About 1,200 scientists work in the biological arm of the United States Geological Survey, known as the Ecosystems Mission Area. President Trump’s budget would likely eliminate their work nationwide, if passed as proposed. That includes some work that is crucial to saving salmon in Puget Sound.
Five years ago, University of Washington professor Ed Kolodziej identified 6PPD-quinone, a chemical in runoff from roads that kills Coho salmon almost instantly. It comes from a preservative that stabilizes rubber and is used in tires everywhere.
“These types of chemicals, these tire chemicals, are throughout our environment. They're in our bodies,” Kolodziej said.
And they provide an essential safety function on our roads. Since shortly after his initial publication, he’s been working with the USGS biologists to find a healthier replacement for 6PPD.
Kolodziej says this is crucial as the state and federal governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars on habitat restoration work. If they don't also address water quality, he says the restoration brings fish back to habitat that is toxic.
“And it does matter when you have a team of capable, experienced people with unique capabilities to figure out the implications of that, the risks of that, and how to fix that,” he said. “The USGS is just a critical part of that team.”
Kolodziej says the USGS provides critical data and context on national water quality. They have a lab and research facility not far from the University of Washington campus in Seattle, where they have been able to run tests not just on Coho, but on several other species of concern, discovering sensitivity to 6PPD in several kinds of trout and steelhead.
Working together with the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, they have narrowed the search for a 6PPD replacement to 7 chemicals.
That work is threatened by more than $500-million dollars in cuts to USGS in President Trump’s Budget. The Ecosystems Mission Area costs $307 million.
U.S. Representative Marilyn Strickland, a Democrat from Tacoma and Washington’s 10th Congressional District, is asking the Trump administration to reconsider dismantling this division.
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She wrote a letter with eight other Democrats in Congress, to Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgham, asking him to spare the program.
“They make these cuts, but they have no idea what the consequences are,” Strickland said.
As co-chair of the Puget Sound Recovery caucus, she warned that eliminating this unit of the USGS would seriously undermine the 6PPD research, putting the state’s salmon resources at risk — especially with the booming population growth and resulting traffic around the Sound.
“Think about the numbers and types of vehicles you see along the I-5 corridor every day,” Strickland said. “You're just going to have a highway and transportation systems that are very busy. And the runoff from those tires is making its way into the Puget Sound.”
She says economic activity in Puget Sound from salmon alone provides millions in annual economic activity and more than 23,000 jobs. Healthy salmon runs are also critical to the fulfillment of treaty obligations the United States has to dozens of tribal nations.
Strickland says this issue is especially important to Puget Sound and the fisheries in Washington State, but also says the research has nationwide and even global impacts.
Joel Baker, a professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Washington and the director of the Center for Urban Waters in Tacoma, warned of devastating consequences if these cuts go through.
He cited the research centers around the country maintained by USGS, with a strong record of doing “really good science” that provides the foundation for all kinds of research.
“And a lot of the stuff they do, we just take somewhat take for granted,” Baker said. “Like, I can look up what the flow is in Skagit River right now, because USGS is out there doing those measurements — that's the kind of stuff that's going away,” if these cuts go through.
But he pointed out USGS is just one of multiple agencies targeted for potentially debilitating cuts. He says the loss of federal science and scientists in the region will seriously undermine the infrastructure for research here, on all kinds of critical issues in Puget Sound.
“It's like a baseball team, and suddenly you don't have the outfield, right?” Baker said.
