Cleaning up for a healthier Puget Sound
There are thousands of cleanup sites around Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. To focus our work, we’ve prioritized specific bays where we can coordinate multiple big cleanups at once, so cleanup costs less and goes faster.
The goal of baywide cleanups is to protect the most sensitive habitat in Puget Sound and help communities thrive. Restoration work supports nursery habitat for herring, salmon, and clean shellfish. Cleanup also leads to re-development opportunities in urban areas, like increased waterfront access. It all helps make a safer Puget Sound where everyone can play, swim, fish, and dig.
Explore the priority bays
Contamination in Puget Sound
Industries like fishing and boat repair obviously rely on the water, but many other industries along the Puget Sound used the water to transport their goods. Because the Puget Sound is large and complex, the movement of waves and tides doesn’t ‘clear out’ all the contamination people put in. In urban bays, pollution from old industries and shoreline activities can linger for decades.
These operations provided jobs and tax dollars that helped to build many communities. Now, we’re working to make sure that new activities protect these resources.
Old industrial practices
Sediments at the bottom of the Puget Sound still have contamination from industrial practices from before modern environmental laws. For example, dumping untreated industrial wastewater into bays is now illegal, but it was once common. Practices like this left a lasting impact on the environment.
The lumber legacy
In the 1800s and 1900s lumber mills dotted the shores of Puget Sound. They left behind wood waste and other pollutants. Wood is a natural product, but too much wood waste — like chips, shavings, old boards, or logs — can create toxic problems in salt water.
Old lumber mills often worked like a small town, with mini-industries to support them. As well as the log storage and sawmills, they usually had smelters and smithies for making their own metal equipment, and boilers to power the work.
Current contaminants
Growing communities and current industrial activities along shorelines place constant pressure on the health of the Puget Sound. Ecology monitors sediments — mud and sand — on the bottom of urban bays. We also look for contaminants of emerging concern in wastewater, and limit the amount of wastewater that can be released into Puget Sound.
Funding Puget Sound cleanup
The legislature funds some cleanups in our priority bays through the Puget Sound Initiative. These cleanups use tax dollars to help create jobs, strengthen communities, and build habitat. This funding is in addition to money for cleanup from the companies that polluted, or who currently own the contaminated sites.
Laws make cleanup more efficient and effective
Washington has strong cleanup laws and rules that help protect resources, communities, and wildlife. Most of our cleanup work on land falls under the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). MTCA also guides our public input process. To clean up in the water, we also follow the Sediment Management Standards.
Your opinion matters
You can help keep Puget Sound clean and healthy by sharing your comments about our cleanup and restoration plans. We ask for feedback from the public at several key points in the cleanup process.
You can comment on:
- Proposed legal agreements for cleanup
- The results of environmental studies (remedial investigations) and comparisons of ways to clean up (feasibility studies)
- Plans for cleaning up sites
Related links
- Find cleanup sites with What's in my Neighborhood
- Cleanup comment periods and events
- About sediment cleanup
- Natural resource damage assessments and restoration
Contact information
Barry Rogowski
Barry.Rogowski@ecy.wa.gov
360-407-7226