Originally published by  The Daily World 

The origin story of ORHAB Partnership dates to the early 1990s when Miranda Wecker, the director of the University of Washington Olympic Natural Resources Center, conducted a survey of people along the coast, asking about their concerns. “And out of all of the things that could have been listed, harmful algal blooms came to the forefront because the people had suffered from multiple closures,” said Vera Trainer, the aquatic sciences director at the University of Washington’s Olympic Natural Resources Center, which prompted the need for sampling up and down the coast. “It’s a harmful algal bloom that you can’t see,” said Micah Rogers, a harmful algal bloom specialist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) that can cause impacts to shellfish, marine mammals, and public health. Funding for the ORHAB Partnership is through the purchase of shellfish licenses; a portion of the sales goes to the ORHAB Partnership and the DOH. The tribes provide in-kind support through their sampling and funding is also provided by the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS). Read more about ORHAB’s sampling and monitoring efforts here.