San Juan Islands

Friday Harbor STP is in Significant Non-Compliance for exceeding permit limits for a pollutant measured on a non-monthly average basis. The facility discharged more of a parameter than its Clean Water Act permit allows, measured over a period other than a monthly average. Identification of the specific pollutant exceeded requires access to the facility's discharge monitoring reports.

San Juan County, Washington has been in D0 (Abnormally Dry) classification for 100% of its area continuously since early July 2026, as of the week ending Sept 21. Normally the islands experience a narrow window in summer when conditions become dry enough to support fire spread, and this persistent dryness extends that risk window as the fire season reaches its typical fall peak.

Northern red-legged frogs were observed four times between August 24 and September 15 near Olga and Anacortes, Washington, during the post-breeding dispersal phase. In Washington, these state-listed threatened frogs breed in February and March, then migrate from breeding ponds to terrestrial forest habitat to feed and prepare for overwintering. September observations document them in dispersal, moving into riparian zones and moist forest cover within roughly one kilometer of water.

Pacific chorus frogs were observed on September 18, 2026 near Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands, reflecting the species' year-round activity across the region. Sightings from early to mid-September document their widespread presence throughout the area during the early autumn period.

Twenty black oystercatchers were observed at Otis Perkins Day Park on September 19, representing the species at a typical season for the San Juan Islands. As a bird of conservation concern with a breeding season running through October 31, these birds are resident shorebirds that stay year-round on rocky coasts where they forage for mollusks.

The Friday Harbor sewage treatment plant has exceeded its Clean Water Act discharge limits twice this year. Suspended solids in its effluent ran 381% over the permitted limit at the end of March and 296% over limit again on July 24, six days ago. Biochemical oxygen demand, a measure of how much a discharge will deplete oxygen in the water it enters, exceeded limits by 150% and 71% in those same two periods. Same outfall, four months apart: that pattern points to a persistent operating problem rather than a single bad day. The plant is not an outlier here. It is one of five wastewater facilities near the San Juan Islands currently flagged by the EPA for significant non-compliance, and among the 21 Clean Water Act permitted facilities within roughly 15 km of the islands, 14 have active violations right now and 17 have had at least one in the past year. Across all of them, the total penalties assessed to date add up to zero dollars. Violations are being logged; nothing is following from them. What isn't known matters here too. No dissolved oxygen, turbidity, or bacteria reading near this outfall was available to check whether the surrounding water is actually showing stress from these discharges. This is a paper record of exceedances, not a measurement of harm in the surrounding waters. But repeated overages at the same discharge point, with no enforcement response on record, are worth watching as the water warms into late summer, the season when oxygen demand in coastal waters is already at its highest.

Indian plum is already yellowing and dropping its leaves in mid-July—a full two months ahead of its typical fall senescence. For a shrub that leafs out first each February, this precocious collapse reads as a clear signal: the San Juan Islands are gripped by summer drought stress. The region sits in one of the driest rain shadows in the Pacific Northwest, catching barely half the rainfall of Seattle less than 90 miles away. Oceanspray is showing the same compressed urgency—flowers and ripening fruit visible at once this week, as though the plant is racing to complete its reproductive calendar before soil moisture runs out entirely. Both species are reading the same ecological cue: a dry July is telling the understory that summer is already over. As temperatures climb through the week, air quality is expected to worsen as well, likely from smoke drifting in from inland fires. This seasonal combination of heat, drought, and smoke has become the defining summer signature for these inland waters.

Barred owls have moved into the San Juan Islands and are now raising young here — fledglings confirmed as recently as early July, with fifteen sightings recorded across Orcas, Lopez, San Juan, Guemes, and Anacortes over the past six months. These are eastern birds, expanding westward across the continent for decades, and their arrival marks a turning point in the archipelago's woodland ecology. Barred owls aggressively claim nest cavities from northern spotted owls and readily interbreed with them, creating hybrid young that further dilute the spotted owl's genetic integrity. Island by island, year by year, the displacement is measurable and still advancing. Where barred owls establish, spotted owls retreat — not in a season, but in a steady, documented erosion of territory that echoes across the region.

The local wastewater treatment plant released suspended solids at nearly four times its permitted level in March. At that concentration, solids cloud the water column and settle over eelgrass beds — the shallow, vegetated nurseries where juvenile salmon and forage fish shelter and feed, and where orca hunting those fish depend on rich prey populations. Five facilities across the Strait of Georgia/Puget Lowland are currently in non-compliance, and to date no penalties have been assessed. The regulatory pressure remains light even as the ecological cost compounds — sediment smothering the very habitat that sustains the food web the region depends on.

Orca sightings have been steady through spring — 57 records over six months, with both ecotypes present as of mid-June. The mix matters: Resident and Transient orca have very different diets and seasonal patterns, and seeing them together suggests variable prey availability across the region. Humpback whales are also moving through, 23 sightings in the same window, and the pattern tells a food-web story. Humpbacks have rebounded partly because Pacific herring populations are stable enough to support their spring feeding. Southern Resident orca, by contrast, feed almost exclusively on Chinook salmon — and those populations have not kept pace with recovery. One humpback sighting can mask the struggles underneath.