Category: Regional

Underwater sensors for monitoring sea life (and where to find them)

12/14/2018

UW News

Paul Gibbs, a mechanical engineer at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory, inspects the newest Adaptable Monitoring Package, or AMP, before a test in a saltwater pool. AMPs host a series of sensors that allow researchers to continuously monitor animals underwater.

Harvesting power from the ocean, through spinning underwater turbines or bobbing wave-energy converters, is an emerging frontier in renewable energy.

New tool lets citizens help reveal toxic cause of salmon death

10/30/2018

The WSU Insider -

Salmon exposed to toxic stormwater runoff can die in a matter of hours, and scientists are asking for Puget Sound area residents’ help in identifying affected streams to study the phenomenon.

Big ships asked to slow down to reduce noise for iconic whales

7/18/2017

Alaska Public Media-

If you think trying to carry on a conversation in a noisy restaurant or bar is difficult, imagine how whales in the noisy waters of the Salish Sea feel. Whale scientists think rising levels of underwater noise are having a harmful effect on the Northwest’s iconic killer whales. Now the Port of Vancouver, in British Columbia, is spearheading an experiment to temporarily slow down big ships to reduce noise.

Seattle seawall’s novel fish features are a potential model for the world

5/18/2017

UW Today ~

As tourists and residents visit Seattle’s downtown waterfront, it may not be immediately apparent they are walking on arguably the largest, most ambitious urban seawall project in the world that prioritizes habitat for young fish and the invertebrates they feed on.

Where are the kokanee? Only 60 to 70 fish counted in local creeks compared to nearly 6,000 a year ago

1/16/2017

The Issaquah Press ~

Before emerging from the creek on a cold, sunny December morning, Dan Lantz pulled out a notebook to record a very familiar number this kokanee spawning season — zero.

Lantz, an environmental scientist for King County, and other fish ecologists were expecting a low return of kokanee this year. Spawning runs are typically cyclical, with boom and bust years. But nobody expected the numbers to be this bad.

Ruling forces discussions on breaching Snake River dams to save salmon

10/3/2016

The Oregonian ~

SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge is forcing discussion of a radical step to save endangered salmon: taking out four dams on the Lower Snake River.

The public will get a chance to weigh in at meetings throughout the Northwest starting next month.

"Scientists tell us that removing the four Lower Snake dams is the single most important action we could take to restore salmon in the entire Columbia-Snake river basin," said Sam Mace of Save Our Wild Salmon.

Urban Waters Surprisingly Rich In Marine Life Finds High-Tech Sampling

9/16/2016

Northwest Public Radio ~

Researchers from the University of Washington and NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center found the opposite of what they expected when they used a new scientific method to sample the waters of Puget Sound.

Eroded Elwha River beach transformed after armoring removed

8/29/2016

Peninsula Daily News ~
PORT ANGELES — It didn’t take long for a half-mile section of eroded beach to be transformed after derelict armor was removed east of the Elwha River mouth.

In one tidal cycle, parts of the sediment-starved, coarse-cobble shoreline were covered by 6 feet to 10 feet of sand as the Beach Lake Acquisition and Restoration project was put into motion last weekend.

As $40M in funding looms for Oregon, feds close in on wave energy site

7/22/2016

Portland Business Journal ~

The federal government moved closer to selecting where to build a long-planned wave energy test center — the facility that Oregon wave energy backers see as vital to the future of the industry in the state.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday said it would soon issue a funding opportunity announcement that would offer up to $40 million in federal funding for the test center.

This is the Obama administration’s new plan to stop devastating ocean noise pollution

6/28/2016

Washington Post-

The world’s marine animals are up against some big challenges, including everything from climate change and ocean acidification to pollution and overfishing. And in the past several decades, conservationists have grown increasingly concerned about another threat, one that’s both pervasive and invisible in the water: the danger of sound.

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