1998 Puget Sound Update
This is the sixth Puget Sound Update, a report for residents of the region about the overall health of Puget Sound. The conclusions in the Update are based mainly on scientific results of the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program (PSAMP).
Summary
Recent findings about the health of Puget Sound indicate that, although some aspects of the Sound's environmental health may be improving, its ecosystem and biological resources continue to suffer damaging effects resulting from the actions and by-products of our society.
Improvements documented over the past several years include steady or increasing populations of some organisms in Puget Sound and decreases in some types of contamination in some areas of Puget Sound. Evidence of continued problems, including the poor or declining condition of a wide variety of marine organisms in Puget Sound, tempers these observations. The continuing problems may be related, at least in part, to changes our society has made to the physical environment and to contamination of the environment by toxic chemicals, fecal bacteria and excess nutrients.
This is the sixth Puget Sound Update, a report for residents of the region about the overall health of Puget Sound. The conclusions in the Update are based mainly on scientific results of the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program (PSAMP). This report looks beyond the PSAMP as well, including monitoring data from other important efforts to evaluate Puget Sound's waters, sediments, nearshore habitats and biological resources. Information generally reflects conditions through 1995, though in some cases only older data were available and in other cases results we were able to access data through 1996 and 1997.
Citation
Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team. 1998. 1998 Puget Sound Update: Report of the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program. Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team. Olympia, Washington.
