• Weather.gov Forecast
  
• Active Weather Alerts
• Our Organization
• Working With Us
• Media & Constituents
• NOAA In Your State
• Budget Information
• Emergency Information for NOAA Employees
• Weather Ready Nation

NOAA Earth Day 2010

Removal of Derelict Fishing Gear in Puget Sound – Seattle, Washington

NOAA provided $4.5 million in Recovery Act funding to the Northwest Straits Foundation for a project that is employing divers and sonar operators to locate and remove roughly 90 percent of the more than 3,000 lost and abandoned gill nets weighing 200 metric tons from Puget Sound.

 For the last 10 months, this project has been employing local citizens to restore the health of Puget Sound and will continue through December 2010. The Foundation estimates that the project will support the equivalent of 18 full-time jobs by the time the project is complete.

Abandoned fishing gear damages habitat and can cause marine species to become entangled and die. Removing the derelict fishing gear benefits threatened Southern Resident Orca whales, Chinook salmon, and chum salmon among many other species in the area. Removal teams include members of the Nisqually, Puyallup and Squaxin Indian tribes, as well as other commercially trained divers.

Thousands of nets are caught in rocky outcroppings and draped along waterways. Bad weather, mechanical failures and human error have caused fishermen to lose or abandon their fishing gear. Gillnets and crab pots (commercial and sport) can continue to fish long after the original owners have gone, a process called ghost fishing. The nets removed from Puget Sound so far would cover an area the size of 300 football fields.

In Washington—where the country is experiencing high unemployment rates—NOAA is using Recovery Act funds to take on a total of six large restoration projects within the Puget Sound region. These diverse projects focus on everything from improving wetlands and reconnecting floodplains to restoring river systems all of which support salmon and contribute to the health of Puget Sound.

From the Event

• 

  Net pulled aboard the Surveyor II during the Earth Week event. Abandoned nets continue to fish for years after they're lost.

• 

  Workers aboard the Surveyor II pull in abandoned gear. In 2009, there were more than 3,000 nets like this one in Puget Sound.

• 

  NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, Eric Schwaab, talks with Northwest Straits Foundation director, Ginny Broadhurst about the project.
  

• 

  Workers aboard the Surveyor II cut tangled fish and sea stars from the abandoned gear. Most creatures - particularly mammals and birds that get caught in these nets do not survive.

• 

  Workers aboard the Surveyor II pull in abandoned gear. By project's end, this effort will clean up the vast majority of Puget Sound of its lost fishing gear.

• 

  NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, Eric Schwaab, talks with Chris Townsend of the Puget Sound Partnership.