Preface 
Alyn C. Duxbury 
Washington Sea Grant Program 
In September 1986, Dr. Howard S. Harris, Ocean Assessments Division, NOAA, 
and I met in Seattle with Dr. James Thomas, NOAA Estuarine Programs Office, to 
discuss featuring Puget Sound in the Estuary-of-the-Month Seminar Series. As a 
result, I volunteered to assemble a one-day program of speakers and to 
coordinate the publication of their papers. 
Puget Sound Studies 
Like many major estuarine environments, the Puget Sound Region is a place 
of intensive study in many fields. To what extent the Sound has been used or 
abused often seems to be a function of whom one talks to and his or her 
particular interests. Political and resource management interests abound in 
the Pacific Northwest and frequently bring together Federal, state, county, and 
municipal agencies, as well as public and private industries to address issues, 
uses, problems, and solutions. 
Seminar Topics 
A one-day seminar is not long enough to cover all the activities, groups, 
and research effort presently ongoing in this dynamic marine arena. Therefore, 
it was necessary to select among many possible topics. This does not mean, 
however, that those topics not included are unimportant. 
In organizing the seminar we decided to showcase two problems that have 
received much attention and that are considered to be most important to the 
conservation and development of the Sound and its resources: 
o Toxicants - their presence and distribution in the Sound's urban 
bay sediments, their point and non-point sources, and their resulting 
biological impacts; and 
o Sewage Contamination - the bacterial contamination from sewage 
treatment plant effluent and from non-point land runoff that does not 
destroy shellfish resources, but does preclude commercial sales from 
contaminated beds. 
In the sessions that resulted from these plans, speakers reviewed ways that 
agencies-Federal, state, and local-have responded to these problems and 
described management strategies to counter-act them. They also described ways 
that management policies are creating useful interactions among agencies at 
different levels of government. 
We are pleased to provide this information about Puget Sound and in doing 
so, we hope that it will foster a better understanding of Puget Sound as a 
unique estuarine environment with unique problems and solutions. 
Vll 
