State and Tribal scientists use fecal bacteria (FC) as an indicator of water pollution in Oakland Bay.  In 2006 during the summer months, the bacteria concentration in the water column at the head of Oakland Bay skyrocketed and restricted commercial harvest in some shellfish beds.  In in the first half of the summer of 2009, the concentrations are much lower, in spite of the hot weather we have had and a massive die-off of clams earlier in the year.  That’s good news for the Tribe, the shellfish industry and the greater community.

The low fecal bacteria concentrations in the water column are not matched by lower concentrations in or on the intertidal sediment.  Sediment bacteria concentrations are running higher this year than in 2007 or 2008.  But for some reason, the bacteria are not being resuspended into the water column.  This resuspension often occurs when wind speed exceeds 5 mph from the southwest creating extensive wave action in the upper bay that stirs up the bacteria-laden sediment. 

At the end of the summer, we will analyze more data including wind speed and direction to try and explain this year’s fecal bacteria counts.

Weyerhaeuser published a report in June 2009 in the Journal of American Water Resources Association (Volume 45, Number 3, Pages 793-808) detailing 30 years of turbidity data collected in the upper reaches of the Deschutes (WA) Watershed.  To my knowledge, it is the longest water quality study on private forestlands in the Pacific Northwest.

In the mainstem river, the authors reported a consistent decline in winter turbidity levels over the 30 year period of record.  They attributed the decline to improvements in road construction and maintenance practices over the years.  The improvements were particularly extensive after the record January 1990 flood and the associated culvert failures and massive landslides in the Huckleberry Creek Basin and elsewhere.  Trends in spring, summer and fall turbidity levels were not evident.

The documented improvements in turbidity do not seem to directly translate into improved spawning habitat.  In 2004, Squaxin repeated a 1992 and 1995 study in the upper watershed of fine sediment in spawning gravel.  Levels climbed from 12% to 15% to 17%.  Spawning gravel with less than 12% fines is considered in good condition and over 17% is considered harmful to egg incubation and fry emergence.

While turbidity levels may be lower now, enough fine sediment is still moving downstream to increase impairment of salmon reproduction.  Even with all the forest road improvements made by Weyerhaeuser, another Squaxin report concluded that as of 2003, 50% of the fine sediment entering the river in the upper watershed was still anthropogenic in nature.

In 150 interviews sponsored by the Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish Stewardship Initiative, we found that residents living around Oakland Bay are having a hard time connecting their actions at home with water quality in the bay.  Owners of homes with septic systems that have not been checked in the last five years see no reason to inspect their systems.  Most livestock owners feel that they have so few animals that the waste their animals produce could not possibly harm Oakland Bay.  Yet the water quality results tell a different story–we know for a fact that human and ruminant fecal bacteria are ubiquitous.

The Oakland Bay results mirror surveys from elsewhere around Puget Sound.  That surprised us because we think that the residents around Oakland Bay have a closer relationship to the bay than might be found elsewhere around Puget Sound.  We thought the environmental connections would be more obvious.  Oakland Bay residents at least see it everyday when they drive past, many have jobs dependent upon the shellfish or timber industries, or they recreate in some form or fashion there.

With such close contact, the fact that local residents do not connect their actions at home with the health of Oakland Bay does not bode well for the rest of Puget Sound.  We would expect that elsewhere where residents have far less awareness, it will be an even tougher sell to improve land stewardship.  If we can’t build an effective program in Oakland Bay, we won’t be able to do it elsewhere!

For more info, the full results of the interviews can be downloaded from this site.

Although the watershed is relatively undeveloped, its geography makes it extremely sensitive to human activities.  The bay itself is a small, relatively broad and shallow estuary with a large intertidal zone.  Only a small amount of bay water makes it out to the rest of South Sound on each tidal cycle because of the narrow constriction formed by Hammersley Inlet.  Instead, the majority of Oakland Bay’s water re-circulates between the bay and inlet.  This slow exchange of water allows pollution from the uplands to linger for long periods of time.

Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish Stewardship Initiative:  key to restoring Oakland Bay is working with private landowners and assisting in the implementation of land stewardship practices that limit contributions of pathogens and bacteria.  To achieve such an outcome, a broad-based community action coalition has formed the Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish Stewardship Initiative.  It is funded by a grant from the EPA Region 10 West Coast Estuaries Initiative to the Squaxin Island Tribe and involves many partners throughout the community.

