Save What You Love with Mark Titus

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Mark Titus
Welcome to the Save What You Love podcast. I'm your host, Mark Titus. Today I get to sit down with Dr. Jenn McIntyre, who is the professor of aquatic toxics ology at Washington State University's Puyallup Branch. And honestly, just one of the lead humans out there doing things in the world that are making a difference. Jenn and I met back in 2015 and we were working on a stormwater runoff video for the Nature Conservancy.

00:00:29:20 - 00:01:06:08
Mark Titus
Since that time, Jen and her colleagues have found what was for them the holy grail of a toxic chemical that has been causing all kinds of disruptive killing effects on coho salmon here in Salmon Nation, specifically in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle region. They found it. And Jenn testified to Congress about it this last summer. We talk about that, her passion for science and what gets her up in the morning and really how to get ourselves out of these boxes that we've confined ourselves in and find wonder in nature.

00:01:06:10 - 00:01:25:05
Mark Titus
We talk about that a lot on this show. As you know. And I, for one, can't get enough of it if you're digging what you're hearing on this show. I'd appreciate it if you'd head over to Apple Podcasts and give us a rating there. It really helps to boost our visibility across all platforms. And also, it's getting into holiday season.

00:01:25:05 - 00:01:50:15
Mark Titus
Head on over to evaswild.com where you'll find salmon shipped right to your door. Now with completely compostable recycled products. There's nothing about it that can't be broken down and we're super thrilled that we're partnering with our friends at Crystal Creek on bringing you that. All right. So for today, Dr. Jenn McIntyre, enjoy the show and we'll see you down the trail.

00:01:50:17 - 00:02:27:10
Music
How do you save what you love?
When the world is burning down?
How do you save what you love?
When pushes come to shove.
How do you say what you love?
When things are upside down.
How do you say what you love?
When times are getting tough.

00:02:27:12 - 00:02:29:14
Mark Titus
Dr. Jen McIntyre, welcome.

00:02:29:16 - 00:02:31:07
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

00:02:31:09 - 00:02:34:04
Mark Titus
Yeah. Where are you joining us from today?

00:02:34:06 - 00:02:46:19
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I'm in West Seattle, my little homestead on the side of the city here. But it's it's a little distance from where my lab is in Puyallup at the Research and Extension Center for WSU.

00:02:46:21 - 00:03:17:23
Mark Titus
Well, I love West Seattle. It's like its own little universe inside of the city. But you do make those trade offs with proximity to stuff. And and I love joining together here on a day like today in November, which is very appropriate for the work that you do. And and we'll dive into that in just a minute. But just to start, I always like to start by giving you an opportunity to tell us your story.

00:03:18:00 - 00:03:24:12
Mark Titus
Where how did you come into the work that you do and what keeps you going day after day?

00:03:24:14 - 00:03:52:12
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay, Nice. Yeah, I don't I don't get us asked that very often. I feel really fortunate to be doing the work that I'm doing. So I had an interest in fish of all things, as a as a young child, you know, nurtured by my rabid fisherman father. And that just eventually led me to to being able to to do work that was focused on fish.

00:03:52:12 - 00:04:18:16
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I got a job as a technician in at the University of Washington before I went to grad school and in a fish lab. In grad school, I was able to study food webs, mostly focused on fish lake lake food webs, and then focused specifically on coho salmon. You know, and those were just wonderful opportunities that I guess, you know, you talk to enough people, you eventually some doors open for you.

00:04:18:16 - 00:04:25:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right? And then that led to the work I do now, focusing on stormwater.

00:04:25:06 - 00:04:49:04
Mark Titus
You know, I almost got carpal tunnel syndrome scrolling through your CV, it's it it's impressive. And there's so much amazing stuff you've done in your life. Did you have a clear idea at a certain point in your life as a young person? Maybe what it was that enthralled you and what you know, what you wanted to do? Did you have that early on?

00:04:49:06 - 00:05:00:03
Dr. Jen McIntyre
No. No, I gosh, even even in middle I mean, I suppose it depends what early on is. But even in middle high school, I still thought I might be a fashion designer.

00:05:00:05 - 00:05:03:21
Mark Titus
So fish, fashion, I guess.

00:05:03:23 - 00:05:32:22
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Like nothing about fish. You know, I wasn't I wasn't good at math because I wasn't applying myself, you know, I wasn't that I wasn't that interested in school, but I got interested in school for an odd reason. I had I had been skipping math class and one day I was actually ill and had spent the period in the nurse's room and my teacher kind of accused me of skipping class, which was totally fair, you know?

00:05:33:01 - 00:05:56:06
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And I was, you know, enraged at being, you know, mis missed, identified as a skipper. And so I decided to show them and then kind of randomly, I think I got a good grade on a test. And I thought, that wasn't that hard. I could I could get good grades on tests if I wanted to. And so I started to do exactly that.

00:05:56:06 - 00:06:03:18
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And my, my, my parents, I kind of convinced them to do this thing that some kid's parents did, where for every day you get you get $10.

00:06:03:20 - 00:06:04:09
Mark Titus
Wow.

00:06:04:14 - 00:06:13:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So we did that once and it was all straight A's. And they're like, Yeah, you seem to have your own motivation now, So.

00:06:13:23 - 00:06:44:18
Mark Titus
Whatever takes, baby, you know, like I, you know, I can identify honestly, I classic high school underachiever here. I was terrified of math until I had a sort of a similar story geometry. Like I had a wonderful teacher who said, you know what all this others maybe you're you're recalcitrant about all this other stuff in math, but this will allow you to build a deck.

00:06:44:20 - 00:06:48:00
Mark Titus
And I was like, I can get my brain around that.

00:06:48:00 - 00:06:49:11
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And so need to do that.

00:06:49:13 - 00:07:07:01
Mark Titus
That's right. I mean, to do that. And, and to your point, like, I then applied myself and was like, Wow, I can actually do this. Not that I was ever turned off like a prairie fire in math after that, but I could get along, which made school a lot easier. As we mentioned before, here's here's some breaking news.

