Puget Sound Innovation Stories

jonbridgman
Don’t Drip and Drive

Don’t Drip and Drive

Helping drivers prevent pollution from drips and leaks Each year, vehicles driving around Puget Sound leak approximately 7 million quarts of vehicle fluids, including motor oil, fuel, lubricants and more into the Puget Sound watershed. Oil and other petroleum products...

Regional On-site Sewage System Loan Program

Regional On-site Sewage System Loan Program

Helping homeowners repair or replace failing on-site sewage systems The Regional On-site Sewage System Loan Program (RLP) in Washington State consolidates multiple county-level on-site sewage system loan programs into a single public-private partnership between the...

Tacoma stormwater system cleaning for legacy pollutants

Tacoma stormwater system cleaning for legacy pollutants

Erasing a legacy of pollution The Thea Foss Waterway in Commencement Bay includes three miles of nearshore habitat important for fish and wildlife. This area was contaminated by over a century of industrialization and was identified by the Environmental Protection...

Duwe’iq Stormwater Treatment Wetland

Duwe’iq Stormwater Treatment Wetland

Clear Creek, a Puget Sound salmon stream, flows into Dyes Inlet, which supports  shellfish beds, water recreation activities, and nearshore wildlife habitat. Like many Puget Sound streams, Clear Creek has been encroached on by rapid development as the Puget...

Puget Sound National Coastal Wetlands Conservation

Puget Sound National Coastal Wetlands Conservation

In early 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awarded the Washington State Department of Ecology with $4.7 million in National Coastal Wetlands Conservation grants to fund six projects to restore and protect wetlands in Puget Sound and the Grays Harbor area. The...

Smith Island

Smith Island

The Smith Island Estuary Restoration Project will benefit threatened salmon, restore ecological systems, and improve flood control and recreation across the region by: Removing a historic levee, excavating channel networks, and installing wood placements to improve...

Seattle Elliott Bay Seawall

Seattle Elliott Bay Seawall

The Elliott Bay Seawall Project involves replacing the old seawall on Seattle's waterfront to protect buildings, roads and utilities while providing shelter for marine life. The project will construct approximately 7,112 lineal feet of seawall along the Puget Sound...

Titlow Park Shoreline Restoration Project

Titlow Park Shoreline Restoration Project

The Titlow Park Shoreline Restoration Project is working closely with Tacoma Metro Parks to successfully remove a derelict bulkhead, seawall, and defunct home near an important bait fish beach in Puget Sound. The second phase of the project will undertake restoration...

Salish Sea Marine Survival

Salish Sea Marine Survival

Endangered Species Act listed Puget Sound Chinook salmon populations have plummeted by 50% since the mid-80s and steelhead have experienced even steeper declines. Research points to marine survival as the missing link to recovery. The Salish Sea Marine Survival...

Lower Big Quilcene

Lower Big Quilcene

The Lower Big Quilcene restoration project is in the design phase of developing community-supported actions to improve flood protection for the town of Quilcene, over 30 homes, and road access to the largest employer in Jefferson County—Coast...

Puyallup Green Street

Puyallup Green Street

Puyallup has its first Green Street—though for now it's still called 8th Avenue. The 8th Avenue Low-Impact Development (LID) retrofit encompasses more than 18,000 square feet of porous asphalt roadway, 3,200 square feet of permeable sidewalks, and 11 rain...

Point Defiance Regional Stormwater Treatment Facility

Point Defiance Regional Stormwater Treatment Facility

Polluted stormwater is one of the biggest threats to Puget Sound, and the Point Defiance Regional Stormwater Treatment Facility helps counter that threat. Before the facility was built, polluted stormwater from a 754-acre watershed flowed untreated before spilling...

Nooksack River

Nooksack River

A habitat restoration effort on the Nooksack River aims to help two important populations of Puget Sound Chinook salmon recover from dangerously low numbers. As with other salmon recovery actions undertaken by the Nooksack Indian Tribe, the goal of the...

Maury Island & Quartermaster Harbor

Maury Island & Quartermaster Harbor

Thanks to improved water quality, the Washington State Department of Health recently reopened 180 acres of shellfish beds on Vashon Island to commercial and recreational harvesting for the first time in 20 years. Water quality in Quartermaster Harbor suffered not...

Manchester Stormwater Park

Manchester Stormwater Park

Manchester Stormwater Park is Puget Sound's first stormwater park, providing water quality treatment for an entire community's stormwater in just one small park. The project supports Kitsap County's efforts to meet the requirements of the federal Clean...

Leque Island Estuary

Leque Island Estuary

In the Stillaguamish River watershed, 85 percent of historical tidal marsh habitat has been displaced by other uses. Leque Island's tidal marsh habitat is particularly valuable for young Chinook salmon as they transition from fresh water to saltwater but it is...

Landscape Conservation & Local Infrastructure

Landscape Conservation & Local Infrastructure

The Landscape Conservation and Local Infrastructure Program in Seattle has been a major success. This program gives cities a financial incentive to use transfer of development rights—a market-based growth management and conservation tool. Rural landowners...

Lower Dungeness River

Lower Dungeness River

The Lower Dungeness River Floodplain Restoration project is a collaborative effort to restore floodplain habitats, keep people safe, support agriculture, improve water quality and quantity, and provide people with recreational access. State and federally funded...

