Page 7 - 7047 - Healthy Bugs Booklet

Kitsap Streams Among Healthiest in Region

What We Are Doing

Water quality specialists from degrade stream health. The same
Kitsap County visit over 50 stream changes in watershed health also
sites during a two-year period to affect the life cycle of salmon. We can
collect invertebrates and calculate look at how people are using the land
a bug index for each site. The to identify ways to restore damaged
streams visited represent the largest sites. Streams may be rehabilitated
watersheds in Kitsap County. We want by planting native vegetation,
to know which streams are healthy stabilizing banks that create sediment,
and which are not. We also want to or reducing pesticide use in the
know if streams are changing through watershed.
time. That is, are current protective
measures, such as building regulations We know now that restoring a stream
and stormwater management, doing site after it has been damaged is not
the job to maintain stream health as easy. How do you remove sediment
land development increases? from between rocks? Keeping the
sediment and toxics out of streams
When bug index values are lower is a better approach than trying
than expected, we wonder what is to fix it later.
happening in the watershed that might

Learn more at SSWM WQ Bug page Macroinvertebrate Sampling Sites
http://www.kitsapgov.com/sswm/wq_bugs.htm
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