puget Sound.

In the early dark and rainy morning hours in January, I found myself still half asleep talking eagerly to a long time staff member of People For Puget Sound. We were on a chartered bus heading south to Olympia.

We had a mission- to garner support from our state legislators on three environmental priorities. Hell or high water, hundreds of passionate citizens from around the state were determined to clean up Puget Sound, establish a state wide electronic waste recycling program, and promote energy independence through renewable fuels.

At the end of the day we had made significant headway. At the end of the legislative session all three bills were passed and signed by the Governor. That was in 2006.

Each year thereafter, we have achieved many legislative successes and stood our ground as opponents attempted to roll back our environmental laws, regulations and funding.

2012 legislative session will be no different in terms of the scope of the issues, the urgency of the times, and the need for citizens to have a voice. As Rep. Dave Upthegrove (33^rd) said last year in his address to lobby day attendees, “A citizen from our district who communicates an issue to us is more powerful than any paid lobbyist, because at the end of the day we represent you.”

Ah, music to any citizen’s years. Unfortunately not all our legislators have that perspective and therefore we need to hold them accountable. Remember elected officials work for us, not special interests.

On Wednesday, January 25^th I will be in Olympia for the annual Environmental Lobby Day.

Will you join me in Olympia that day? Will you join the throng of hundreds of like minded citizens?

We will descend upon the state capitol advocating for three environmental priorities from our state legislators in the face of unprecedented budget deficits.  We'll be celebrating 20 years of Environmental Lobby Day this year, so we have some major victories to remember and challenges to look forward to in the future.

See you in Olympia on January 25^th!

Click here to learn more about the Environmental Priorities Coalition's -2012 legislative package.

For more info email our Advocacy Manager Rein Attemann.

Standing atop a massive drift log and gazing southeast, I can see the faint outline of Mount Rainier coming into view as the sun rises.  The sun sleeps in later these days, something I wouldn’t mind doing, too. I’m at Maury Island Marine Park. This beautiful beach is not located in a faraway land.  It’s a short 20 minute ferry ride from West Seattle on Vashon Island.  The beach contains over a mile of undisturbed shoreline which continues to the northeast and southwest and makes up the longest stretch of intact shoreline in King County.

Across the water I can see the development of Federal Way and where Browns Point marks the inlet to the Port of Tacoma.  I imagine how a piece of Maury Island Marine Park is probably contained at the Port of Tacoma.  Its sand and gravel removed over decades of gravel mining and barged to Puget Sound cities and beyond to make concrete.  One ecosystem dug up to bury another.

The high tide hides eel grass and other habitat important to fish and wildlife. Eel grass beds are nurseries for juvenile salmon, spawning habitat for herring and part of a food web that often ends at Orcas or us. The beds are also a resource that is in trouble.  Washington has lost nearly 33% of its original eel grass beds due to shading from docks, erosion from boat propellers and contamination from chemical spills. Not here though.  Thankfully, the subtidal area offshore here is protected by an aquatic reserve.

I rotate on my log 90 degrees and peer northeast along the shore.  Large logs cover the upper portion of beach pinning the dune grass against the low bluffs.  The cobble and gravel beach looks gray in the morning light, but I know from prior close examination that each of the millions of stones and pebbles have their own vibrant color that spans the rainbow.  I know where these rocks are going, too.  Like me, they are visitors to this beach, on their way to nourish the beach at Point Robinson, protecting the historic lighthouse there.

Turning 180 degrees, the disconnection hits me.  I’ve gone from viewing a functioning beach to a degraded riparian forest.  The mining activities at the park have been over for a long time now and nature slowly reclaims the hillside in spite of the missing topsoil that the pre-mining forest created over thousands of years.  Now that man is leaving this place alone to its own devices a new battle has begun:  Native versus Invasive.  Native Madrone trees thrive on the harsh, dry, sunny conditions here, making up Washington’s largest Madrone forest.  Invasive Scot’s broom, Himalayan blackberry and English ivy also find the park to be the perfect home.  Without help, not much else is inclined to grow in pure gravel and sand.

My purpose here snaps back to the forefront of my mind.  It won’t be long before volunteers start arriving to dig hundreds of holes in the ground to plant native trees and shrubs in an effort to rehabilitate the upland.  Some of those volunteers have been coming here from the start of People For Puget Sound’s involvement at the Park in 2009.  They, like me, have fallen in love with this place.  Unlike me, some of them have gotten lucky and spotted orca whales and river otters here.  We both want to see the return of a native forest here; one that provides more plant diversity and attracts native insects, fish, birds and mammals of all types.