00:07:07:01 - 00:07:25:11
Mark Titus
It rains here in the Pacific Northwest, especially right now in November. We're expecting, in fact, several inches between the next two days here in Seattle. Just to kind of get into this conversation from a 100,000 foot level. Where does all that water go?

00:07:25:13 - 00:07:53:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Well, very much depends where you are. Right. And we're getting a lot of saturated ground. I got an alert this morning for landslides. Right. But you know where I am and where you likely are right now, most of that water doesn't have soil to soak into. And so it ends up running off. So we talk about stormwater runoff and that's literally the water that can't soak into soils because there aren't any soils exposed.

00:07:53:04 - 00:08:17:02
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Just, you know, it's roofs and it's sidewalks and driveways and roads. So instead the water's looking for somewhere to go and eventually runs off either collected into a pipe that's put into a stream or out into the sound directly. A little bit of that goes to wastewater treatment plants, but the majority of it just untreated ends up getting shunted into some water body.

00:08:17:04 - 00:08:35:08
Mark Titus
So we're going to get into a little more micro focus as we go along here. But still on the macro level, what is the for for all of us out here listening and learning, what is the correlation between stormwater runoff and deleterious effects for salmon, especially coho salmon?

00:08:35:10 - 00:09:00:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay. I mean, what we've learned over the years is that there is something about stormwater entering creeks, usually because this is where we were seeing this problem. So so there were these mortality events, you know, alcohol coming back to spawn after spending couple of years in the ocean, you're like, you're almost there. You're here, you're almost completing your life's missions.

00:09:00:00 - 00:09:14:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
They come back to these streams and in places where there's a lot of stormwater runoff entering those streams, we're finding them dying. So it was a a long road to get to understanding why exactly that was happening.

00:09:14:02 - 00:09:37:19
Mark Titus
Yeah. And you are the you're right at the forefront of trying to understand that and getting somewhere with it, which is so exciting, which is why it's so wonderful to be able to talk together today. We did a video together and we'll put the link to that in the chat called. Right. We'll put the link to that in our show notes.

00:09:37:21 - 00:10:03:02
Mark Titus
Forget which platform in my mind Cheese. And it was called Solving Stormwater and it's a great primer on all of this, but we're just again, on the big level, Where's the hope in all this? I mean, when when you look at it from a a large problem perspective, it's like, well, what how do you know? How do we stop the rain?

00:10:03:02 - 00:10:23:01
Mark Titus
That's I mean, we've got a city here. It's already built. There's impervious surfaces, already built like sidewalks and and streets and like, we can't do a whole lot about that. So where's the hope in all this? What can we do right now? Right this minute? I know there's more to come, but right now, what are we doing and what can we do to address stormwater runoff.

00:10:23:03 - 00:10:53:14
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right. Yeah. So, so there's a lot of things we can't change. And then there are some things we can change and some things that are easier and harder. So we try to get into that a little bit. You know, I mentioned the imperviousness, the inability of the water to go through the ground is being the reason all of that ends up in the in the streams and in the waterways, you know, so we we can slowly retrofit things like sidewalks and roofs and all that stuff with green infrastructure.

00:10:53:14 - 00:11:24:20
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right. We can have permeable sidewalks where the water can go through and soak into the soil before eventually getting into a stream where we are able to do permeable roads as well. We're still working on that technology. Rain gardens, places that allow water to to collect that stormwater, to collect and soak into the soil. Again, green roofs, you know, the but that's a slow most of that's a slow process of replacing existing existing infrastructure.

00:11:24:20 - 00:12:01:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right. So we're I see more the hope is a couple of things. One one is focusing on areas that are current only being developed anywhere that we're building on the landscape now, we can make more easily those choices of including green infrastructure, including ways to make our hard surfaces permeable to water by using that in the first place instead of the traditional approaches, you know, things like using safer products, you know, driving less.

00:12:01:00 - 00:12:36:08
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You know, those are always good ideas. Those are they seem harder to sell for some reason. You know, they involve lifestyle changes. And right now the whole area of social psychology and in in science to understand how we can encourage people to make those lifestyle changes, how to make them easier for people. Yeah, but I think encouraging green infrastructure to be included in our landscape and that's something that regular, regular people can do if they have a home where you could actually build a rain garden and catch what's coming off of your roof, that kind of thing.

00:12:36:10 - 00:12:53:03
Dr. Jen McIntyre
But even without that connection, you know, there's nothing like encouraging our elected leaders to implement these things. You know, some of this is is not a lack of technology. It's a lack of political will to make the change happen.

00:12:53:05 - 00:13:23:01
Mark Titus
Right. And more on that in a second as well. But the talking about rain gardens, we spoiler alert, we get to work together again later this month and we're going to have a new video coming out which we'll of course, announce when when it's ready. Really specifically addressing one victory. And it's a spot that's under Highway 99, the bridge going across the ship, Canal Bridge and here in Seattle.

00:13:23:03 - 00:13:44:19
Mark Titus
And to my knowledge, it's it's got something like 2 million gallons a year that of of of runoff that comes off of this bridge. And there was a project done. Could you tell us about that project and what exactly a rain garden is and does what it looks like kind of walk us through that?

00:13:45:00 - 00:14:10:03
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah. Yeah. So the original idea was not necessarily about treating huge, huge areas. You know, this this technology can be applied in small areas, but but increasingly we are now using it to to deal with larger volumes of water. So what it is, is simulating a wetland, not not quite a wetland simulating a place where the water can soak into the soil.

00:14:10:03 - 00:14:41:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right. A natural feature of the landscape, things like forests, things like wetland wetlands where water can interact with the soil system. And what that does is it captures not only the water but also many of the chemicals that can be carried by that water. And so it will it will capture them either physically or by sticking on to organic matter that's in the soils or the plants.

