ANEP: About Estuaries

About Estuaries:
Insights on the NEPs - Puget Sound

Puget Sound National Estuary Program The Puget Sound estuary is made up of a series of underwater valleys and ridges fed by more than 10,000 streams and rivers. The average depth is 450 feet. Puget Sound is surrounded by an array of beaches, bluffs, deltas, mudflats and wetlands teeming with plants, fish, birds and wildlife.
While much of Puget Sound is healthy, rapid growth and development in the region are stressing the system. A steady loss of habitat, alarming declines in some fish and wildlife populations, and closures of shellfish beds are signs that the very best of Puget Sound is threatened.

The Puget Sound Action Team partners with federal, state, tribal and local governments, citizens and businesses to carry out innovative solutions to the challenges we face in keeping Puget Sound healthy.

Progress is being made. Watershed groups around the Sound have done significant work to educate and engage their communities in habitat restoration, proper maintenance of on-site sewage systems, and shellfish area cleanups. We are cleaning up contaminated sediments, improving stormwater management, restoring shellfish beds and working to prevent the introduction and spread of aquatic nuisance species.

Over the next two years, the Action Team will focus on the following priorities:

Clean up contaminated sites and sediments.

Reduce continuing toxic contamination and prevent future contamination.

Reduce the harmful impacts from stormwater runoff.

Prevent nutrient and pathogen pollution caused by human and animal wastes.

Protect shorelines and other critical areas that provide important ecological functions.

Restore degraded nearshore and freshwater habitats.

Conserve and recover orca, salmon, forage fish and groundfish.

The Action Team is committed to keeping a strong focus on Puget Sound's health by maintaining the progress made and by setting actions in place to protect water quality and enhance habitat for the future.

For more information on the Puget Sound Action Team:

Call (360) 725-5444

Visit our website for more information: http://www.psp.wa.gov