Scientists are expanding their view of the reasons for marine creatures and plants dying off in the Hood Canal fjord, but an extensive article in the Seattle Times which refers to the need for flushing currents doesn’t mention the blockage at the most active point of water circulation, near the surface, where the pontoons of the Hood Canal Bridge effectively restrict tidal currents from the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Pacific Ocean.

The Hood Canal Bridge was built prior to environmental awareness and regulations, and, when destroyed in a storm, was exempted from environmental considerations for its repair in 1979. It’s continued development was exempt from environmental analysis by act of the state legislature.

Several years ago, Olyoo ran quotes from the Washington State environmental exemption statute for the Hood Canal Bridge when extensive aquatic deaths were being reported. The ’showdown’ is that the bridge shall survive whether or not the life of the fjord perishes.

Over a year ago, I met a Port Angeles Boat Haven visitor who grew up at Coyle, a tiny point at the tip of the Toandas Peninsula, which juts in on the west side of the fjord between Hood Canal and Dabob Bay. He had fished the area with his father, and was familiar with the waters, before the Hood Canal pontoon bridge was constructed. He maintained that after the bridge, the water and canal was never the same, referring to the condition, flow and currents.

I attended the Watershed Day conference on Hood Canal in 2005 in Port Townsend, and a speaker mentioned that die-offs had diminished since 2003 although the water quality wasn’t getting better. I pointed out that from an evolutionary standpoint, the dead had been selected out as unfit, and the survivors might not be affected as soon by similar conditions. Unfortunately, evolution doesn’t act as fast as the problems mounting for Hood Canal, and growing and next generations of flora and fauna are bound to be hit again.

Hood Canal is the only fjord on the West Coast of the United States, with Somes Sound, part of Acadia National Park, being the only fjord on the Atlantic Coast of the US. It is only 5 miles long, not as large as the Hood. Some fjords, and the Hood, are reputed to require nearly 100 years to completely circulate and refresh their waters.

Hood Canal, in addition to the many unique creatures which inhabit it, was home to the largest octopus ever documented. It is a special place in jeopardy.

The following quotes are from:

No easy solutions to die-off at Hood Canal - 19 june 2006

By Craig Welch, Seattle Times staff reporter

It’s been three years since the last major die-off in Hood Canal, when thousands of sharks, sculpins, sea stars, octopi and other creatures suffocated in Hood Canal from lack of oxygen.

But that’s not to say it has been an uneventful period.

Eelgrass beds — nurseries for crab and salmon — have declined more here than in the rest of Puget Sound. Bottom-dwelling rockfish continue to disappear. Algae blooms, which suck oxygen from the canal’s deep waters, have become more common. And annual “bubbles” of low oxygen are growing, lasting longer and showing up at unexpected times of the year.

Septic tanks and sewage have long been fingered as culprits. But lately scientists have been learning that the canal’s deterioration may be far more complex than first thought.

A year into a three-year investigation, they are learning that the ways damaging nutrients flow into the fjord may be as important as the amount that does. They’re questioning whether other changes, from the Skokomish River, with flows altered by the Cushman Dam, to deforestation and global warming, are adding to the problem.

And they’re recognizing that just finding the exact sources of Hood Canal pollution is a far cry from figuring out how best to breathe new life into a waterway whose banks are now home to 50,000 people.

Lalena Amiotte, of the Skokomish Tribe’s natural-resources department, has found Hood Canal water samples nearly free of oxygen. “We’re going to have a tough summer,” she said.

more from original:
Seattle Times: No easy solutions to die-off at Hood Canal

related:
Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program
Hood Canal Bridge Cam
Olyoo Hood Canal Links
Proposal would spend millions to save Hood Canal from pollution
Hood Canal in peril, report says
Tribes tell of fish decline to state oceans panel
200 turn out for meeting on cleaner waterways