The San Juan Islands National Monument has moved toward capturing baseline ambient and intrusive soundscape measurements and in freshwater monitoring this summer on the south ends of Lopez and San Juan. This came about through the outstanding opportunity afforded by Lopezian environmental science intern Tahoma Wrubleski. Wrubleski has just graduated from University of Washington with a BS in Environmental Science and Policy, and is thinking on grad school.

The monument continues to pursue baseline data collection in advance of our Resource Management Plan, with the charge of managing with science-based decisions. The soundscape monitoring will occur for two months, on Point Colville in July and American Camp in August. Water sampling will occur on Lopez at Chadwick Marsh and on private farm land, and at the land bank access to Hummel Lake. On San Juan, water will be sampled in locations previously studied by Spring Street School in Jackle’s Lagoon.

Though facilitated by the BLM, Wrubleski’s internship will serve the San Juan Island National Historical Park, US Fish and Wildlife, and San Juan County, who helped set up the database for his collections. The US Navy were given the opportunity to participate, as well, but declined. They did, however, offer that in order for the data to be useful for their purposes it would need to be done to standards of Washington water quality measurements and to those of the NPS Soundscape Program. Protocols for the water monitoring are to those standards. The soundscape equipment is on loan from the NPS Soundscape Program in Colorado, who have provided training and tech support for Wrubleski, as well.

Marcia deChadenèdes

San Juan Islands National Monument Manager