00:14:41:06 - 00:15:05:17
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And then it can be degraded by microbial action, or it might just hang out there and be stuck. So there are some kind of longer term questions about, well, you know, for chemicals that don't break down things that are elements like metals, like copper and zinc, those aren't going to break down once they're in these in in these rain gardens.

00:15:05:17 - 00:15:10:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
But they will be sequestered. They will be trapped. There is the idea.

00:15:10:02 - 00:15:26:08
Mark Titus
Right. And as you said earlier, it's not like rocket science. Literally. It's we're talking about using strata like gravel and rocks and things that are readily available right?

00:15:26:10 - 00:15:51:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah. Yeah. Very important point. And and nonproprietary, you know, nobody owns this technology. There are proprietary technologies that people will install or, you know, businesses and municipalities will also install. But the rain garden idea also we can call it bio retention depending on whether you're going to catch the water that goes through the soil or just let it eventually trickle all the way to great to groundwater.

00:15:51:23 - 00:16:25:09
Dr. Jen McIntyre
This in our state is is prescribed by this the Department of Ecology as having a gravel based layer. Right. So that's just the rapid drainage on top of that. Then you have a mixture of sand and compost, you know, very simple things. There's this whatever the ratio of it is is more sand than compost. And then on top of that, often there's just a layer of mulch and usually you'll have plants in there, you know, a little bit for functionality, but a lot for esthetics.

00:16:25:11 - 00:16:35:16
Mark Titus
What are some of what are some of the plants that that can thrive in that environment And our you know, like you said, they're beautiful, but they're also serving a real function.

00:16:35:18 - 00:16:54:10
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah. So that's that's an area of, of continuing research. Right. So we here in the Pacific Northwest have a different climate than other places that also use fire retention systems. But in our region, we need plants that can both deal with wet soils and also the dry soils, right? We don't want them dying during the summer when it's not really raining.

00:16:54:10 - 00:17:15:11
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So. Right. One of the successful groups of plants are are actually sedges. And you also want them to have not too dense of a root system because in that case, the little particles that come in with the with the stormwater will will just form this clogged mat layer. Right. So you want a certain type of root area to happen.

00:17:15:11 - 00:17:25:10
Dr. Jen McIntyre
But sedges is common. They're also some deciduous trees that are used in those systems, but they're not providing that benefit so much in the winter, right?

00:17:25:12 - 00:17:47:23
Mark Titus
So if, you know, I'm coincidentally, you know, if I'm building a new house and or a new structure of some sort, who would who would I go to? To, you know, I mean, this is like going down to the Fred Meyer nursery and asking folks who are like, what are some of the resources out there to to ask folks like, what?

00:17:48:01 - 00:17:53:20
Mark Titus
What should I do if I want to build a rain garden? What kind of plants should I get? And do you have do you have any ideas on that?

00:17:53:22 - 00:18:32:05
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah. Yeah. So, so there will be resources available from different municipalities. So the, you know, these things tend to be available, I mean, at the county level or at the state level for sure. And then you know, where I, where I work at Washington State University in Puyallup, we're part of the Washington Stormwater Center, and that is a center that was mandated by Washington State to support implementation of treatment technologies for stormwater, you know, largely to help people who hold these permits for for stormwater pollutants deal with the actual legalities of that.

00:18:32:05 - 00:18:43:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
But associated with that, we have a lot of resources about how to do how to do rain gardens, how to how to treat stormwater that anybody can access.

00:18:43:05 - 00:19:14:22
Mark Titus
Amazing. Well, we will we will post that URL in our show notes and we'll will also give you an opportunity to tell folks about that at the end of the show. I wanted to move in to another point here, which was a big deal this last year, this past summer, you testified about your in your colleagues groundbreaking research on the effects of the common Tiger Antioxidant six PPD Clinton on Coho Salmon to members of the Congressional House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

00:19:15:00 - 00:19:19:22
Mark Titus
That's a mouthful. What happened there?

00:19:20:00 - 00:19:29:17
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah, the well, a couple of things. One, one is I want to be able to tell people about the research that we did that led to that. Perfect. So should I start there?

00:19:29:23 - 00:19:30:16
Mark Titus
Absolutely.

00:19:30:16 - 00:19:53:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay. Okay. So, you know, we knew there's something about storm water that's killing the coho, and it took us almost 20 years to get to the point where we can we can now say it's this chemical first. We were first we needed to show it storm water, then we needed to show. Well, what is it about stormwater? And we learned that it was something coming off roads.

00:19:53:03 - 00:20:21:07
Dr. Jen McIntyre
From there we were able to narrow it down to it's something coming from tires and then we had this this very detailed chemistry approach to ultimately be able to identify that chemical because it turns out there are thousands of chemicals in storm water. It's not just a matter of like, well, what's that one causing the problem? And it turns out that the chemical that we identified had not previously been known to exist.

00:20:21:09 - 00:20:24:22
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Wow. So you couldn't you couldn't go look for it because nobody knew it was there.

00:20:25:00 - 00:20:27:08
Mark Titus
Wow.

00:20:27:10 - 00:21:00:12
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So the and and even more complicated is one, once we isolated this chemical, we still didn't know what it was. So how do I how do we figure out what it was and who was post-doc working on the project at the time, he was able to say, wait a minute, the formula. When you knew what the formula was, even though you didn't know the identity of the chemical or where it came from, the formula looks a lot like this other chemical that is an ingredient in tires, and that's six PPD, and it turns out it's used in all tires.

00:21:00:12 - 00:21:27:06
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You know, initially we weren't sure and it's put in tires to protect them from ozone and ozone is just a naturally occurring chemical in our in our atmosphere, and there's more of it produced as a result of pollution from vehicles and that sort of thing. And so when that ozone interacts with the surface of our tires, it wants to break apart the tire polymers.