I’ve helped install over 2,000 plants here and know it’s just a drop in the bucket of what’s needed.  As volunteers arrive and we get to work, I know that the road to restoration is long, but I have great company and a good view.

Dhira Brown is People for Puget Sound’s Central Sound restoration ecologist.

She can be reached by email at dbrown@pugetsound.org

To check for upcoming opportunities to get involved at Maury Island Marine Park, check our Restoration Events page.

As we approached the whale on Arroyo Beach that April morning, I was filled with anticipation. This was my first gray whale stranding with the NW Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Kristin Wilkinson, NOAA’s marine mammal stranding expert, told me, “Be prepared for the media – this is the fourth dead gray in two weeks.”
Kristin and orca researcher, Jeff Hogan, immediately began to assess the animal and take measurements. I noticed Jeff’s young son, dwarfed by the massive body, wide-eyed as if trying to take it all in. Why had the whale died on our Salish Sea shore? I could not ignore the gnawing feeling that somehow we had played a part.

The thin whale, a male measuring 37 feet, was estimated to be 3-6 years old (a gray whale’s lifespan is 50-70 years). The massive creature needed to be towed to a remote location where biologists could perform their work. As we left, Kristin began making calls, arranging the logistics for a move and necropsy. A volunteer from MaST* offered his boat and towed the body to a restricted island south of Tacoma.

Two days later, boats carrying biologists and volunteers from WDFW’s Marine Mammal Investigations Unit, Cascadia Research, NOAA Fisheries and other local stranding networks landed on the island. Crates of gear and coolers were shuttled onto shore and the business of unraveling a mystery was begun. Cascadia researcher Jessie Huggins was perched high atop the back of the whale cutting blubber samples. Dyanna Lambourn, WDFW biologist, examined vital organs amidst seeming miles of intestines. Others were collecting and labeling samples, entering data. It was an impressive sight.

Cascadia’s renowned cetacean researcher John Calambokidis explored the contents of the whale’s stomach. He noted there was a significant amount of algae with little evidence of food. Hereached his hand inside the whale and removed a piece of plastic. Then, a length of rope, a golf ball, a plastic bag, a piece of cloth. Another piece of plastic, more cloth. Duct tape. A towel. Electrical tape.Fishing line. More rope. Surgical glove. Plastic funnel. More plastic bags. A huge piece of fabric – it was half a pair of sweatpants. Work around us stopped and everyone gathered, stunned. Over twenty plastic bags in all were removed from the whale’s stomach. John shook his head. In 20 years examining over 200 whales, he said he had never seen anything like this.

Suddenly, I felt sick. I struggled not to cry. I couldn’t stop thinking of the nursery in San Ignacio
Lagoon where mother gray whales, named friendlies by locals, lifted their calves up beside our small
skiff. Some of those females still bore harpoon scars. The gentle grays were old enough to remember
whalers who once called them “devil fish” because they so fearlessly fought to protect their young. In
the lagoon, I was overwhelmed at the whales’ trust as we reached out to touch them. And now, I
thought, we have betrayed that trust. With our reckless obsession with plastic, our careless abandon
with trash and chemicals.

My emotions were swirling. I knew all about that monstrous mass of plastic floating in the
Pacific. Plastics break down into micro-particles, in some places far outnumbering per square inch the plankton that sea life depends on. These particles attract storm runoff containing flame-retardants and PCBs like a magnet – entering the food chain. The plastic toxins are ingested by marine mammals and stored in their blubber, contaminating our orcas and seals. Our Northwest orcas are the most toxic marine mammals in the world.

These plastics will contaminate our oceans for hundreds and hundreds of years. Plastic bottle
caps that fill the stomachs of sea birds. Plastic grocery bags, mistaken for food, that suffocate sea
turtles and other mammals. Plastic rings and box straps that strangle and mutilate. Plastic nets and
fishing gear that choke and drown. We have all read the statistics – countless marine mammals, sea
turtles and sea birds are impacted each year by our plastics and marine debris. Many thousands die.
And now, this beautiful, majestic whale was dead before me**. A whale who sieved the floor of Puget
Sound searching for food – but instead, found only our human trash and plastic bags.

I will never forget this young whale. We can honor him and wake up to the toll that plastics take
on our marine life by the simple act of choosing reusable bags. Like good stewards, we can change our
habits – and ensure that future generations can say they share this world with whales and seals and
seabirds.

