Restoration case study: Commencement Bay natural resource damage assessment restoration actions

Commencement Bay is a highly industrialized salmon-producing river estuary and seaport (Tacoma) in Puget Sound, Washington, which was designated as one of the first major aquatic Superfund cleanup sites in 1981. As part of the Superfund law, federal, state and tribal governments have natural resource trusteeship responsibilities for determining injuries to trust resources (fish, shellfish, birds, water, and sediments), recovering damages, and then restoring lost habitats and services to these resources. Multiple contaminants of concern (petroleum, trace metals, PCBs, pesticides, chlorinated organics) have been contributed by a multitude of industries (transportation, smelting, pulp, timber, petroleum, petrochemical, storm and waste treatment) into multiple waterways where physical dredging and filling operations, have modified over 90% of the original nearshore mudflats and emergent marsh habitats. The challenge in Commencement Bay has been to develop a bay-wide restoration effort to stop further loss of critical fish and wildlife habitats, to enhance surviving habitats, and finally to provide cost-effective rebuilding of lost habitats