00:21:27:06 - 00:22:02:13
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And, you know, I'm sure we've all seen different types of rubber that have cracked from age. And ozone is one of the things that does that. So you have to have some chemical in there to protect the tires from cracking what what, what? Nobody knew. I mean, somebody should have been thinking what what does that chemical the calm after ozone attacks it instead of the tire chemical the tire polymers and it turns out it becomes six ppd quinolone it breaks some bonds and makes some other some other attachments with oxygen.

00:22:02:13 - 00:22:15:09
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And now it's six PPD Quinolone turns out now it can more readily leach into water, ends up in the water instead of the tire. And it's super lethal to go chase.

00:22:15:11 - 00:22:49:04
Mark Titus
First of all, thank you for the pronunciation clarification. I took a 5050 chance on the Quinolone and went with quinine and that's that's appreciated. And you know, when we did our Solving Stormwater video back in 2016, I want to say that that was still the mystery, the big mystery. So this is incredible. This is absolutely remarkable that you and your team have isolated this and of course, which begs the next natural question where do we go from here?

00:22:49:04 - 00:23:05:19
Mark Titus
What does this mean? I mean, like we said earlier, we've already got roads. We all for the most part, all drive cars. We're not going to eradicate cars tomorrow. What's the next step? And now we've identified this chemical. What happens next?

00:23:05:20 - 00:23:22:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah, really. And so many people are concerned about this now that now that we've identified this chemical and are there are several approaches that are being taken, nobody is paying attention to one of my favorites, which is where are our hovercrafts?

00:23:22:22 - 00:23:25:02
Mark Titus
I love the hovercraft. Yes.

00:23:25:07 - 00:23:25:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You know.

00:23:25:23 - 00:23:27:04
Mark Titus
Down with the hovercraft.

00:23:27:04 - 00:23:50:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
We're going to be on tires for quite some time, it looks like. So what do we do about that? On the one hand, we have these streaming technologies, right? Let's get more treatment of our stormwater before it hits the receding waters, before it hits the streams and the nearshore marine environment. Let's get more rain gardens. We're by retention, more filtration happening of that water.

00:23:50:23 - 00:24:17:13
Dr. Jen McIntyre
But on the other hand, we're also you know, we're also very much focused on what we call source control, which is not letting that chemical get in the environment in the first place. That's easier than tracking it downstream and trying to stop it from reaching our our fish, for example. And the tire industry is now getting serious about finding a replacement for six PD.

00:24:17:14 - 00:24:18:00
Mark Titus
Wow.

00:24:18:03 - 00:24:25:15
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Something that will both continue to protect tires but not be such a problem for the environment.

00:24:25:17 - 00:24:33:15
Mark Titus
And was that a result of the congressional hearing that you testified at? Was it was that part of that process?

00:24:33:17 - 00:25:12:18
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Not explicitly. I'm you know, I'm not sure exactly what tipped the needle for them, because earlier on they were more saying, you know, look, we can just treat stormwater, we don't need to replace six PD. So I'm not sure what led ultimately to the balance. We're not we're now they are talking about needing to find a replacement and the chemical companies that manufacture six PD, they themselves are part of this race to find an alternative because it is such a widely used chemical, it's produced in really high above really high masses.

00:25:12:18 - 00:25:34:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I guess it's mass and it used throughout the world to build tires and other types of rubber that are vulnerable to to being broken apart by ozone. So the tire company, the not just the tire companies, but the chemical companies that make six PPD are interested in a solution.

00:25:34:02 - 00:26:03:07
Mark Titus
That's that's great news. You know, the approach that lots of folks are taking now, including me and us with, it is wild are in using your dollars for good and being able to you know, you can exercise your right to vote. Hopefully you're doing that and you you can have your voice heard on platforms now that are open and accessible to everyone, social media and other things.

00:26:03:09 - 00:26:34:01
Mark Titus
And you can use your dollar and that's kind of your big three right there. So for folks listening, is there anything that people can do from a consumer perspective or from using one of those three tools that we have at our disposal to help speed along this process with tires given Adeboye to the to the industry? What what do you what do you have in mind that might be beneficial to help move this thing along?

00:26:34:03 - 00:26:57:21
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is not something that people can do right now, but I still want to talk about it. So, you know, as even before we knew it, this chemical was once we knew tires were the source of the chemical, we started talking about Sam and safe tires. Know how to we we're going to need a tire that's safe for salmon.

00:26:57:23 - 00:27:15:12
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And there happens to also be a group called the Salmon safe that that certifies products and certifies businesses for, you know, for example, vineyards that that don't use pesticides. Right. They could they will get they can get salmon safe certified for their wines.

00:27:15:14 - 00:27:15:21
Mark Titus
Yep.

00:27:16:01 - 00:27:40:19
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So we've been talking with that group about a salmon safe tire getting certified as salmon safe. Well, how do we know what that tire is? That's something that we're you know, there may be right now a kind of best in class among existing tires that are less bad than some other tires. Right. Probably based on the amount of six speed that they have in them.

00:27:40:21 - 00:28:03:05
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And so one of the things that we're trying to do is get funding to do the research, tried to figure out if there is a a best in class that could be recommended and people could choose that over another tire if they're interested in helping to protect the environment from from this tire chemical. Ultimately, though, we want to produce it.

00:28:03:07 - 00:28:28:10
Dr. Jen McIntyre
We want to identify a safer, a much safer alternative, hopefully an alternative to PPD that won't produce any toxicity to aquatic animals. And that's, you know, again, that's going to require a lot of research to be done on potential alternatives, whether they you know, because we do know other chemicals that can be used in place of six PPD, there are already existing alternatives.

00:28:28:12 - 00:28:37:23
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Are they safe enough for the tire itself, you know, slowing down that breakdown by ozone so the terror doesn't just crack and fall off?

00:28:37:23 - 00:28:39:02
Mark Titus
You're right.

00:28:39:02 - 00:29:01:20
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You've got all of your wheel while you're driving, but nobody knows about how those alternatives are going to impact aquatic animals. None of that research has been done yet. And so we have a little bit of funding to start doing that work. But it's you know, it's going to be a little while before we have those alternatives and are able to offer people a salmon safe tire.