Chambers Bay & San Juan Islands

Chambers Bay & San Juan Islands

Chambers Bay was the site of the 2015 United States Golf Association U.S. Open tournament. Hood Canal is home to the deepest part of Puget Sound. Both are beautiful places—but herring don't care about the scenery. They come to spawn. These sites, along with...

Cranberry Creek

Cranberry Creek

Cranberry Creek, a tributary to the Stillaguamish River, is home to endangered steelhead and bull trout. It is also an important salmon spawning stream, but an old, corroding culvert was preventing migrating fish from getting where they needed to go. A culvert...

Veterans Conservation Corps

Veterans Conservation Corps

The Veterans Conservation Corps provides opportunities for recently returned veterans to transition from military to civilian work through AmeriCorps service. The Veterans Conservation Corps completes numerous restoration projects across Washington state every year....

Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration

Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration

Led by the Tulalip Tribes, the Qwuloolt Estuary restoration is one of the largest restoration projects in Puget Sound. (Qwuloolt is the Lushootseed word for "marsh.") Located within the Snohomish River floodplain, the estuary historically encompassed tidal...

Capitol Hill Water Quality Project—Swale on Yale

Capitol Hill Water Quality Project—Swale on Yale

Whenever it rains, untreated stormwater from more than 600 acres of north Capitol Hill, in Seattle, drains directly into Lake Union. Stormwater flows down buildings and across the streets, collecting pollutants before being discharged to the lake. Lake Union is a key...

Sustainable Lands Strategy

Sustainable Lands Strategy

The Sustainable Lands Strategy is a game-changing partnership in Snohomish County. Historically, estuary restoration projects have been implemented without a clear vision of how those projects fit into the broader landscape with farming and flood control....

Skokomish Estuary Restoration

Skokomish Estuary Restoration

The Skokomish River floods more frequently than any river in Washington, and yet the river channel often goes dry during Chinook salmon migration. This is because nearly half of the Skokomish River estuary had been converted to diked farmland, which contributed to...

Seahurst Park

Seahurst Park

Seahurst Park is an oasis of 152 acres of forested ocean shoreline in a very urban corridor south of Seattle. The park boasts nearly a mile of natural beach and forested cliffs as tall as 400 feet. Seawalls were built in 1972, and as a result, sand from the cliffs...

Salish Sea Stewards

Salish Sea Stewards

Skagit County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) established the Salish Sea Stewards program to engage residents in marine monitoring, restoration, and outreach projects. Volunteers receive professional training by local experts in nearshore ecology and a variety of...

Rainbow Bend

Rainbow Bend

Rainbow Bend on the Cedar River was the site of an ambitions levee removal and floodplain restoration project that provided flood risk reduction benefits and restored salmon habitat. The project's first stage included buying a flood-prone mobile home park and...

Clarks Creek

Clarks Creek

Clarks Creek near the city of Puyallup was the site of a recent study conducted by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. The two-year study examined sediment sources throughout the creek, and investigators found that if 23 major sources of sediment were repaired, more...

Washington’s Local Source Control Partnership

Washington’s Local Source Control Partnership

Washington's Local Source Control Partnership offers small businesses in 19 Puget Sound communities free, hands-on pollution prevention assistance, such as spill prevention, proper chemical management, and other resources. Many pollution prevention programs focus on...

Kingston Recycled Water

Kingston Recycled Water

Kingston's recycled water project involves upgrading the Kingston Treatment Plant from secondary to tertiary treatment and providing the resulting recycled water to irrigate the White Horse Golf Club. The water will also be used to enhance stream flow and improve the...

Floodplains By Design

Floodplains By Design

Floodplains by Design began with $500,000 in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funding in 2012, and since then Floodplains by Design has invested more than $80 million in Puget Sound floodplain projects. This collaborative effort has brought local and tribal...

Duwamish Gardens in Tukwila

Duwamish Gardens in Tukwila

Duwamish Gardens will provide nearly an acre of shallow-water habitat for salmon, as well as a pleasant park for urban residents to enjoy. Young salmon need off-channel, shallow-water habitat, where they can feed on insects and invertebrates that live among the...

Duwamish River Community Health

Duwamish River Community Health

The Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition Technical Advisory Group launched the Healthy Rivers/Healthy Communities project in 2014 to address community and environmental health priorities in the Duwamish Valley neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown, two neighborhoods...

Dickerson Creek

Dickerson Creek

Dickerson Creek's upper reaches have some of the best salmon spawning and rearing habitat in Puget Sound. But Dickerson Creek and adjacent Chico Creek have been affected by streamside residential development and aging, undersized culverts. The culverts were identified...

Birch Bay

Birch Bay

Birch Bay, north of Bellingham, was closed to commercial shellfish harvesting in 2008 because of bacteria contamination, affecting a 670-yard radius around the mouth of Terrell Creek.  Local, state, and federal agencies collaborated to create a comprehensive...

Bayshore Preserve &  Oakland Bay

Bayshore Preserve & Oakland Bay

Bayshore Preserve was created to protect the country's most productive Manila clam site. Washington state is the biggest exporter of Manila clams in the country, and Oakland Bay in Mason County is where to find them. The Squaxin Island Tribe, as well as 2,000 annual...