From the boats that chug along
on top of Puget Sound to the sea
life that thrives down below,
there's a lot of ways to measure
the health of the nation's
second largest marine estuary.
We take a look at what's being
done on land and in the depths
of Puget Sound to preserve the
environment and the animals that
we have come to know and love.
This is a state of the sound.
I'll take your boarding
pass as you get on here.
Please watch your step welcome.
You can head on either
side here from a docking
Edmonds good morning boat.
Captain Brian McGinn is on a mission.
I'm Brian. And no, I've I've not done
this yet, but I'm excited to try it.
He's a full time whale watching Captain.
This is my 7th
season with these guys,
so part-time comedian.
I haven't found any whales yet, but.
Now we're good, we're good.
That's what happens when you have 100
tourists on board for a half a day.
Whale watching tour Seattle traffic Saratoga.
The excitement is palpable.
I wanna see that orca take
more grip brine of Florida
Free Willy was my favorite
movie growing up like Shamu
the Puget Sound Express.
Like many whale watching companies
in the Pacific Northwest,
relies on reports from a network
of spotters. Still have it.
From there it's a race to the potential.
Sighting the hunt for a glimpse
of the massive mammal is on.
They go down for five minutes.
You better be looking in the
right place at the right time
when they come back up again, so.
OK buddy, come on CATA. Qadar
today is a good day for McGinn and his crew.
I gotta well what?
And now we're in and we
see the distinctive tale
of a humpback
whale. Oh my God help.
The way that we tell humpback whales
apart is usually by the markings
on the underside of their tail,
so we got some really great looks
at Cato's fluke called kata KT. A
yes kata is her name, and yes,
there is a record of each and every
whale in the Pacific Northwest. Three
o'clock, three o'clock.
Ohh yeah, here we go diving.
That was so cool, this
one. This exact one has been seen before.
In fact, it's made the news tonight.
Federal and state officials are looking
at whether this jet ski or broke any laws
back in May. We showed you this
footage that was shot by a viewer
and one of the whales comes right
up to them and splashes them
before diving back under the water
there. Kata the whale was unharmed
and today serves as a reminder
of the reality we're facing.
With the marine Mammal Protection Act
calls for a football field between
a boat and a humpback whale.
OK, take my height and weigh that
against a good sized speed boat.
Let's say a 20 footer. Pretty big.
Now compare that to a full grown orca whale.
They can grow to anywhere between 20
and 28 feet significantly bigger,
though the fully grown humpback
whale which can top out at more
than 50 feet. Both
populations were once
hunted victims of both
pollution and climate change.
But today, according to the Pacific Whale
Watching Association, the tide is turned.
They both humpback whales
and the big killer whales.
Their populations are both
growing really quickly,
and so in the last several years
we have been seeing more whales,
and there are more people going
to watch whales as well. So
oh, there he is
humpback whales, benefiting
from a record baby boom in 2019.
And despite new calves in recent years,
the orca population in the
state is still considered
endangered has been since 2005.
Regardless, sightings are up.
Ohh, I got something on Next up on our
tour right under that seagull yeah. Or
Florida couples dream.
Isn't anyone interested
in seeing some killer?
A pod of orca whale.
Killer whale Oh my God babe.
With the whales inside the
boats motor is killed.
Good God, he's huge.
Oh my God. It's it's indescribable.
You dream about this moment your entire
life and then it finally comes true.
And you're like you just stand there, awe.
It's just so cool. But without
any harassment, are you
watching on your starboard side
Noah calling on boaters to stay 200 yards
from killer whales in Washington state?
Open water that can quickly
become crowded. We're
seeing a lot more transients
coming in here, and it's just because they
have a lot of food to eat. We're seeing
more and more seals and porpoises
today. A glimpse from above water into
a world that most will never see.
Rich keep watching out.
There we go and again yes
a check off a bucket list for this woman like
my whole life is made.
I can die now like I am good.
I've met my spirit animal animals
in the wild, alive and free
in a quickly changing world.
Life is complete. Admits
this place is absolutely beautiful.
Sebastian Robertson. KING5 news.
Get your last looks with these
whales as we are southbound here
out of car inlet. What a day.
When Puget Sound is peaceful.
It can see to have a life of its own,
but communities beyond the
coastline are deeply connected
by personal and policy choices
that require difficult research.
OK, coming aboard with Captain
Bob Krueger and his crew,
we're in about 290 meters of water here.
We see research to help answer how
climate change and the community
on the surface impacts the
aquatic 1 below it phytoplankton.
Microbiology parameters these
scientists are using chemistry
to help solve those mysteries
to make sure that things survive and
thrive in the waters of the Puget Sound.
On a characteristically cool,
rainy Seattle Day,
we joined them on research vessel,
sound guardian, even its name has local
ties spun off from a local music legend.
