3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2017
One back yard at a time, students work to save salmon
Goal is to
track salmon
upstream
By SHARON SALYER
The Daily Herald
EDMONDS, Wash. —
Every year, Ruth Blaikie waits
for the visitors to return to
Shell Creek.
“Like clockwork, they
come — between Halloween
and Thanksgiving,” she said.
“When the salmon return, they
spawn in our back yard.”
The creek has a natural run
of chum salmon, and coho
have been seen there, too.
Members of the Stu-
dents Saving Salmon club at
Edmonds-Woodway
High
School wanted to know more
about the creek’s salmon runs
and began their work in the
fall. Some of it involved going
door to door to 28 homes,
talking to Blaikie and her
neighbors about the types of
fish that could be seen in the
creek.
They handed out informa-
tion sheets to homeowners to
identify what kinds of salmon
were in the stream and what
they could do to protect the
habitat. They also asked for
reports back on how many fish
they’d seen.
“They all cared quite a bit
about the salmon in their back
yards,” said Malia Clark, the
club’s vice president. Some
were worried about the decline
in salmon populations, she
said.
One of the club’s goals is
to find out how far upstream
the salmon go and where they
spawn, said Joe Scordino, a
retired deputy regional admin-
istrator for the National Oce-
anic and Atmospheric Admin-
istration and a club adviser.
“There’s really a lack of
information on when the fish
do arrive, when the spawning
period is, and how that varies
year to year,” Scordino said.
The information gathered
will go into a database com-
piled by the students so people
will know more about poten-
tial future effects on salmon
runs, he said.
Some homeowners already
are aware, telling students they
don’t use fertilizer on their
lawns because of the problems
it could create for the creek
and the salmon, club member
Jared Yu said.
Students asked people who
lived along the creek if they’d
be willing to have native plants
added to their yard to improve
the habitat.
“I said, ‘Yes, of course,”’
Blaikie said. “I think we might
want to plant some things to
create more shade.”
The names of 13 people
interested in the project were
given to Sound Salmon Solu-
tions, which has a grant for
obtaining native trees and
plants. The students might
help plant them in the future.
Blaikie invited the students
into her back yard to see the
creek. “They were taking film
of the salmon under water,”
she said.
The group got a first-hand
look at one of the creek’s big-
gest barriers to salmon migra-
tion: a 5-foot-high wall with
shallow water on the other side.
“It’s sort of a waterfall that
comes out of a culvert and
prevents a lot of salmon from
going over it and extending
their run,” Clark said.
Coho probably could work
their way upstream, “but with
real shallow water they don’t
have any room to propel them-
selves,” Scordino said.
The homeowner whose
property surrounds the wall is
willing to work with the stu-
dents on making improvements
to ease salmon passage, “but I
think the process will be pretty
complicated,” Clark said.
Eventually, the group hopes
to submit grant requests for a
restoration project to create a
passage for fish to navigate far-
ther upstream. But that is not as
easy as it sounds. Some grants
require the property owner to
be involved, while others will
only work with government
agencies, Scordino said.
So far now, the students are
compiling information to deter-
mine where and when there are
problems.
That provides the basics
“so you can start planning res-
toration where necessary,”
Scordino said. “It provides a
solid base to assess how well
your local environment is
doing for salmon.”
In December, the students
conducted monitoring of three
creeks — Shell, Shellabarger
and Willow — as well as in
Edmonds Marsh.
They tested for indicators
of the water’s health, such as
the levels of dissolved oxy-
gen, acidity and salinity. That
testing is planned to continue
monthly.
Results showed the oxygen
levels in Shell Creek were good
for spawning, Scordino said.
Students used a sophisticated
meter provided by the Hubbard
Foundation to do the work.
A grant from Sound Salmon
Solutions will pay for quarterly
tests for petroleum compounds
and heavy metals in the same
three creeks and the marsh next
year.
The information will
be shared with the city of
Edmonds. Students plan to
make a presentation to the
Edmonds City Council early
next year.
Clark, a senior, said she’s
always liked science but never
before had been involved in
hands-on field work.
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “I
wish we could see more salmon
running in the creeks.”
Yu, a senior pursuing an
International
Baccalaureate
diploma, said he became inter-
ested in joining Students Sav-
ing Salmon during his junior
year, after hearing about it from
his biology teacher.
“This project has really been
an opportunity to have an active
role in the community and help
out — that’s what makes the
club so great,” he said.
Radioactive contamination spreading in closed Hanford plant
No one has entered the main part
of processing plant since 1997
Associated Press
RICHLAND, Wash. —
Radioactive contamination is
spreading inside a deteriorating
processing plant on the Han-
ford Nuclear Reservation last
used in the 1950s and 1960s to
process plutonium for the U.S.
nuclear weapons program.
The Tri-City Herald news-
paper reported Monday that the
facility is known as REDOX.
It is located deep within the
sprawling and heavily guarded
Hanford site, which is half the
size of Rhode Island, and the
contamination poses no threat
to the general public.
A new report recommends
spending $181 million on
interim cleanup and mainte-
nance of the abandoned plant.
REDOX is not scheduled to be
demolished until about 2032,
or possibly later.
The report said doing some
work on the building soon
could reduce the threat of con-
tamination spreading outside
the building. Animals that get
inside could spread the con-
tamination, or it could spread
if a fire breaks out in the build-
ing or its utility pipes break,
the report said.
REDOX was used from
1952 to 1967 to process about
24,000 tons of irradiated ura-
nium fuel rods to remove plu-
tonium for the nation’s nuclear
weapons program.
The report by the U.S.
Department of Energy, which
owns Hanford, said annual
inspections of the highly con-
taminated plant from 2012-15
found that radioactive contam-
ination was spreading, includ-
ing by precipitation that leaked
into the building through its
roof and joints.
Signs of animal intru-
sion and deteriorating asbes-
tos were also found in several
areas, the report said.
No one has entered the
main part of the plant since
1997.
Contamination could be
slowed and contained by
demolishing a contaminated
nearby building plus the main
plant’s attached annexes, the
report said.
Two underground storage
tanks that contained the chem-
ical hexone that was used to
make plutonium should also be
removed, the report said.
The report suggested that
doing the work to limit the
spread of contamination would
help officials retain workers
with experience in decommis-
sioning nuclear facilities at
Hanford,
They will be needed as
more federal money becomes
available in the future for envi-
ronmental cleanup, the report
said.
Oldest Puget Sound orca, ‘Granny,’
missing, considered likely dead
Associated Press
FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash.
— Researchers say the old-
est of the endangered Puget
Sound orcas has been missing
for months and is now consid-
ered dead.
The Center for Whale
Research, which conducts orca
surveys for the federal gov-
ernment, says J2, known as
Granny, has not been seen since
October and is likely dead.
Researcher Ken Balcomb
wrote on the center’s web-
site that Granny has been seen
thousands of times over 40
years of surveys. She is typi-
cally seen at the head of the J
pod, one of three family groups
of whales.
Howard Garrett of the Orca
Network says a 1987 published
study estimated that J2 was
born in 1911 putting her at 105,
though there’s a 12-year mar-
gin of error.
Despite a baby boom in
2015, the closely tracked pop-
ulation of southern resident
killer whales is now down to
78. Seven were declared miss-
ing or dead in 2016.
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AP Photo/Jackie Johnston
The Hanford nuclear reservation is seen near Richland, Wash., in 2000. Scientists work-
ing in secret created the atomic bomb that ended World War II and ushered the world into
the nuclear age.
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