Still nervous about low oxygen levels, state officials on Tuesday will again close Hood Canal to most fishing.
“The levels of dissolved oxygen are very low and widespread throughout the canal,”‘ said Greg Bargmann of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“They are not improving as they have in years past, and this is the worst for this time of year that we’ve ever seen.”
This week’s closure covers all bottomfish, herring, smelt, anchovy, octopus, squid and sea cucumbers.
Not affected are salmon, trout, clams and oysters.
The closure — effective 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for all waters south of Hood Canal Bridge — comes on the heels of last week’s news conference in Olympia by Gov. Gary Locke and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks — a Hood Canal resident when he’s not in Washington, D.C. — where they pledged financial and political support to study how to reverse the worsening problems of low dissolved oxygen levels in the fjord-like, 60-mile-long arm of Puget Sound.
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The rest of the story appears in Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News.