The new and very fitting name sound guardian.
Soundgarden helped dedicate the boat at a
launch celebrating the tools it offers.
We're not just bringing
samples back to the lab,
we're actually doing a lot of
the analysis out in the field,
which is something that's since
I started, you know,
million years ago it's totally changed.
Channel traffic changed
every two weeks. Oceanographers
sailed to stations across the sound
in Central basin to drop instruments
at a list of locations including near
wastewater treatment plant, outfalls
gonna collect physical samples from
depths throughout the entire water column.
Testing overtime forms baselines for
metrics like ocean acidification,
temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen.
So we got a lot of plankton in this one.
They also collect phytoplankton. This
is a phytoplankton sample.
Their fuel for shrimp,
snails and jellyfish.
A key component of the marine food web
and an indicator of water quality.
What they find in the water
and phytoplankton can help them
navigate what's happening,
though scientists say crunching
data is complex.
While it's hard to pinpoint one
factor mostly responsible for
changes which can be cyclical,
oceanographer Taylor Martin says
changes are there including a
slight upward trend in heat,
so we're seeing a increase in
temperature in addition to you know,
whatever other global
temperature trends we're seeing,
both in the air and in the water.
We are seeing that here
in the Puget Sound too.
The sound Guardians tools give
specifics about what they're seeing.
It's a super accurate temperature
sensor. It's accurate to like
1-10 thousandth of a degree.
But data is just data,
unless it's used to navigate
future policy choices.
According to King County,
Department of Natural Resources
and Parks director Christie true,
it really becomes a core baseline
to inform all of our decisions.
Especially where do we want
to invest our dollars?
What's going to make?
The biggest difference?
Is it more wastewater treatment?
Is it more control of stormwater?
Should we be better stewards of
the chemicals that we use every day
among these scientists?
There's a sense of mission to answer
those questions correctly. Growing
up one of my
favorite things to do is to spend time in
or around the waters
of the Puget Sound
and preserving that for future
generations is a key interest of
mine as well as my colleague.
And for all of us on shore,
there are choices about the
chemicals we use and the cleanup
we do that can help us play
a role. It's really important that
the that whole system is is very
healthy and that we're prepared
for changes as climate change
comes in too is going to change
the water quality of Puget Sound,
and we want to make sure that our
shorelines have lots of habitat
for all of these things to live,
because even as the sound guardian
monitors what's happening,
it's on all of us. To keep,
watch and guard the water's health.
For all that rely on it.
From Puget Sound,
Eric Zukko King 5 News.
The northwest is rich with acres of lush
Evergreen trees that you can see,
but beneath the waters
of Puget Sound there's another kind
of forest that most of us don't ever
see. When we think about forests,
most people are thinking about
terrestrial forests, right?
OK, but these are underwater for us
that are doing incredible work in
terms of absorbing carbon dioxide,
turning it into food that supports us. She's
talking about bull kelp.
Seaweed that is as hard working
as it is in trouble. We
are definitely seeing declines in
kelp forests in parts of Puget Sound,
Betsy Peabody heads the Puget
Sound Restoration Fund,
a nonprofit dedicated to recovering the
marine life of the sound kelp matters,
she says, because when they decline,
so do the creatures on
marine ecosystems rely on,
including the seafood that we eat.
The southern sound has seen an 80% loss in
bull kelp forests in the last 50 years,
according to the fund.
In the central sound there are places
where kelp forests have disappeared
entirely around Bainbridge Island,
so clearly there's a connection between.
Places where kelp forests can thrive,
and places where maybe the
temperature is too warm.
With the support of
the Paul G Allen Family Foundation,
the group launched a new project
to try to figure out why account
monitoring program will expand to
14 stations throughout the sound
from the Strait of Wanda Fuca
to Squaxin Island near Olympia.
Peabody says kelp research has
been limited to observations
at the surface level. This time
we're going to be doing underwater
ecological monitoring. Divers
problem is they need divers.
And that's where Brad Giles
comes into play. I'm
just a recreational diver who
loves the underwater world. Giles
owns a dive shop in Marysville.
He heard about the kelp monitoring project
through the Reef Check Foundation. The
group that's training
volunteer divers to be underwater.
Scientists ready to do it?
Yeah, gathering measurements,
water temperature and pictures
of the creatures they see.
Giles signed up.
Now there's an opportunity
that I can get out here.
And give back into the dive community
and to the community in general.
On a chilly day in late April, they geared
up the nice signal for air like this
for training at Camano Island State Park,
a spot where kelp uniquely grows
all year round.
Giles and his diving partner
cross a rocky beach beautiful
above water and his beautiful
below water and walk straight
into the choppy water.
Toward a vision that Giles
says is incomparable.