Guest Blogger Robin Lindsey is a photographer and the co-founder of Seal Sitters MMSN. She is co-author with Brenda Peterson of the children’s book Leopard and Silkie - a story of the friendship of two seal pups and a boy who protects them. Please visit Seal Sitters website and blog for more information about the marine mammals of Puget Sound,  pollution, volunteer opportunities and  NOAA's Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

Click here to take action now. Let the Seattle City Council know you support the bag ordinance (note, it is OK if you are not a Seattle resident – we hope for Seattle (and Bellingham) to help pave the way for even more cities in Puget Sound).

NOTES:
It is estimated that 292 million plastic disposable bags are used in Seattle annually with only 13% recycled. Washingtonians use more than 2 billion single-use plastic bags each year.

**While the necropsy determined that the trash did not cause the death of this whale, it was one of several contributing factors. However, the large piece of sweatpants could have eventually created a blockage. For a full list of items and photo of the stomach contents of the whale, click here. An average of 2-10 gray whales die each year in Washington as they make the 10,000 mile migration from Baja to Alaska.

*MaST (Highline Community College Marine Science and Technology Center) will have the skeleton of the whale on display for educational purposes beginning in Spring of 2012.

That is what we so often forget, that although we are just one, our actions do make a difference. They are compounded by those around us and if everyone had the same message, that message would become the one voice, rising over the deafening din of passivism for all to hear.

So what can you do or say that your neighbors might take heed in and follow suit, increasing the volume of your message? There are a myriad of things I could list; everything from picking up trash lying on the street to smiling at the people you walk by. Maybe you are already doing things that make a difference (of course you are! We all do, but don’t always realize it.). Now is the time to begin to amplify your voice by sharing it with others. Be proud of the things you do! Talk about them. Share them. Inspire!

One way to do this is become a Rain Garden Hero. Not everyone can be a Rain Garden Hero (I am one of those people), but everyone can do something and share it! If you are one of the fortunate ones who have a rain garden in your yard, you can be a Rain Garden Hero! Share your story here of what inspired you to create a rain garden, the benefits, and what it means to you to have one. Let people know you are making the world a better, more beautiful place and that they can too! Your story will be shared with others and with the Department of Ecology (DOE) to show them that every day citizens are making a difference! Don’t have a rain garden yet, but want to become a Rain Garden Hero? Go here to learn about rain gardens and how to transform your yard into something beautiful and amazing!

Don’t or can’t have a rain garden, but still want to make your voice heard? Go here (do it even if you have a rain garden!) and sign our online postcard, telling the DOE you want to see them implement strong runoff pollution prevention standards in all new developments and redevelopments. This would make the implementation of things similar to rain gardens (pervious pavement, bio swales, etc.) mandatory for developers and reduce the amount of pollution entering our local waterways.

Remember, everything you do makes a difference. Share your rain garden story with others, tell the DOE you want clean water and inspire!

Branda DesChamps is the Education and Outreach intern at People For Puget Sound.

The Lower Duwamish-- It's a strangely rugged place. Like many of these places in Puget Sound, it's also a place that represents the greater whole of our area, a place where the built world comes into striking contrast with the natural one, where the human world intermixes with that Pacific Northwest wilderness we all love. It's also a place where humans, despite the data, despite the ease of pessimism, are working. Humans like Neal who believe that fixing the problems takes the right tools and a sturdy set of boots.

And that's what this film is about. Or at least what I hope it’s about. It's about people working near that boundary-- the boundary between our world and, as Kathy Fletcher puts it, the "Amazonian" wilderness just off shore. It's about that line between us and "it," a line that been too often drawn in oil spills, plastic trash, bulkheads, toxic chemicals, pavement, and storm drains. It's about the people, like Neal, or Laura James, or the Makah Tribe, or Billy Frank Jr., who are working to make these boundaries more reasonable. They are just a few of the thousands of people around here slopping through the mud, lobbying in the halls of Olympia, and the millions around the world working for a more reasonable future. A future, as People for Puget Sound's Doug Myers puts it, "where we stop fighting nature, where we stop trying to get it out of our way." They are the ones that inspire us to be better members of the ecosystem of Puget Sound and beyond. They are the ones who give us a pulse. And I invite everyone to come see their stories.

Eric Becker is the Director of “Sound and Vision”. 

Check out "Sound & Vision" on facebook.

For  more info contact Julia Hughes - jhughes@pugetsound.org  or click here.

