Salmon-Safe
October 2010
Salmon and the Pacific Northwest are synonymous, and Salmon-Safe — a nonprofit based in Portland, Ore. — is leading the way in ensuring this native species has clean, healthy waterways to spawn and thrive.
PCC was proud to become the first Washington state retailer to support and promote Salmon-Safe's certification program, which recognizes farm and vineyard operations throughout the Northwest that adopt conservation practices to help restore native salmon and their habitat.
Since its inception in 1995, Salmon-Safe has certified more than 60,000 acres of farm and urban lands in Washington, Oregon and California. Certified operations protect and restore salmon habitat, water quality, and native biodiversity (in their local watersheds) by planting trees on streams, growing cover crops to reduce erosion and run off, and applying natural methods to control weeds and pests.
In 2004, Seattle-based Stewardship Partners began working with the Salmon-Safe program to help Washington farmers reduce their impact on water quality, and protect fish and wildlife habitat. PCC partnered with Stewardship Partners in 2006, and began highlighting products already on our shelves that came from Salmon-Safe certified farms and wineries. Some of these farms include Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy, Full Circle, Rent's Due Ranch and Nash's Organic Produce. The PCC Farmland Trust also supports Salmon-Safe as four of its farms are certified.
And in October 2010, Edmonds PCC became the first Washington retail store to become Salmon-Safe certified. At our Edmonds store, we harvest rainwater from the roof for landscape irrigation and to flush toilets in the store, redirecting about 160,000 gallons of water away from the stormwater system.
Our rain gardens redirect an additional one million gallons of water from the parking lot. They collect and filter runoff through plants and soil amendments before letting it flow through the storm sewers to Puget Sound — much cleaner than it was in the parking lot. Storm drains have “witch hat” filters to catch debris. PCC also does not allow pesticides found harmful to salmon.
In November 2010, PCC will be honored at the event Bringing Salmon Home to Washington, along with three other urban properties in the Seattle area.