00:29:01:22 - 00:29:11:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So in the interim, you know, I think it's mostly just about encouraging people to support good choices.

00:29:11:05 - 00:29:12:02
Mark Titus
Right now.

00:29:12:04 - 00:29:34:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Politically, basically. And, you know, for those who are able and interested in lifestyle, lifestyle changes, you know, the the you know, diverting your downspouts so that they soak into the soil and driving your car less, working from home more, which have been good for for a lot of people.

00:29:34:06 - 00:30:13:15
Mark Titus
Absolutely. And these are all things I'm sure we can we can find on your site. Is that right? I hope so. It's kind of. Yeah. We're going to maybe you have to you know, I it's ironic to that or not. It's I think it's such a perfect symbol of where we are currently with the climate crisis and all the challenges we're facing here in Salmon Nation, that you've got this this symbol of this tire that would break down by the thing that is actually causing its breakdown, operating the car.

00:30:13:15 - 00:30:50:04
Mark Titus
So it's like this cycle of of breakdown, right. You know, the ozone from the car is breaking down the the tire itself and the whole thing is kind of breaking down, which is a little sad, but super hopeful that there are incredible humans like you doing this work. I noticed in your CV that back in the day you led high risk youth in a wilderness situation in Ontario, and it got me thinking about a common theme on this, on this show.

00:30:50:06 - 00:30:59:18
Mark Titus
How important is a reverence for the Wild in nature to the work that you do, and what have you noticed when you immerse young people in that setting?

00:30:59:20 - 00:31:41:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
that's a really good point. You know, there's so many I mean, there's the say what you love. There's there's there's so much common wisdom like that that describes how the way we interact with our environment, our learning about how the world works affects our choices and how we interact with the environment. And I today's youth obviously that the screen time a lot of kids get now is obviously detrimental to developing those, you know, those nurturing relationships with the natural world right?

00:31:41:06 - 00:32:09:12
Mark Titus
Absolutely. You know, I was even noticing yesterday it was you know, it was dark out and it was feeling a little torpor and, you know, didn't didn't it's just kind of feeling, you know, a little down, like didn't want to get out, but sort of made myself leave the screen, the work I was doing and take the dogs and go to Discovery Park and go for a you know, a small hike and run the dogs.

00:32:09:12 - 00:32:39:10
Mark Titus
And of course, everything attitude changed. And, you know, I'm a much better person when I come back from that experience. How do you think we need to get people, young people in particular, to put put these things down for a minute and break that break that spell? You know, it's not that easy when it's it's and it's by design.

00:32:39:10 - 00:32:55:02
Mark Titus
It's served up in front of you, you know. But what have you noticed in your experience has been successful in getting folks engaged and with nature engaged in the wild? And then what have you noticed after people have been engaged in the wild?

00:32:55:04 - 00:33:22:17
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So there's so many levels to that, right? There's there's the level of the benefits, the health, mental and physical benefits of being outdoors. Even if you don't understanding anything about what you're seeing around you. Right. That that's apart from that, there are physiological benefits to being outdoors. So how do you know how to get kids outdoors more? You know, obviously some of that they're young enough.

00:33:22:17 - 00:34:04:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
They can be they can be forced outdoors by their by their parents or guardians, having programs available for kids to interact with the environment on on any level. Right. Just playing and playing outside. But even more than that, I think then taking it to the next level is is learning something about that environment. And I think that that people who are able to inspire children to have wonder and awe for just, you know, any one element of something in their natural world just opens up opens up these pathways in their minds that enable them to have that appreciation.

00:34:04:01 - 00:34:28:05
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You know, So if you can point out to a any age person really does something fascinating about the environment that they maybe wouldn't have noticed on their own, and then explain why that is. Maybe that that makes such a huge difference. So I don't know how to you know, I don't know how to link that to programs that exist or programs that should exist for, you know, humans of all ages.

00:34:28:07 - 00:34:44:02
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I don't know. I don't know very much about that. But I just see the critical importance of getting outside spending time outside and learning something about finding, finding some way to experience that wonder of nature on any level.

00:34:44:04 - 00:35:19:23
Mark Titus
Yeah, I agree. And you know, I think the most sagacious wisdom I've heard when asking lots of people this question how do you save what you love really is very simple. Two words love something there. And you know, you and I have an affinity for salmon. I just I love hanging out with scientists like you. I love when people have this singular or passion and love in their heart for a particular thing.

00:35:19:23 - 00:36:00:20
Mark Titus
It could be butterflies, it could be trees, it could be rivers, it could be geomorphology. But when you find that thing, then it's like everything else wakes up and you sort of notice all the other things that are around that thing. So, you know, I completely agree, like whatever, whatever it takes to, to get into that, to say yes to that opportunity, you know, whether that's a camp or a walk in the woods with a friend or a mentor, you know, it's it's just I think it's kind of about breaking that spell, you know, like we're in a box and we're looking at screens inside of a box.

00:36:00:20 - 00:36:06:18
Mark Titus
And but the minute that spell gets broken, it seems like great things happen.

00:36:06:20 - 00:36:39:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Being forced to notice something. Yes. And so I have just a small anecdote about that. So perfect. One day I noticed how, you know, you can be sitting outside doing little things happening around you. And when you force yourself to just calm down to the point where you notice like an ant crawling in the grass or on the sidewalk at that moment, you now notice so many things happening, like, I never I hadn't realized so much was going on.

00:36:39:01 - 00:37:00:19
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And even just this tiny little micro level and, I, I mean, maybe that's just me, but, but I love that moment of like, look at what's happening. And then you notice things, whatever. Just the wind and the, you know, any any wildlife. Something as small as an ant. No, just I know and I obviously live in this world filled with wonder.

00:37:00:19 - 00:37:06:14
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I feel really fortunate that I have this lens that I look through that I'm like, wow, everything's amazing.

