"Exploring Puget Sound" Series Resumes Sept 4 with Talk on Toxic Chemicals in Marine Food Web

8/15 news release on Jim West REI speaker series talk

Seattle, WA Aug 15, 2008

People For Puget Sound’s popular public speaker series at REI Seattle resumes on September 4 with a presentation by Jim West of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on “Toxic Chemicals in Puget Sound’s Food Web.”

The program begins at 7 PM at REI Seattle. Admission for a single program is $6 for People For Puget Sound members and $8 for non-members. A season pass for all eight programs in the series costs $42 for People For Puget Sound members.

Based on monitoring data over the last 20 years, West will report on four major classes of toxic contaminants in our ecosystem and describe the geographic extent and magnitude of contamination of fishes such as English sole, rockfish, Pacific herring (and their eggs), and Coho and Chinook salmon.

Learn how pollutants get into the food chain, and the life-history factors that increase or decrease the risk of fish’s exposure to toxics such as PCBs, flame retardants and hydrocarbons, and the effects of exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds.

Jim West received his B.Sc. in Marine Biology from Southampton College, Long Island, NY in 1980, and his M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii in 1985. He has been with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife since 1990, and has worked in Puget Sound on research projects dealing with artificial reefs, function of nearshore habitats as nurseries for juvenile rockfishes, drift algae habitats, rockfish growth and genetics. He has focused for the past 15 years on toxic contaminants in Puget Sound’s ecosystem.

Contact Jamie Wine, (206) 382-7007 for reservations and advance ticket sales.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS (click here for more details):

• Oct. 2: “Effects of Climate Change on Puget Sound” Mary Ruckelshaus and Doug Myers

• Nov.6: “Election 2008- Who Won and What Difference Might It Make?” Peter Callaghan

• Dec. 4: “The Puget Sound Action Agenda and Funding Plan” David Dicks