Puget Sound

142 Stories

Trains derail in Arizona and Washington, with oil spilled on Puget Sound tribal land

The derailment in Washington state occurred on a berm along Padilla Bay, on the Swinomish tribal reservation near Anacortes. Most of 5,000 gallons of spilled diesel fuel leaked on the land.
The Associated Press

March 17, 2023 / 12:10 am
KUOW Blog

Dam owner pleads guilty after spilling turf, tire bits in Puyallup River

The head of a hydropower company has pleaded guilty after putting two football fields’ worth of artificial turf in the Puyallup River in Pierce County.
John Ryan

February 28, 2023 / 6:18 pm
KUOW Newsroom

Change the channel? New (or very old) name sought for Hood Canal

Members of the Skokomish Tribe say they’ve had a perfectly good name for the waterway in the heart of their territory for thousands of years.
John Ryan

February 14, 2023 / 11:05 am
KUOW Newsroom

Scientists try to keep up with chemical blizzard entering Puget Sound

Wastewater treatment plants are sending hundreds of unregulated chemicals into Puget Sound.
John Ryan

February 02, 2023 / 4:32 pm
Soundside

Parasites have a bad rap but play an important role in the animal kingdom

New research points to a steep decline of parasites in Puget Sound fish. Climate change is the likely culprit.
Libby Denkmann

Hans Anderson

January 19, 2023 / 3:54 pm
KUOW Newsroom

Washington's apex has a national park. Its low point doesn’t have a name

Thousands climb Mount Rainier, Washington's highest point, each year. No one, apparently, has ever been to the state’s lowest point.
John Ryan

January 03, 2023 / 9:58 am
KUOW Blog

‘Tis the season … for king tides around Puget Sound

‘Tis the season for king tides: The highest tides of the year. Extreme high tides are headed to Puget Sound Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning of the last week of December.
John Ryan

December 23, 2022 / 2:08 pm
KUOW Shorts

Neighbors: Sea Slugs

Without a boat or special gear, a lot of Puget Sounds’ iconic creatures - from orcas to Dungeness crabs - remain out of our everyday reach. But there is one little guy you can find most any day on your neighborhood dock: sea slugs, also known by their scientific name, nudibranchs. We go looking for sea slugs with Soundside producer Alec Cowan, Luan Roberts and Karin Fletcher.
Alec Cowan

December 21, 2022 / 5:00 am
Swelling school of seaweed farmers looking to anchor in somewhat choppy Northwest waters

Prospective kelp growers who want to join the handful of existing commercial seaweed farms in the Pacific Northwest are having to contend with a lengthy permitting process. It's gotten contentious in a few cases, but even so, at least a couple of new seaweed farms stand on the cusp of approval. Their harvests could be sold for human food, animal feed or fertilizer.
Tom Banse

December 15, 2022 / 4:42 pm
KUOW Newsroom

Captains of big ships eased up on the throttle during trial slowdown to help endangered orcas

The majority of captains of big commercial ships entering and leaving Puget Sound are cooperating with a request to slow down temporarily to reduce underwater noise impacts to the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered killer whales. The duration of the experimental slowdown – modeled on a similar project in British Columbia – will be extended into the new year, organizers announced during a status report and celebration on the Seattle waterfront Friday.
Tom Banse

December 09, 2022 / 4:33 pm

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