The calm water of Hood Canal is a silver mirror reflecting the reach of evergreens toward the sky. Frigid water rushes into my wetsuit as I bite my regulator and prepare to descend to the renowned Sund Rock dive site in Hood Canal. Sund Rock's South Wall extends down 130 feet, and is known for its great biodiversity of marine invertebrates and fish. I signal my buddy "OK" and we sink as air bubbles vertically jet stream out of our dive gear. Swaying plumose anemones create a startling contrast of orange and white against the vast emerald void.
At a mere 20 feet underwater, I am startled by a school of deep-dwelling copper rockfish. A thick green veil makes visibility poor. As I look below through my flippers, I detect an alien scene of unusual behavior. Sea cucumbers bend backwards with all feeding appendages extended-an immediate signal of distress. I spot at least 10 exposed wolfeel which are normally hidden in dark crevasses. A lingcod swims lethargically towards the shore in a shocking seven feet of water. Everything is out of place. Something is horribly wrong; the animals are suffocating.
On Sept. 19, thousands of dead fish washed ashore, blanketing the beaches of the canal. Excessive nitrogen-loaded nutrients from septic runoff, fertilizers and decaying algae are causing bacteria to consume dissolved oxygen in the water of Hood Canal. Marine organisms such as fish and invertebrates need to breathe the oxygen, but levels are so low that the animals will suffocate at the depths they normally live. The fish must swim shallow where dissolved oxygen is more plentiful. If the creatures cannot escape from the oxygen depleted areas fast enough they will die.
Hood Canal is a scenic fjord located west of Seattle between the Kitsap Peninsula and the Olympic Peninsula. The glacier-carved waterway has a troublesome history of low dissolved oxygen levels, and the hypoxia is getting worse. A massive fish kill occurred in 2003, but this year's fish kill proved more widespread. According to studies from the University of Washington, poor circulation, regional climate change and excessive natural and man-made nutrients entering the canal all contribute to the problem. Research performed by Jan Newton, an oceanographer at UW examines shifts in the population of species in the ecosystem.
"We need to gain perspective on how [hypoxia] affects different species," Newton said. "Each report of species population is more insistant that things are deteriorating."
Different species suffer in different ways.
The lingcod is a bottomfish that lives in rocky habitat of jagged pinnacles. The fish grows up to 5 feet in length and can weigh more than 80 pounds. Divers are often alarmed to see a lingcod's head twice the size of their own. The predator waits motionless in a rock cavern and patiently watches for its next meal. Prey such as herring, anchovies, or even other lingcod swim by in graceful ignorance until the lingcod ambushes. But now the powerful, camouflaged body sits wearily on gravel benches in a mere 5 feet of water. The lingcod was the largest species of fish affected by the hypoxia in September, said Wayne Palsson, a biologist from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).
"We are not sure why the 2003 fish kill affected mostly rockfish, and this year it was lingcod," Palsson said. "The kill wiped out about a third of the population."
Deepwater species of rockfish in Hood Canal have been seen in depths of 20 feet or less, forming super schools for protection against predators like the lingcod.
Another organism affected by low oxygen is spot prawn, the largest shrimp in Washington state. The shrimp grow up to 9 inches in length and are normally found at depths of 180 to 328 feet, according to the WDFW Web site. The spot prawn have traveled to less than 30 feet of water, struggling to survive in less than one-tenth of the depths they are normally found.
While fish can swim away from low oxygen, sea cucumbers are too slow to escape the suffocating water and are the first to die. WDFW closed sea cucumber harvesting due to declining population.
A sudden change of wind triggered the substantial September fish kill, Newton said. After an extremely dry Northwest summer, the lack of rain, sunlight, and addition of open ocean water in the canal all contributed to extremley low dissolved oxygen levels. Northern winds usually quicken the circulation of oxygen in Hood Canal, but during the week of the fish kill unexpected southerly winds put a drag on the surface water, and high dissolved oxygen levels never made it south. Deep water formed a lethal pocket of intolerably low dissolved oxygen.
"The fish rose to the top 10 to 20 meters of the water," Newton said.
When the wind suddenly pushed the water north instead of south, the oxygenÐstarved water at the bottom of Hood Canal welled upward, herding fish toward the surface and suffocating thousands within hours, Newton said. The dead were washed ashore, shocking the community. Everything from dead ratfish to flatfish crowded the beaches of Hood Canal.
