beds. Adequate water quality may be maintained through the following 
Ecology programs: 
(1) Water Quality Standards - maximum permissible standards 
for conform and other variables have been established for all 
waters, 
(2) NPDES permits - effluent standards are established for 
point discharges, and shellfish resources are considered as 
proposed discharges are evaluated. In addition. Ecology 
conducts a number of intensive surveys each year to determine 
the effect of discharges on the receiving waters and to 
investigate other priority or emergency water quality problems, 
and 
(3) Shellfish protection grants are available to counties and 
other local governments to identify and correct water quality 
problems. 
Washington Department of Fisheries (WDF) 
WDF has the responsibility for managing shellfish resources in Puget 
Sound to assure a sustainable resource for future generations. WDF does 
very little monitoring to determine either the condition or abundance of 
bivalves on Puget Sound beaches, and does no routine bacterial or toxics 
monitoring. 
Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) 
DNR leases and manages state-owned land for commercial shellfishing 
and various types of aquaculture. DNR does no routine bacterial or 
toxics monitoring of the shellfish. 
Local governments 
Local governments (generally counties) are responsible for sampling 
recreational shellfish beaches for bacterial and PSP contamination and 
closing these beaches if a health hazard is found. To date, the counties 
appear to be sampling their beaches adequately for PSP contamination, but 
sampling for bacterial contamination, with a few exceptions, has been 
very infrequent due to staff/resources limitations. 
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