00:37:06:16 - 00:37:40:13
Mark Titus
I hear it. And I'm just so grateful to to be able to hang out with you and, you know, look through that lens vicariously from time to time. It reminds me of the naturalist, wonderful, wonderful author, one of my great mentors, Annie Dillard, talks about the lights in the trees. One day she just noticed like very much like now in autumn, the trees that are just like a vine maple that's just lit up and in gorgeous fire red.

00:37:40:13 - 00:38:02:12
Mark Titus
And where did that come from? And then, my God, where did that creek come from? And where are the, you know, the smolts in that creek that, that I thought were I thought there was nothing in there. One, one thing that I've been doing recently that I think is right up your alley is my, my friend Russ Ricketts, who's been this show before, got me into river snorkeling.

00:38:02:17 - 00:38:22:07
Mark Titus
And so yes so just and it doesn't have to be some faraway place. I go just to the Snoqualmie River. It's 40 minutes door to door from downtown Seattle where I live. And all of a sudden I'm in a brand new world.

00:38:22:09 - 00:38:41:15
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And there's this. I feel that even for Lake Washington, you know, I'm like, if you have kids, there is no reason you shouldn't have a little mask they can put on and just put their face in one foot of water, even like there's so much to see. Even right there, Little, little like old school. Been everywhere, everywhere, you know.

00:38:41:15 - 00:38:52:09
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And then you notice more and more and more. And I learned the river snorkeling thing when I worked for the Forest Service in Northern California. And so my job for the summer was amazing, which was.

00:38:52:09 - 00:38:52:20
Mark Titus
Nice.

00:38:52:20 - 00:39:13:13
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Sailing, snorkeling up four rivers. And then in the in the at the end of the summer, we got to snorkel down the river to count the adult salmon. And just and I started doing it just for fun on the weekend because I'm like, my gosh, everywhere you look, there's something there's like turtles. There's I mean, snakes, which I was like, I didn't know that snakes would enhance.

00:39:13:13 - 00:39:21:23
Dr. Jen McIntyre
That freaked some people out, but I didn't know there's a snake on the bottom of the river just hanging out. Just hanging out over there. No. Incredible.

00:39:22:01 - 00:40:02:22
Mark Titus
Well, yeah. And it's like talk about breaking that that cycle of ennui of like, you know, there's this natural feedback loop when you're when you're constantly on a device, you know, when the dopamine hits are not coming as fast because you've looked at all the ticktock, posts or whatever. But that doesn't happen in nature. And and I think for me, anyway, just speaking from my experience, it's it's just entirely about getting outside of myself, about being a part of belonging to something bigger than myself.

00:40:02:23 - 00:40:35:22
Mark Titus
You know, to your point recently, before all this current deluge of weather, I got up into the north fork of the Sky Commish River and snorkel by myself and saw hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of salmon, of pinks and kings and coho and building reds right in front of my face. And they didn't care. They were just like after a while they just sort of, if you're still enough, you can sort of become a part of their their little world.

00:40:35:22 - 00:41:07:07
Mark Titus
And it's just pure magic. It is. It's pure magic. So I know you get to do all kinds of really cool things in your work. And I've been privileged to be with you a of times when you're netting fish and you're doing physical tests on the fish and then looking into a micro world of organisms and salmon, eggs and all the really cool stuff you do.

00:41:07:08 - 00:41:14:21
Mark Titus
What from your perspective though, is the coolest part about the work that you get to do?

00:41:14:22 - 00:41:36:17
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I mean, as a scientist, it's about learning, learning new things, discoveries, and, you know, it doesn't even have to be something big. Just, you know, right now we're learning we're we're testing the effect of temperature on how this new chemical speed unknown is toxic to cargo, you know, because there's different temperatures out there in the real world.

00:41:36:17 - 00:42:01:13
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And we've only studied so far one temperature that was in the lab, right? You know, so doing that experiment or learning something nobody's ever known before. Wow. You know, so that's that's just the straight up science part of it. You know? But but the others the other side of it is for me, I really enjoy my research to be have an applied focus.

00:42:01:15 - 00:42:31:22
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So talk in science about having research, that's basic science where you're just learning something for the sake of learning it and or applied science, which we're learning for the purpose of being able to do something like in our with with an environmental problem, for example. And so my extra value added besides getting to learn things nobody has ever known before on a basic level, is being able to learn things nobody's ever learned before.

00:42:31:22 - 00:42:43:19
Dr. Jen McIntyre
That's going to be a direct benefit to improving our our, you know, also say decrease in the impact of humans on our environment.

00:42:43:21 - 00:43:14:20
Mark Titus
It's such important work and I'm so grateful you are doing it. I know how hard you work as a scientist. I, I can only imagine that it can be frustrating when there's a populist sentiment that distrusts science. And we all know if you're, you know, at all paying attention right now, currently politically in our country, there are such a deep divide.

00:43:14:22 - 00:44:03:03
Mark Titus
There's such a polarization between folks. And I think it's really tragic that science has somehow gotten wrapped up in that in in various capacities. What would be your advice for us out here on, you know, and what are your observations on how a how how to get more involved in science in our daily lives or how to approach science in our daily lives and BE you know, what's your vision for much like we were talking about, about nature sort of being this great equalizer, What is your vision for how to come together to solve the common problems that we have as a society?

00:44:03:05 - 00:44:31:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Boy, that is a difficult question. You know, there's always been this difficulty translating science. It's another expression, right? Translating science. You know, science is not a thing. It's a process. And anyone can you know, anyone can understand that process. You know, although some of the technical aspects of a certain field might be difficult to get up to speed on, but that takes time, right?

00:44:31:01 - 00:44:58:00
Dr. Jen McIntyre
It takes time to learn for yourself what the science process for a certain discovery or a piece of information that you might hear on the news to learn for yourself the details of that. Because in science a lot the details are important and that that is something that gets lost in translation, not just the detail that might be important, but the fact that that science can be complicated, right?