Almost all of People For Puget Sound’s program staff attended as an invaluable training and networking professional development opportunity.  I presented the potential water quality benefits of a restored Deschutes Estuary, Policy Director Heather Trim chaired a stormwater session, helped to organize the student presentation judging panel and was on the conference organizing committee, Restoration Ecologist Rachel Benbrook shared a poster on the Kayak-based Spartina survey program and participated in a forum on other potential kayak based education and citizen science opportunities.  All of us networked our socks off with the other attendees both within sessions and in the hallways and Executive Director Tom Bancroft delivered a closing plenary address challenging scientists to take the risk to make their research more relevant and to participate in the recovery of the Salish Sea as opinion leaders.

Our heads are still spinning from the overload of information, pockets full of business cards and promises to keep about following up with those contacts.  We are also inspired to roll up our sleeves and pull even harder knowing that each of those 900 people represent dozens to hundreds of others in their institutions all working to protect and restore the Salish Sea.

The Elwha Dams are being de-constructed, after a 20+ year fight and fundraising campaign signaling the second system-scale restoration event for Puget Sound.   The Russell Family Foundation recently announced they are focusing their philanthropic efforts in Puget Sound recovery to the Puyallup Watershed.

I applaud these geographically focused, prioritized approaches to ecosystem recovery.  Puget Sound is a big and complex place with problems that are geographically distinct.  Any sense of failure from past efforts to restore Puget Sound may turn out to be chalked up to too little effort spread over too large of an area. While local “bottoms up” approaches have produced some ecological results, the real gain from these efforts in my mind is that they’ve built a larger constituency for restoring the whole Puget Sound and a willingness among people to share resources, do the science to prioritize the best places to do restoration and stick with it until those big, expensive and controversial projects are constructed.

In late October, the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project will choose a portfolio of high impact, cost-effective restoration actions that will be forwarded to Congress for federal investment.  Completing these actions will be necessary to implement the Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Agenda.

The “low hanging fruit” have been picked and eaten.  Time to build on these recent successes with bold action to once and for all restore Puget Sound.  Who’s Next?

Geographically, the Salish Sea includes the Straits of Georgia, Gulf Island waters, San Juan Islands waters, Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca.  It’s a large inland sea ecosystem, sharing many marine organisms, heavily influenced by the Frazer River, and having different fauna than the outer Pacific Ocean.  Conservation challenges from land development, pollution, climate change and use are similar across the Sea and its future depends on taking a holistic approach to addressing threats and finding solutions.  For example, as we work to recover the health of two charismatic and endangered species of the Salish Sea, the southern Killer Whale and Chinook salmon, we must work closely with our Canadian partners to ensure restoration of their entire ecosystem.

Historically scientific research and policy development typically occurred in separate spheres – Canadian and American - and we only exchanged knowledge and questions sporadically during crisises.  This conference is designed to bring together current ecological and social research with current policy issues to better inform both the development of policies and management.  We must effectively and efficiently inject scientific information into the policy decision-making process in order to produce the best management options.  This conference will be instrumental in crafting a positive future for the Salish Sea ecosystem.

The conference is occurring at an important time.  The Puget Sound Partnership is nearing completion of its Action Agenda update, which will help determine how, what, and where actions to restore the health of the Sound will be taken and who will take them.  Important science results will be presented at the conference that will help guide the Action Agenda.  The timing is great!  On the other hand, state agencies are being asked to dramatically cut their budgets and basic science research and monitoring are often first on the chopping block.  We hope that this conference will help showcase why important science programs at our agencies must be sustained, even in this time of economic downturn.

People For Puget Sound is focused on restoring clean water and wildlife populations to Puget Sound as well as helping Puget Sound residents and visitors grasp the importance of healthy ecosystems for their own well-being and economies.  Our staff will be participating in the numerous sessions addressing water quality, toxic pollutants, habitat restorations and social science and outreach. I will be presenting as part of the closing plenary charged with suggesting ways to link decision making and science more effectively.  If you have messages you want us to carry with us to Vancouver, post them here and we’ll do our very best to represent you at this sold-out conference. We’ll report when we return.

At the end of the day we had a panel discussion and mini focus group with participants to get input on the current Storming the Sound model and how it works - or not - for all kinds of educators.

We also wanted to share an idea for revamping and enhancing Storming the Sound – this idea comes from a newly formed alliance between People For Puget Sound, the Pacific Education Institute and the Environmental Education Association of Washington-E3 Washington.  We heard loud and clear that training providers should work to better understand the needs of participants – teachers, community members and environmental educators and to address confusion about, and overlap of, resources, websites, calendars, networks to join, etc.

Feel free to email your ideas and needs to Ann Butler.

Stay tuned for information on our next Storming the Sound, January 26, 2012 in La Conner.