From Crosscut: “Thousands of tourists migrate to Seattle’s waterfront each year to experience the ferry rides, kitschy stores and sweeping views of Elliott Bay.
Jeff Cordell says they’re overlooking something that makes the waterfront even more special: filamentous microalgae.
“Brown scum,” he said on a recent visit at low tide, running a gloved finger through a carpet of slimey growth. “We love to see that. This is really good stuff.”
For Cordell, it’s an early sign that the tourism hub is soon to become a more attractive stopover for natives, too — in this case, hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon that frequent the city’s shores each spring.
The brown scum is growing on Seattle’s newly constructed seawall, a $410 million infrastructure project that’s doubling as a massive science experiment. Cordell is testing whether coastal cities can better coexist with fish by building marine habitat into their shoreline defenses.
“Nothing has ever been tried on this scale to improve seawall habitat for fish,” said Cordell, a fish biologist at the University of Washington and lead scientist on the project.