00:44:58:01 - 00:45:24:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Because there are details. You know, that's something I experienced personally in my work when I was focused on copper toxicity to coho salmon. What people got out of that research was that low levels of copper could be very toxic to the peripheral nervous system, like the sense of smell of coho, which was the nervous system that we were looking at.

00:45:24:05 - 00:45:49:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay. And that's true. But the details were that it depends on what else is in the water. And so if there's like a bunch of organic matter in the water, you know, the copper actually isn't bioavailable. It's not a problem because it can't actually interact with the fish. And that was it's a really important detail that that got lost in that translation of the scientific results.

00:45:49:04 - 00:46:20:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Into common parlance, I don't know what the solution is to that. I mean, I suppose there's a having good science communicators, people who are translating science in, you know, for common people, having people who are good at that job and also being able to find a trustworthy source of that translation, right. So people who want to learn about what science is saying, you can't trust any resource that's available on the Internet.

00:46:20:04 - 00:46:44:20
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I'm sure people know that by now, whether whether it's intentional or whether it's just a lack of paying attention to the details by the person who's translating that science, something really important might get lost. So now finding a source of finding a translator that that you feel like you can trust them to have looked deeply enough to pull out those important points.

00:46:44:22 - 00:47:07:22
Mark Titus
That's a great point. And, you know, there's certainly superstars in the science field. Bill Nye, for example, who's you know, from here and and then Neil deGrasse Tyson, Are there other folks that you really admire that are really taking a science message and breaking it down for folks in ways that are digestible?

00:47:08:00 - 00:47:43:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I wish I had some recommendations. I'm so focused on my little my little bubble over here. I will say, though, that I'm encouraged when people who have studied science are interested in becoming those communicators and becoming the link between science and making decisions about science. So I've had two graduate students actually enter into the course fellowship program, which is a way for for for people to be involved in, have internships basically in policy.

00:47:43:04 - 00:48:12:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
And so they'll do this after they have a master's degree. And they they were able to tell me I didn't know most of the people involved in science policy work don't have a science background and so the ability to to understand the complexity of a problem is really reduced. And again, you've got to be able to at least be aware of the important details that you're trying to make a decision about and do that that science to policy decision making process.

00:48:12:01 - 00:48:24:20
Dr. Jen McIntyre
So, you know, I am very encouraged by what I hope is a bit of a trend of of people studying science, wanting to be involved in that, in in helping make decisions.

00:48:24:22 - 00:49:09:17
Mark Titus
Well, I for one, think you're a fantastic communicator and the work that you do, it gets me fired up every time we get a chance to talk, You know, again, I just feel privileged to be able to hang out with folks like you and, you know, like other other folks from from you. Deb, Dave Montgomery, and from from that background, people that I think is such a feather in your cap to be able to communicate about the work that you do in a way that is digestible and compelling for for folks that aren't doing the work every single day and understand all the complexity that goes into it.

00:49:09:19 - 00:49:13:01
Mark Titus
So I, I think you're doing a great job of that, and I'm going with.

00:49:13:01 - 00:49:13:16
Dr. Jen McIntyre
You.

00:49:13:18 - 00:49:15:07
Mark Titus
Telling your story and.

00:49:15:09 - 00:49:18:13
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Thank you doubly.

00:49:18:15 - 00:49:44:04
Mark Titus
You brought up copper and I think it's a you know that was something that you were focused on early on. And of course that's in Bristol Bay and which is a big topic of storytelling that I'm focused on. We're looking at a giant open pit copper mine potentially in the headwaters of the world's last fully intact wild salmon system.

00:49:44:06 - 00:49:50:07
Mark Titus
Based on what you know, how does that strike you as a an idea moving ahead?

00:49:50:09 - 00:50:21:05
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I'm actively in the middle of teaching my Pacific salmon biology and ecology course, during which I still bring up this issue of development in Watershed of Bristol Bay, and particularly for mines. So I still think this is a huge issue. And it's not just about the copper, right up there. It's it's it's not just about the contaminants that will end up in the water from developing that mine.

00:50:21:05 - 00:50:44:14
Dr. Jen McIntyre
It's also about the infrastructure that will be put into what is essentially now wilderness that will promote additional development. The mining impacts alone, though, are enough to to really just just sorry, just know and yeah yeah.

00:50:44:16 - 00:51:25:18
Mark Titus
You know I always gravitate toward the the first part of that that you brought up it's I think that the the folks that are advocates for a mine are, you know one of their strategies is to get you into that that rabbit hole of well the the possibility of a catastrophic failure is X you know and to me that is that is moving past the most obvious elephant in the room, which is the infrastructure that the entire conversation we're having here today about stormwater runoff is a result of infrastructure.

00:51:25:23 - 00:51:56:11
Mark Titus
And that's that's the tip of the iceberg. It's also straightening rivers, it's damming rivers. It's over harvest, it's creating hatcheries as a way to repopulate the the population. And lo and behold, the hatcheries aren't good for wild fish. And on and on and on. So to me, again, like the bigger picture, the most imperative picture about once you put that footprint into a wilderness setting, it changes the complexity of that place forever.

00:51:56:11 - 00:52:00:05
Mark Titus
And we I mean, you've seen that here, here in the lower 48, right?

00:52:00:07 - 00:52:22:04
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah. And it's it's hard to go back. I, I won't say it's impossible, right? Concrete is forever. That's a bumper sticker. I remember and it's it's not true but it's well it's pretty close to true. So I think that the, you know, we, we live in such an interesting country right. Where you can't tell people they can't develop.

00:52:22:04 - 00:52:48:15
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Right. That's that impinges on our on our freedom. But those also impinge on other people's freedoms. So one thing I like this might be a naive comment, but, you know, people argue that, well, we need mines because we need to extract natural resources like metals, because we use them in our products. And that's, you know, our says we live in this technological society idea and I'm not I'm not arguing against that.

00:52:48:17 - 00:53:09:09
Dr. Jen McIntyre
I would really love to see though, a cost benefit analysis of when it makes sense to mine our landfills. What are we going to start mining our landfills which are filled with all sorts of, you know, rare minerals that have just been discarded?

