----- forwarded message -----
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 12:50:02 -0700
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Puget Sound: Spawning coho are dying early in restored creeks
"The culprit appears to be the stormwater gurgling off streets, parking lots and
roofs, carrying with it oil, grease, pesticides and other pollutants, say
federal scientists who conducted the study."
"Every day, in the region's residents contribute unwittingly to stormwater
pollution: dousing yards with chemicals to kill bugs; driving vehicles that leak
antifreeze and oil; coating roofs with herbicide to beat back creeping tendrils
of moss."
Our Troubled Sound: Spawning coho are dying early in restored creeks
Thursday, February 6, 2003
By LISA STIFFLER AND ROBERT MCCLURE
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/107460_coho06.shtml
City officials have forked out millions of dollars and volunteers have donated
countless hours to lovingly restore Seattle-area creeks. But a groundbreaking
study suggests that water in many urban streams runs dirty enough to quickly
kill coho salmon -- most before they can spawn.
The culprit appears to be the stormwater gurgling off streets, parking lots and
roofs, carrying with it oil, grease, pesticides and other pollutants, say
federal scientists who conducted the study.
When hit by a flush of it, coho are immediately disoriented. They roll to their
sides. Some do what scientists dubbed "the Jesus walk," skittering across the
top of the water in a final, desperate burst of energy. All this happens within
hours when the salmon enter local creeks -- killing 88 percent of the fish in
the study last fall.
"We've done everything we can think of, and it's not right," said Judy Pickens,
who has worked on restoration of Fauntleroy Creek in West Seattle for more than
a decade. "What more do we need to do to bring this creek into a healthy habitat
for the fish?"
Scientists had previously shown that stormwater makes life tough on fish and can
kill bugs and other small creatures. But this study is one of the first to
suggest that stormwater can kill fish outright.
No one knows when the coho began to perish prematurely, or the extent of the
phenomenon. But scientists believe numerous urban waterways could be afflicted.
Until spawning surveys were launched in the last few years to see whether creek
restoration efforts were working, few were looking very hard at the fate of
salmon in local creeks.
The new study promises to raise thorny questions about the degree to which wide
swaths of land around Puget Sound can be developed, and in what way.
It also suggests that restoring creeks in cities is going to be harder than
originally envisioned, requiring much more than cosmetic changes to the streams
themselves. Pollution flowing off large areas of the city and its suburbs will
have to be controlled.
"Putting logs and stumps in an otherwise sterile stream is not by itself going
to bring the fish back," said Tom Murdoch, director of the Everett-based
Adopt-A-Stream Foundation.
Restoration work threatened
Reports of healthy looking salmon dying in creeks from Everett to south of
Seattle -- apparently before spawning -- can be traced back to at least 1999.
Three years ago, biologist Bill McMillan went walking down Kelsey Creek in
Bellevue, near the Glendale Country Club.
Wearing chest-high waders and carrying a 7-foot-long bamboo pole to flush salmon
from hiding places, the fish counter remembered something in the field notes
from the previous year's survey about coho dying prematurely.
"Everything seemed to be pretty normal, and then all of a sudden on a gravel bar
I saw a very sea-fresh-looking coho. It was very bright, a female with its sides
bulging with eggs, but it was dead," McMillan said. "I just kept that in mind."
It was another two weeks before he saw any more coho in Kelsey Creek. When he
did, he started cutting them open.
He found that an unusually large number of females were still full of eggs;
males were full of sperm. "When you find a carcass like that, obviously they
haven't spawned, and that's a real concern," he said.
McMillan and his colleagues at Washington Trout turned to Seattle Public
Utilities, which had hired the group to do the salmon surveys. SPU and
Washington Trout agreed to track so-called prespawn mortalities. They found
significant numbers -- about half the coho in Fauntleroy Creek in 2001, nearly
three-quarters in Kelsey Creek in 2000 and 2001.
By last fall, scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service's Seattle
laboratories were concerned enough to launch a study of the phenomenon,
comparing an urban creek with a rural one.
They chose Longfellow Creek in West Seattle, a model for stream rehabilitation
efforts, featuring man-made gravel beds, pools and eddies, replanted banks and
meditative walking paths. The water is cool and oxygen-rich, the way fish like
it.
"Longfellow Creek looks beautiful," said fisheries service scientist Nat Scholz.
"You'd think everything was healthy."
They compared it to Fortson Creek near Darrington. While Longfellow is fueled in
part by water that runs from streets and rooftops, rural Fortson is fed by a
stream and clean water flowing underground in the forest.
