Puget Sound (NEP Profile)

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• Summary Information
• Overviews and Highlights
• Maps

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Summary Information

Year Established:	1987
Location:	Washington
Area of Watershed:	42,791 square kilometers

Priority Management Issues:
toxics conventional pollutants pathogens human population growth	habitat loss/alteration introduced/pest species sedimentation oil spills
Major Habitat Types:
submerged aquatic vegetation (sea grass and kelp) lagoon/shallow open water rocky intertidal/subtidal shellfish growing areas cliffs/bluffs sand/mud/salt flats tidal pools salt/brackish marsh	freshwater marsh (tidal and non-tidal) forested wetland seasonal wetland freshwater lakes/ponds scrub/shrub non-wetland forest riparien-riverine (forested, tidal, and floodplain)
Federally Endangered or Threatened Species:
mammals: Columbia white-tailed deer gray wolf grizzly bear birds: Aleutian Canada goose bald eagle brown pelican marbled murrelet northern spotted owl peregrine falcon western snowy plover	reptiles: green sea turtle leatherback sea turtle loggerhead sea turtle olive ridley sea turtle insects: Oregon silverspot butterfly plants: golden paintbrush marsh sandwort Nelson's checker-mallow water howellia

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Overviews and Highlights

Puget Sound was given priority status in the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act and became one of the original programs in the NEP.  The first CCMP was approved in 1991 for Puget Sound and much has been done subsequently.  Persistent threats to this valuable ecosystem, however, led Washington State in 2007 to create a new state agency, the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP), to reinvigorate these efforts.  PSP recently released an Action Agenda (December 2008) which describes a set of actions and priorities to restore and protect Puget Sound by 2020. The Action Agenda identifies the following threats:

• Habitat Alteration and Land Conversion
• Pollution
• Surface and Groundwater Supply
• Invasive Species
• Artificial Propagation of Species
• Harvest

Actions identified were organized around five priority strategies:

• Protect Intact Ecosystem Processes, Structures, and Functions
• Restore Ecosystem Processes, Structures, and Functions
• Prevent Water Pollution at its Source
• Work Together
• Build an Implementation, Monitoring, and Accountability Management System

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Maps

Select a map.

• Local Maps
  Puget Sound Study Area
  (area where the program is concentrating its efforts)
  Puget Sound Watershed
  (estuarine and fluvial drainage areas for the estuary)
  
  
• Regional Maps- West Coast
  Locations of Estuaries in the NEP
  Watersheds of Estuaries in the NEP
  Study Areas of Estuaries in the NEP
  
  

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