00:53:09:11 - 00:53:40:17
Mark Titus
I love that. I talk about the underutilization of recycling copper in particular a lot when we have discussions after watching my film The Wild, and I have never heard anybody hit that on the head, though that's a super interesting idea. I don't think it's naive at all. Love that. We'll talk further about that. Okay. So we're going to start wrapping this baby up for now.

00:53:40:19 - 00:54:12:08
Mark Titus
I'm really psyched to get a chance to work together again here soon, and we're going to be able to film another new cool little piece. But I also wanted to mention, too, that if you're ever interested, we did a fully functioning educational surrounding my my last film, The Wild. It was designed for grades 6 to 12. But it's it's really, I think, sophisticated enough for folks in undergrad, possibly and beyond.

00:54:12:08 - 00:54:39:02
Mark Titus
And I had a wonderful teacher and writer, Laura Tucker, help us with that. So if you're ever interested in that, you can let me know about that too. But it's a custom here on on this show. We always wrap up with this fun little imagination game. And I'm going to have you imagine for just a minute, if you will, This is a fantasy, of course, But let's say your house were on fire and you get, of course, your your loved ones out, including your pets.

00:54:39:04 - 00:54:47:22
Mark Titus
That's that's first always. But if you could only bring one physical thing, what would that be?

00:54:48:00 - 00:54:57:01
Dr. Jen McIntyre
my gosh, this is so sad. This is so sad because my answer, my laptop.

00:54:57:02 - 00:55:07:04
Mark Titus
Hey, hey. I think that you noticing that it's sad and that is, of course, your natural reaction is that's what you grab like that makes it for me.

00:55:07:05 - 00:55:19:09
Dr. Jen McIntyre
It's my work. All my work is, you know, my work is all on this laptop and I try to break I try to back it up. But I mean, that would be just a huge setback in my research.

00:55:19:11 - 00:55:45:07
Mark Titus
I think knocking on wood as we say this and I have, boy, really, if it comes down to it in practical terms, that that is the same for me. Yeah. Boy, be rough. Well, let's, let's call it a metaphysical thing. Now, like, if you could only take out of this fire two components about what make you, you, your sense of adventure, whatever those things are, What are those two things that you would pull out of the fire?

00:55:45:09 - 00:55:58:23
Dr. Jen McIntyre
my gosh. I'm not good at this exercise. I'm thinking of, like, all the mementos and the photographs, and.

00:55:59:01 - 00:56:06:05
Mark Titus
I'm thinking more like a metaphysical thing, like about your your traits. About what? Make Jen. Jen.

00:56:06:07 - 00:56:08:07
Dr. Jen McIntyre
If those were going to burn up.

00:56:08:09 - 00:56:10:15
Mark Titus
Yeah, exactly. You could just take two of those things.

00:56:10:19 - 00:56:11:16
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay. Okay.

00:56:11:21 - 00:56:13:15
Mark Titus
Curiosity or something like that.

00:56:13:17 - 00:56:20:08
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Yeah, I was going to say curiosity. I have a curiosity. And optimism.

00:56:20:10 - 00:56:21:22
Mark Titus
We need those right now.

00:56:21:23 - 00:56:39:16
Dr. Jen McIntyre
As a as a toxicologist, I could see my work as really depressing, but I don't know. I have this eternal bubble of hope that rises even if the bursar is squished. Like it just keeps, right? It just comes back up. It's like the living dead of hope.

00:56:39:18 - 00:56:50:10
Mark Titus
We need you, Jen. Yes, that's a wonderful answer. And is there anything that you would leave in this fire to be burned up rid of in your life?

00:56:50:11 - 00:56:57:18
Dr. Jen McIntyre
perfectionism can do without that, probably, yeah. That which is out there.

00:56:57:20 - 00:57:13:19
Mark Titus
I can relate. It's such a pleasure to hang out. I'm so grateful for your time today. Thank you so much. And if folks want to get involved with the work you're doing, follow what you're doing. Where do we send them online to go do that?

00:57:13:21 - 00:57:23:22
Dr. Jen McIntyre
The Washington Stormwater Center in there that covers, you know, we have under that umbrella we have various programs and one of them is, is the research program.

00:57:24:00 - 00:57:33:05
Mark Titus
Excellent. Well, we will link to that in our show notes again. But for those listening maybe that want to remember that, do you have that URL just off the top of your head?

00:57:33:07 - 00:57:36:23
Dr. Jen McIntyre
It's a Washingtonstormwater.org

00:57:37:01 - 00:57:46:21
Mark Titus
Perfect. All right. Well, Dr. Jenn McIntyre, thank you again for joining us on the show and looking forward to our next chat more. We'll see you down the trail.

00:57:46:23 - 00:57:49:11
Dr. Jen McIntyre
Okay, Sounds good. Thanks so much, Mark.

00:57:49:13 - 00:57:57:03
Music
How do you save what you love?
How do you save what you love?

00:57:59:14 - 00:58:30:11
Mark Titus
Thank you for listening to Save What You Love. If you like what you're hearing, you can help keep these conversations coming your way by giving us a rating on Apple Podcasts. You can check out photos and links from this episode at evaswild.com. While there, you can join our growing community by subscribing to our newsletter, you'll get exclusive offers on wild salmon shipped to your door and notifications about upcoming guests and more great content on the way.

00:58:30:12 - 00:59:08:02
Mark Titus
That's at evaswild.com. That's the word Save spelled backwards Wild dot com. This episode was produced by Tyler White and edited by Patrick Troll. Original music was created by Whiskey Class. This podcast is a collaboration between Ava's Wild Stories and Salmon Nation and was recorded on the homelands of the Duwamish. People. We'd like to recognize these lands and waters and their significance for the people who lived and continued to live in this region whose practices and spiritualities were and are tied to the land in the water, and whose lives continue to enrich and develop in relationship to the land waters and other inhabitants today.