Grays Harbor Locals Participate in Washington State's Mussel Watch Program

Local residents from the cities of Westport and Ocean Shores graciously volunteered their time this February to assist the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Mussel Watch Program. Mussel Watch is a nationwide effort that began in 1986 analyzing contaminant trends in marine waters from over 300 coastal in the US. The program samples both sediment and bivalve tissues taken from mussels to help learn about the current status and sources of pollution in a particular area and on a larger scale the program helps detect changes in the environmental quality of our nation's estuarine and coastal waters.

Mussel Watch takes place at more than 20 sites in Washington State through the support of state and county agencies and local Marine Resources Committees. Samples sites on Washington’s south coast include one each in Grays Harbor and Pacific County and sampling takes place once every other year. Westport site lead Kathy Greer met up with seven volunteers around 4pm on Sunday, February 28th at low tide to collect the mussels for testing. The site lead is helps maintain the strict collection standards and specifications required by the lab testing facilities. Sterile collection and handling of the mussels is extremely important, as is knowing how to carefully remove them from their habitat in order to keep them alive

and healthy prior to testing.

The volunteers worked diligently to gather the required number of mussels from three separate “stations” before sunset. The mussels at this site measured only 1 to 2 inches in size and thus required extraordinary care by volunteers to not damage the tiny mollusks upon their removal from their rocky habitat. After collecting enough mussels volunteers made their way back up the slippery jetty rocks to help clean, ice, label, and package them for overnight shipment to two different lab facilities. Details from each sampling station had to be recorded and submitted with the mussels including water temperature and salinity, the time the sample was collected, weather/wave conditions, GPS coordinates, and habitat characteristics.

The Mussel Watch program contributes to a continually growing scientific database of contaminant levels in marine and estuarine waters throughout the coastal US and ultimately helps provide coastal managers with a national context to compare conditions across local and regional areas. Results from this sampling will be available from NOAA this fall. A special thanks to this year’s Mussel Watch volunteers which included: Brady Engvall and Robin and Bill Leraas of Westport, Don Harders, Anthony O’Dell, and Andri Heracleous of Ocean Shores, and Linaya Hass of Montesano. For more information on Mussel Watch visit http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/mussel/welcome.html.