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Puget Sound

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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

p>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:

Actions identified were organized around five priority strategies:


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