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Restoration strategies for Puget Sound

In the course of building homes, businesses, roads, and infrastructure, the lands and waters of Puget Sound have been drastically modified. Levees, dams, and toxic deposits are obvious and have site-specific impacts. But less obvious are the cumulative changes from human land use activities, such as bulkheads, docks, permanent removal of native vegetation, and loss of native habitat in marine and

Protection strategies for Puget Sound

Puget Sound has been dramatically altered during the past 150 years. One-third of the shoreline has been armored, large areas of forestland and farmland have been paved or otherwise converted to other uses, and river systems have been altered by dams and levees. These actions were undertaken to produce other benefits, but they cumulatively damage and destroy the underlying ecological processes

2010 Census Quick Facts for Clallam County, WA

Learn more about demographics in Clallam County, Washington. The U.S. Census Bureau published the following quick facts.

Seaglider in the open water. Photo courtesy of Seaglider Fabrication Center

Seagliders in Puget Sound

They are sometimes called Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), or submersible drones. They glide like airships through the deeper channels of Puget Sound, and have become an important tool for a wide array of open ocean applications, including detection of marine mammals, military reconnaissance and the monitoring of environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Puget Sound is

Shoreline armoring along railroad

An overview of Shoreline armoring in Puget Sound

More then 700 miles of Puget Sound shoreline is considered to be "armored," and as much as four miles of new armoring is added each year.

Eyes Over Puget Sound: Surface Conditions Report - May 14, 2012

Eyes Over Puget Sound: Surface Conditions Report - May 14, 2012

Warm, sunny weather with higher-than-normal river flows. Temperatures above 13 °C . Strong algal blooms South Sound and Central Basin and most smaller bays. Dissolved oxygen levels in surface waters decrease despite high algae production. Abundant debris lines. Oil sheen in Lake Union.

WRIA boundaries in Puget Sound area

Water Resource Inventory Areas in Puget Sound

The Washington State Department of Ecology and other state natural resources agencies have divided the Washington into 62 "Water Resource Inventory Areas" or "WRIAs" to delineate the state's major watersheds.

Satellite image of Western Washington

Climate change impacts on water management in the Puget Sound region

Climate change is projected to result, on average, in earlier snowmelt and reduced summer flows, patterns that are not well represented in the historical observations used for planning and reliability analyses by water utilities.

Chief Sealth, known to settlers as Chief Seattle. Photo: E.M. Sammis/MOHAI.

Modern Puget Sound timeline

The Puget Sound region has a long history that has shaped the culture and environment we experience today. View a timeline describing key events in the Puget Sound region dating from Washington statehood to the present.

Marine fecal bacteria

Fecal bacteria are found in the feces of humans and other homeothermic animals. They are monitored in recreational waters because they are good indicators of harmful pathogens that are more difficult to measure.