FEBRUARY 12, 2016--During a blustery evening on February 5, OR&R's LTJG Rachel Pryor and Senior Scientist Alan Mearns joined citizens during a low-tide retrieval and transport of caged mussels from three sites along the coast of Snohomish County in Washington state.

Nearly three months earlier the volunteer teams had anchored cages of mussels at these sites as part of a large-scale Mussel Watch program sponsored by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. These sites are part of a 65-site monitoring effort along the 200 mile coast of Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia.

The mussels from all sites are headed to NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service Laboratory in Seattle where chemists will analyze them for a wide variety of contaminants including petroleum hydrocarbons and PCBs. The results will help environmental managers identify chemical pollution "hot spots," and especially those associate with urban and rural runoff. Results will be available this coming summer.

OR&R's Emergency Response Division has long been involved in local and National Mussel Watch programs and is pleased to help out with this large-scale, citizen science-driven state monitoring effort.

For further information, contact Alan.Mearns@noaa.gov.

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