The kill focused light on the problem of eutrophication. The mouthful of a word is a simple biological process that occurs when excess nutrients enter the canal. David Shull, Western oceanography professor, said eutrophication is caused by human population growth, change in watershed use and logging. Major clear-cutting in the 1980s resulted in replacement alder forests that produce nitrogen rich soil in excess, which now bleeds into the canal. Increased development means more septic tanks that often leak sewage into the canal. Bulldozed development sites and fresh pavement along the waterfront contributes excess water run-off, while fertilizers used for lawns, agriculture and tree farms contain high amounts of nitrogen.
The problem is obvious from Highway 101 along the west side of Hood Canal. Waterfront houses are wedged together along the beach and run parallel to tree farms, cattle pastures and residential sprawl.
Hood Canal residents like Geoff Pentz, owner of Sound Dive, said he is cynical about the issue because it is old news to locals that live in the drainage basin.
"People who live next to the canal don't care," he said. "The bottom line is that they will continue to use fertilizers."
A coalition of 38 groups including universities, state agencies, tribal councils, government and non-profit organizations came together to form the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program. The program encourages residents to reduce their use of fertilizers and pesticides in effort to improve water quality. The program also discourages the construction of bulkheads, concrete structures that prevent erosion, in order to promote eelgrass, a marine plant that creates dissolved oxygen. But many residents will not cooperate. Pentz said the only reason some people do care is because they are involved commercially and cannot fish anymore.
"People just want to take the resources and leave," he said. "No one wants to take responsibility for it."
Fish kills make the dissolved oxygen problem more tangible for the community, but the real concern is what people don't see, Newton said.
The bacteria thriving in the eutrophication process doesn't just disappear. Palsson said the same bacteria has been congregating at the bottom of the canal since the 1950s.
Divers recently discovered a 3.5-foot-thick bacterial mat stretching over four miles along the bottom of Hood Canal, creating an ecological dead zone. The area the bacterial mats cover is devoid of other sea life because no dissolved oxygen exists in the water for anything to survive. Palsson said the animals flee away from this dead zone.
"It's shocking to see the animals move away so quickly," he said. "There's an odd, strong response like deer running from a forest fire."
The presence of bacterial mats is the white flag of an ecosystem in peril, Palsson said.
Shull agrees.
"Ecosystem changes will occur," Shull said. "Commercially valued species will perish."
As low dissolved oxygen levels affect animals higher up in the food chain, species like dungeness crab will die, Shull said. WDFW has already closed fishing for herring, some crustaceans, squid, octopus, sea cucumbers, and all bottom fish including lingcod and rockfish. Currently, coho and chum salmon are the only fish species legal to catch in Hood Canal.
Ironically, the canal's exceptional range of biodiversity and the biological catastrophe brings divers of all skills, and small towns along Highway 101 generate business from the diving industry, said Ron Ault, local business owner of Hoodsport n' Dive. But he said he is worried it could be the last surge of business before divers desert a lifeless sea.
"It would be desolate. No one would want to dive," he said. "It would be like hiking in the woods without trees."
Washington state is allocating $25.7 million towards research in order to restore water quality in Hood Canal. The programs focus on the management of hatcheries, livestock waste, and storm water and sewage, including low-interest loans to help failing septic systems. In addition, the University of Washington received over $3 million from federal funds to research and interpret the intricate ecosystem. Newton said she is optimistic about the research being done on canal.
"The organisms are in dire straits," Newton said. "The reason I do have hope is because we are studying it."
The health of the places we live reflects the well-being of our own health, said Janna Nichols, a self-proclaimed "armchair marine biologist" who is a certified master diver. Nichols said in her brief seven years of diving experience she has seen a decline in the ecosystems of Puget Sound.
"Everything is interconnected," she said. "When it deals with water quality it has to do with you."
Nichols's words run through my head as daylight beckons me back to the surface.
A light mist hovers in the air and I try to wiggle my fingers, which are numb from the biting cold water. The gray sky promises no sun any time soon. With the return of fall, the fish are diving a little deeper and swimming more energetically. The rain provides the canal with more oxygen and the lack of sunlight will prevent algae from blooming. I examine the fellow divers surrounding me, and I take a moment to consider why we are all here; to see something unique and beautiful. But unless remedies are found, that beauty will become a marine wasteland.