worst is likely the Hood Canal area (and the remote areas around Olympia further down into south sound) of the PS as that is more remote, is more stagnant as it has less drainage and many if not almost all older housing on the waterfront have older seeping / leaking septic systems into the waters of the sound and in jurisdictions that have always had a trouble with enforcement for residential septic construction ...

... but by far the biggest problem IMHO is the annual West point wastewater treatment plant in Seattle flooding our and dumping billions of gallons of raw sewage into the sound ... not to mention our neighbors to the North ... Vancouver Island and Victoria can you say Canada eh ... that do not have any sewage treatment facilities ... and have been dumping - piping raw sewage directly into the Straights of Juan Defucia for ever!!! They say they are going to change but I have been hearing that for 20 years ... and nada ...

Personally I don't eat the dungeness crab around here ... I only do that when were up north in the SJ's and Gulf Islands ... but you'd be amazed at the ... how do I say this politely ... oh thats right I'm never polite ... the Asian community seems to relish anything they can capture in the sound, even when its next to a super-fund site!!

To me I think the water quality is better in the sound than it was 20 years ago when I moved here and started to sail the sound but maybe that's just perception as I don't see much floating garbage anymore ... which is a good thing perhaps people are being more conscientious not tossing everything overboard ...

... the water clarity at times is very good in middle sound here in Tacoma ... not like the "brown" one NOW see's on parts of the East coast ... (my last visit to Virginia Beach is not like I remember it as a kid surfing) ...

The troubling fact is we are killing our selves, the great pacific plastic garbage patch is now bigger than Texas ... god knows what damage this Gulf spill will do to areas where the Gulf stream meanders ...

But no tap water into the Puget Sound is ref'ndiculous ... I fear I will have zero tolerance if I get hassled by the Green Taliban washing my boat down with a hose and no soaps ...

Ah well as they say "all good things come to an end" ... sooner or later ... glad I'm living now and did in the pre-aids days of my youth ... ZPG always.

~N