We shouldn’t have to worry if the the water we swim in, or the seafood we harvest will make us sick. Yet, across the Salish Sea, once vibrant waters are in a dire state. RE Sources’ Pollution Free Salish Sea campaign aims to turn the tide on a new generation of pollution and impacts in order to restore Bellingham Bay and the broader Salish Sea for the benefit of all.
A Region at Risk
The Salish Sea — which includes Puget Sound — is a unique, vital and imperiled marine bioregion. As the largest inland sea on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada, the Sea’s critical importance ecologically, economically and culturally extends beyond its watersheds and outflows. The roughly 2,500 miles of shoreline, expanses of salt marshes, wetlands, estuaries, bluffs, beaches, and bays are fed by ten river systems flowing from the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. It’s also home to 8 million people and growing.
The Salish Sea is in trouble, and recovery efforts are falling short. The rate of ecosystem loss and degradation, damage from industrial contamination and polluted urban runoff, and climate impacts still outpaces the rate of recovery.
Key Threats to the Salish Sea
Continued population growth and the increasing effects of climate change will be the primary drivers of negative environmental impacts to the Sea in the coming years.* More specifically, threats include:
- Pollution from urban stormwater, wastewater, industrial point sources, and agriculture;
- Ecosystem fragmentation and loss due to increased urbanization, sprawl and industrialization;
- Unsustainable freshwater demand from cities, industry and agriculture that reduce flows and degrade rivers and streams;
- Fossil fuel infrastructure and transport and associated pollution and risk of spills and other disastrous accidents;
- Climate change impacts that increase water temperature, acidification, and sea level rise while decreasing freshwater flows critical to the region; and
- Increasing health, economic and social impacts unjustly borne by tribes, coastal communities and vulnerable populations.
From Local Solutions to Bioregional Impact
Northwest Washington communities won’t single-handedly reverse trans-boundary pollution trends across the entire Salish Sea region (home to 8.8 million people). At the same time, we all have a role to play, and this region has a long history of innovating and implementing local solutions that scale up to the state level and beyond. RE Sources set out to better understand where the health of Bellingham Bay, the Salish Sea waters in our own backyard, stands currently to set a baseline and better track progress toward recovery. Learn More about our research findings.
Solutions toward a Pollution Free Salish Sea
To systematically counter the top environmental threats to the Salish Sea, RE Sources is focusing its actions on three core priorities. Because multifaceted problems require a multifaceted approach, the solutions we focus on each offer multiple benefits.
Represented by these icons, the benefits of our proposed solutions are (from left to right):
- Wildlife & Ecosystem Health
- Carbon Storage & Climate Mitigation
- Storm Surge & Flooding Attenuation
- Equitable Local Food Systems
- Culturally Vibrant & Thriving Communities
- Public Health, Recreation & Fishing Safety
Icons and logos designed by Paul Schmid
*State of the Salish Sea, Western Washington University, 2021
