The sound of clean water

It's easy to forget that when we talk about Puget Sound, we don't just mean the salty areas. Puget Sound is the sum of the water that flows into it. The cleaner the land and its thousands of streams and wetlands, the cleaner the Sound. It's that simple.

Every spring in our region we get a reminder of this from one of the Pacific Northwest's classic creatures. I was on the outskirts of King County last Sunday when I was lucky enough to come across a large, wooded area that was pulsing with chorus frogs. In the middle of the woods, the swamp was complete with lily pads and thousands of calling amphibians. Because of their porous skin and sensitive nature, amphibians are not likely to thrive where there is much pollution. They are considered an indicator species and if you hear them, the thinking goes, you are probably hearing a fairly healthy environment. If clean water has a sound, this is it. 

Take a listen,,,

—Sound recording by Jeff Rice with support from the Acoustic Atlas at Montana State University.