Beach Watchers of Clallam County provides much of the marine water sampling for a monitoring program called the Beach Environmental Assessment, Communication and Health, or BEACH, Program. Water samples are sent to the county’s environmental health lab, and water-quality information is then sent to the state departments of health and ecology to be published on the Internet.
Freed said the BEACH mission is to protect waders, swimmers, surfers and other beach visitors from getting sick by informing the public of potential health hazards.
Lee Bowen, an avid volunteer for COASST, surveys Three Crabs Road Beach for two hours once a month and Rialto and South beaches for eight hours every third month.
“The training comes out to be about 100 hours,” Freed said. “We then ask the volunteers to give that same amount of time back to the community.”
Bowen is going a step further by organizing homeowners who live on Dungeness Bay to deal with the increasing problem of green seaweed.
“High levels of nitrates are entering the bay, causing the seaweed to come earlier and grow at an accelerated rate. When it decays, it starts to sink,” Bowen said. “It affects the shellfish and forage fish, and we feel is a health hazard.”
“There has been steady growth in outreach, which has been effective at leveraging public funds to increase public awareness,” Freed said.
But it isn’t enough, volunteer Don Wilkin said.
“The challenge is so large, and we are so few with so few resources, that we have to be very clever to get any attention at all,” he said. “Most people won’t be affected until they see the price of salmon or halibut or their favorite seafood restaurant rising, or the shellfish beds closing permanently.”
Freed agrees that more awareness and discussion would be good.
“One of my goals is to have a stronger outreach program for working individuals so that people who work 9 to 5 Monday through Friday also have access to this information,” he said.
Freed hopes to secure long-term, reliable funding to coordinate more programs and to nurture and promote communication.
“Certainty in funding is important for everything,” he said.
“There is a huge need for outreach and education around Puget Sound because we will be absorbing so many people in the coming years,” Freed said. “That puts a lot of pressure on marine species and recreational activities.”
