OCTOBER 30, 2015--On the night of October 26, 2015, two OR&R Emergency Response Division scientists assisted citizen scientists in deploying mussel watch cages at two sites in Edmonds, Washington.

During the minus tide (10 PM), Senior Scientist Alan Mearns, Susan Tarpley, and Autumn Moore (both with Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee) deployed a cage at Bracketts Landing in Edmonds. At the same time, four miles to the north, LTJG Rachel Pryor assisted citizen scientists Cathy Stanley and Sarah Brown, and County Park Ranger Doug Dailer, in deploying a second cage near Meadowdale County Park. These represent two of 70 deployments being made this week across the entire Puget Sound region by citizens and scientists as part of a 2015/16 State-sponsored effort. The mussels will be retrieved this winter and analyzed by the National Marine Fisheries Service/ Montlake Laboratory in Seattle for a wide variety of contaminants including petroleum hydrocarbons.

A similar volunteer-driven effort was successfully completed in the winter of 2013/14. The current project is funded by EPA and coordinated by Jennifer Lanksbury with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.

There is a long history of "Mussel Watch" activity in Washington and, indeed, the entire U.S. coastline. From 1986 the NOS National Centers for Ocean Coastal Science (NCCOS) conducted annual and biennial monitoring of contaminants in mussels and oysters at up to 300 sites around the U.S. That program documented the long-term decline of organic pesticide and toxic vessel coating chemicals in response to pollution control measures. However, there has been no substantial decline in contamination by PAH's, the most significant group of compounds found in oil, fuel, vehicle emissions, and other combustion sources. Dr. Mearns and other OR&R staff participated in the early development of the National Mussel Watch Program and have used the data to help assess effects of oil spills. Then in 2012, OR&R scientists monitored the rise and fall of PAH's in mussels exposed to a diesel spill at a mussel farm in Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, Washington.

Mussels (and oysters) have been pollutant monitoring ”work horses" for many decades.

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

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