Kelly invited us to comment on Bald Eagles. I have a few comments on her
questions:

>contaminants (primarily DDT) were thought
>to have disrupted successful reproduction here as they had in other parts
of
>the United States. At the time, it seemed likely that bald eagles were
headed toward the brink
>of extinction (or extirpation, if you like).

>Contaminants, mostly of unknown origins, are the cause. Is this phenomenon
going to increase in the
>future...? decrease...? stay about the same?

The answer to this question depends in a large part on where you're asking
about. I have reviewed just about every sediment data set from Puget Sound,
and I feel pretty confident that in Puget Sound, concentrations are
declining or at least staying the same, and in many areas active measures
are being taken to clean up the worst problems, including (or especially) in
urban bays where the worst problems are. The reason things are improving
include: 1) Less use of problem chemicals like PCBs, DDT, due to bans 2)
Better source control (orders of magnitude lower masses of chemicals are
being discharged to the water now than in the 70s and even the early 80s),
3) active cleanup of contaminated areas that will not recover on their own
is slowly getting off the ground and I expect large projects to be completed
in most contaminated bays in the next five years, 4) some areas are
recovering on their own (such as Bellingham Bay) due to large sources of
clean sediment (rivers), and 5) These programs are made possible by strong
voter support and regulatory funding for cleaning up Puget Sound, which has
continued even in the face of dramatic budget cuts in other areas. In other
areas, for example freshwater lakes and rivers, we do not have cleanup
standards for sediments yet. Some cleanup has been occurring but at a much
slower pace. Lack of cleanup standards also hampers source control efforts,
but large strides even there have occurred due to the Clean Water Act.
Overall, I believe there are very few areas where things are likely to get
worse than they are today (barring a catastrophic spill, which could always
happen). However, there are still a lot of areas that are contaminated
enough to be affecting fish and hence eagles, which may take quite a while
to fix. Regulation of private landowners, however, will do little to affect
that situation on way or the other. The biggest obstacles to cleaning up
sediments are not private parties they are interagency issues and lack of
funding (State of Washington, cities, and Ports own the vast majority of the
areas that need cleaning up).

>The specter of the bald eagle as a species this nation could easily lose
has
>been raised. Now that the sacrifices have been made, the expenses
absorbed,
>and the bird restored to good numbers, perhaps its time to loosen up. Let
>individuals..., local communities (??) decide how to shoulder the
>responsibility for maintaining habitat for this great bird into the distant

>future.

I agree it's time to loosen up, or we'll never have any credibility.
However, before that is done (or concurrently), a strong incentives program
needs to be developed to create voluntary stewardship. This could include
lowering taxes for people who agree to keep eagle habitat undisturbed (and
put deed restrictions on to ensure that), identifying and facilitating
public purchase of properties where prime eagle habitat is at risk,
involving local communities in planning processes to zone and protect such
areas, etc.

Teresa Michelsen
temi461 at ecy.wa.gov