The initiative objective and measure for success in Oakland Bay is to perpetuate shellfish harvest, and this requires the whole watershed be healthy.  The coalition is committed to providing technical assistance and best management practice incentives to foster good stewardship practices and improve fish and wildlife habitat.  Innovation through promotion of low impact development and nearshore conservation to decrease the environmental impact of future population growth is a complementary action.

Credible science is an important ingredient for the initiative.  The Squaxin Island Tribe arranged to work with EPA to use DNA to identify fecal bacteria sources for corrective action, and is currently investigating the role of wind in re-suspending fecal bacteria growing on intertidal sediment.  The coalition’s commitment to science will continue with a program of effectiveness monitoring to assess the achievements of the Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish Stewardship Initiative.

Oakland Bay represents a tremendous opportunity for biological recovery within Puget Sound.  With all the right elements for a highly successful outcome—the leadership, an energetic and broad-based community coalition, engaged citizens, an action plan, relatively intact landscape and the necessary science—a healthy Oakland Bay is within our reach.

Initiative partners include:  City of Shelton; Departments of Agriculture, Ecology and Health; EPA Region 10; Green Diamond Resource Co.; Mason Conservation District; Mason County; Puget Sound Partnership; Seattle Shellfish; Simpson Timber Co.; Squaxin Island Tribe; Taylor Shellfish; UW Sea Grant; and WSU Extension.

For more information:

Oakland Bay Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish Stewardship Initiative

www.co.mason.wa.us/oakland_bay

On the wall of my office is a photo of one of my co-workers, Joe Puhn taken during a habitat survey on the Deschutes River.  He’s standing in a few feet of water, hanging on to his float tube.  What’s interesting about the picture is the width, depth, and curviness (sinuosity) of the river.

We were doing the survey in the summer when most of the Deschutes runs wide and straight, shallow and hot.  Someone, probably kids looking for a better inner tubing experience, piled up rocks and gravel to narrow, deepen and add sinuosity to the channel to speed the river.

What is good for inner tubing is also good for fish — faster water makes more interesting tubing and sweeps out the fine sediment in spawning gravel (fine sediment can choke salmon before they ever emerge from the gravel).  Added sinuosity lengthens the river and allows the water to interact more with the cool, underlying gravel.

The state Department of Ecology recently released a draft report that outlines the various reasons behind the declining health of the Deschutes River.  One of the major obstacles faced by fish is high temperatures.  If water is too warm for fish, they can die from heat stress.

Most of the discussion around this particular aspect of the Deschutes has focused on the need to plant more trees and better manage riparian vegetation to shade the river from the heating effects of the summer sun.  But buried in the report is data that suggests planting trees is not enough to eliminate water temperatures lethal to fish (> 22 ^oC or 72 ^oF).  Much more has to be done to approach the overall natural background condition where the summer, system-wide 7-day average maximum water temperature can potentially be as low as 16.6 ^oC (~62 ^oF).

The current summer condition is about 23.7 ^oC (~75 ^oF) due to the influence of human activities.  Mature vegetation in a healthy riparian zone will lower that temperature by 4.5 ^oC (~8 ^oF), but improvements to channel conditions and microclimate can provide an additional 2 ^oC (~3.5 ^oF) of cooling.  Only with improvements to channel conditions can water temperatures lethal to fish be completely eliminated from the Deschutes River system.

One way to improve channel conditions and cool water temperatures is with large woody debris.  Planted trees will eventually fall into the river and create logjams.  These structures will vary the river, digging out deep, cool pools for fish to rest and creating fine sediment-free riffles for fish to spawn.

But that sort of solution is too far down the road.  We can get into the river today and build logjams that will start helping fish now, rather than a wait century or more for the trees to grow and fall.

The Squaxin Island Tribe recently built a series of logjams along Skookum Creek, and we’re already seeing the results.  Juvenile salmonids prefer the cover of the logs and arrived in large numbers the day after we completed the jams and they continue to seek refuge there.

The logjams that we built will bridge the gap until a few thousand trees we planted around the creek grow large enough to naturally build logjams.  This is the same sort of thing that we should do on the Deschutes.