Air pollutants also have effect on area's water quality

Everything from cars motoring along Interstate 5 to coal plants in China contributes to air pollution that settles into Puget Sound.

Whether it's direct deposits of toxic chemicals from the air to the marine waters or pollutants that fall on land then flow into Puget Sound in stormwater, air pollution is another insult to the health of the Sound.

"Air pollution is one of the largest problems in Puget Sound that has not yet been quantified," said Heather Trim, urban bays project coordinator for the conservation group People for Puget Sound.

Gov. Chris Gregoire's 2008 state budget includes $310,000 to pinpoint air pollution to Puget Sound and create a priority list of investments that would reduce air toxins entering marine waters.

The budget request arrives on the heels of a state Department of Ecology toxics loading study that estimated the volume of air pollutants reaching Puget Sound from a variety of sources, including car, truck, rail and air traffic, indoor and outdoor wood burning, dry cleaners, auto repair shops and factories.

The annual air assault on Puget Sound includes 31 tons each of copper, 3.1 tons of cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), 0.031 tons of mercury — all harmful to fish and humans.

For instance, PAHs are a by-product of petroleum combustion and are found in vehicle exhaust. At measurements of less than 1 part per billion, they can harm development of the eggs of herring, a prey fish that plays an important role in the diet of chinook salmon, according to research by NOAA Fisheries.

Not all of the air pollution hurting Puget Sound is generated in the 12-county region. Researchers in recent years have measured air contaminants from Asia blowing across the Pacific Ocean and settling out here. In a 1999 study, University of Washington researcher Dan Jaffe was one of the first to document the made-in-China air pollution reaching North America.

One likely source is Chinese coal-fired power plants, which supply the country with roughly 70 percent of its energy and make China the largest consumer of coal in the world.

"We haven't studied the global versus local loading of air pollution in the Puget Sound basin," noted Joseph Vaughan, an assistant research professor at the Washington State University Atmospheric Research Laboratory. "But deposition of air pollutants to Puget Sound is something we have the modeling capability to address."

While China's energy policy has a bearing on Puget Sound, there are plenty of air pollution problems to work on here at home, Trim said.

"You can't blame global sources for a lot of our Puget Sound problems," Trim said.