Over a six-week period, scientists slogged down the creeks -- even on
Thanksgiving and weekends, often in the rain -- collecting fins, guts, blood,
organs and muscle from the dead salmon.
At the rural stream, just one of the 115 female coho died before spawning.
But at Longfellow, 56 female coho perished in a matter of hours, some even
before turning from their saltwater silver hues to their spawning shade of red.
Only eight fish survived to spawn.
The Longfellow fish were tested for disease, but nothing was found that would
trigger the speedy deaths. The situation, Scholz said, is reminiscent of what
would happen if there were a toxic chemical spill.
In a way, there was.
Coho first to head upstream
Every day, in the region's residents contribute unwittingly to stormwater
pollution: dousing yards with chemicals to kill bugs; driving vehicles that leak
antifreeze and oil; coating roofs with herbicide to beat back creeping tendrils
of moss.
When it rains, these pollutants wash off streets and yards into storm drains,
many of which flow directly into creeks.
Coho appear to be particularly vulnerable. They are usually the first salmon
species to head upstream after the first fall rains.
Congregating at the mouths of creeks, coho wait for the first surge of water.
That signals to them that rains have started and they will have access to the
small, shallow streams in which they spawn.
Last fall was unusually dry, allowing pollutants to build up on the ground. When
it finally rained, scientists suspect that the arriving coho were hit by a
lethal dose.
"We don't know water quality is the cause, but it's our leading hypothesis,"
Scholz said.
Said Pickens, the stream-restoration volunteer: "How many times do you have to
hear it before it hits home? These fish have made a very loud statement. They
can't write on the walls, but they've come as close as a fish can to say it's
not OK."
When Scholz fires up a video of a salmon on his computer, it doesn't take an
expert to see that something is seriously wrong with this fish.
It is lethargic, swimming in erratic circles, bumping into the creek bank like a
drunk on a bender. Another fish is even worse. It is lying on its side, barely
swimming, fins splayed out like a child trying to keep his balance on a beam.
Its mouth gapes.
"This fish is on its last fins," Scholz said.
Increasingly, salmon are venturing into restored creeks to try to spawn. At
these creeks, volunteers and workers have yanked out invasive blackberries and
replanted native brush. Carefully notched logs have been strategically placed to
create calm pools.
Since 1999, more than $26 million has been spent on restoring major Seattle
creeks. About $5 million more will be spent in the next few years. Bellevue is
spending more than $2.5 million.
At Longfellow Creek, researchers got to see only a few coho before they died.
But their strange behavior is indicative of neurological problems, Scholz said.
A wide range of chemicals could cause such symptoms.
The mystery is muddled by the possibility that multiple contaminants in
stormwater -- all present in doses smaller than previously believed lethal --
could be causing the deaths.
"There is a good chance it's a combination effect," said Tracy Collier, manager
of the National Marine Fisheries Service's ecotoxicology program in Seattle.
Bile from the fish will be analyzed for evidence of exposure to compounds called
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These are created when organic material is
burned and eventually settle onto the ground and water. One of the most prolific
sources is automobile exhaust.
Scientists are also analyzing the activity of an enzyme in the brain that is
inhibited by certain classes of insecticides and other chemicals. They are
planning a workshop in the next few weeks to share their findings with other
scientists and government officials. More research is planned.
"We really don't know what's going on with these fish," said Kit Paulsen,
environmental scientist with Bellevue Utilities. "What's the exposure? Where's
the exposure happening? We really haven't nailed that down."
The environmental repercussions of the coho die-offs are not in themselves
cataclysmic. The fish are either hatchery-bred salmon venturing up newly found
waterways instead of their birth stream, or they were planted in the creeks.
In either case, the fish can easily be replaced. But the point of stream
restorations, those who do the work say, is to make creeks habitable aquatic
environments.
"If we get them back and they don't spawn . . . then the natural cycle doesn't
continue," Pickens said. "Then all we have is one long controlled aquarium."
And the continual creep of development into rural areas spreads this threat to
creeks and rivers populated by wild coho runs. The same fate could befall those
fish if development doesn't proceed carefully.
The coho die-offs don't mean creek restoration is a wholly losing proposition.
Other fish survive in greater numbers to spawn.
"Other salmon do have the opportunity to benefit from restoration efforts," said
Katherine Lynch, senior environmental analyst with Seattle Public Utilities.
Rich Horner, a University of Washington environmental engineer who studies
stormwater, says the new information about coho deaths, while important, is not
a sign that people should stop trying to improve the health of local creeks.
"We haven't worked very hard on these things," Horner said. "There's a lot of
territory to cover before giving up."
P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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