KING 5 News profiled a floating wetlands project at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle that is exploring innovative ways to improve habitat for juvenile salmon.
Partnering with EarthCorps, the team is testing how floating wetlands perform in saltwater and evaluating their effectiveness as habitat for juvenile salmon and improving water quality.
In 2021, our Wastewater Treatment Division’s WaterWorks Grant Program awarded $161,000 to the University of Washington’s Green Futures Lab for the project Sweetgrass Marine Living Shoreline Demonstration and Research Prototypes. Building on previous research, this was their first attempt to modify and test these systems in saltwater.
That grant began in 2022 and wrapped up this summer. In addition to monitoring the use by young salmon, testing was done to understand how floating wetlands might also improve water quality, such as by lowering water temperatures or reducing pollution. With the completion of the grant cycle, the organization will be developing a report with water quality testing and findings.
EarthCorps will continue this work in partnership with the University of Washington’s Green Futures Lab in the next few years with a new grant of $60,000 for the project Floating Wetlands: Shilshole and Beyond. The new project will continue scientific monitoring and community engagement at Shilshole and identify new sites with potential for future installations.
There is a lot of interest in assessing the potential of floating wetlands, a relatively new technology developed to improve habitat in urban waterways with hard edges where it can be difficult and expensive to do restoration. King County TV in 2022 featured an earlier project in the Duwamish Waterway in Seattle.
WaterWorks invests about $6 million every two years in projects that improve water quality throughout the service area of King County’s regional wastewater system. Learn more about WaterWorks and funded projects here.
Contact
Akiko Oda, Wastewater Treatment Division, 206-263-4190