London Water world is so beautiful here.
You know we're so fortunate
in Washington that we have
just this beautiful landscape.
Not just anyone can get into this water
like these experienced divers can.
They are essentially the eyes
of this important research to
provide critical data and images.
Data that is passed on to the Puget
Sound Restoration Funds research.
This is a way to get them involved in
monitoring those kelp forests in a
systematic way using the same protocols
that our scientific divers use.
After an hour or so, they're back.
The KELT Monitoring project will go on for
at least three
years and with the eyes of these ordinary
divers they hope to learn
something extraordinary.
And if we're not watching, we're not
going to see what actions
we need to be taking. These kelp beds,
waiting in the silent waters to be rescued.
On Camino Island, Christine Pay King 5 News.
A city shaped by water
is inspiration for innovation.
This can be the boat that
achieves everything that people
set out to do on the water,
enhancing and experience.
When I hit the acceleration
with the electric motors.
You'll just feel it. Take off on you.
Seattle is a place where Andy
Rebeli sees opportunity. It's
bringing boats back to where they should be.
Meet the pure pontoon boat manufactured
by Seattle based pure watercraft.
I started this company to build
the product that I really wanted.
Revely leads the company headquartered
on the shore of Lake Union.
This boat's engine is completely
electric, meaning no fuel,
no emissions. There are two things
people notice they can't hear it.
And they can't see
the outboard motor.
It's an industry taking off.
Pure watercraft is building a
facility in Tukwila to manufacture
boats and outboard motors.
It recently received $150
million investment from car
manufacturer General Motors,
the largest investment a
company has ever made,
an electric boating.
Seattle is really
at the forefront of making
this transformation.
Do you think that there's a case for that?
Seattle certainly is in the center of it,
and it should be in the center of it.
We've got water flowing through
the center of our city.
Department of Ecology Records show
since 2015 recreational vessels have
spilled nearly 15,000 gallons of fuel.
However, the department
believes there are many
spills not reported, meaning
the number is likely higher.
The drops in the cup here and the cup there.
They add up that never goes away.
Aaron Barnett runs Washington Sea grant.
They study the challenges facing
Washington's ocean and coasts.
One of the key jobs is to educate
recreational boaters about small.
Oil spills a problem eliminated
by electric motors. It's
a step in the right direction.
What do you mean by that?
The right direction?
When I say right direction I means
using technology that's more efficient.
That's more applicable.
It makes more sense.
That doesn't create the impacts that
we see with oil spill discharge.
Rivelli says. Right now pontoons are the most
popular boat on the market.
Pure watercrafts electric
motor is designed to have enough
charge to enjoy a day on the water.
Dual motors allow it to
travel up to 23 mph. However,
electrification isn't for everything.
Battery technology can be large and
relies on predictable schedules
to ensure there's time to recharge
a really good fit for electrical
propulsion is something that does
a regular run of a fixed length.
What rebel is describing is something
on a predictable set schedule like
the Washington State Ferry system.
It's one of the larger consumers
of fuel on Washington's water.
It's an ideal system for electrification.
Innovation I think now is a necessity.
And we have a real opportunity to
make an impact here. Setting an
example for the rest of the country
since 2017, Matt Vonruden and
his team have been working to
transform Washington State Ferries,
which use 19 million gallons
of diesel every year.
Much of the change will happen
deep inside the vessels engine.
Which is so loud you have
to wear hearing protection.
This is one of two propulsion motors.
What we want to do is replace two
with a four diesel engines with
big battery banks drive them like
a hybrid vehicle and eventually
bring electricity from the shore
and charge the batteries that way,
funding of $1.3 billion launched 2 projects.
The first builds new hybrid electric vessels,
the second transforms the state's largest
ships which travel between Seattle,
Bainbridge and Bremerton into hybrid vessels.
We think 95% of the time will be
running in Battery Electric mode.
So no diesel exhaust,
no rumbling noises of the engine,
it'll be electric. Here's
a look at how the battery, which will
be much quieter, will get power.
Vonruden calls it a robotic arm
we need to bring the electricity from
these black structures to the vessel.
It will be at the dock and plug into
the ship as passengers get on and off.
For us, it's just the perfect
situation because from the mountains
we have hydroelectric power,
renewable electricity, and so that's
what kind of all comes together.
The maturity of the lithium ion batteries.
Availability of the renewable
electricity and then the distance is
about right where even for our Seattle
the Bremerton run it's achievable. The
innovation is pushing boating into
the future one with less noise,
cleaner water and air.
The reasons people go out on a boat they
want to connect with nature and they want
to connect with family and friends.
They don't want to go out and
do harm to the environment they
want to connect with it and this
is a better way to connect with
nature than any other boat before.
Callie Greenberg King 5 News.