SoundCitizen is a community-based water sampling network in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. We’d love your help!

SoundCitizen focuses on scientific investigation and knowledge discovery of the chemical links between urban settings and aquatic systems. We study fun compounds (cooking spices) and serious ones (emerging pollutants).

We are staffed by undergraduate students at the University of Washington, whose individual research topics help define the overall scientific aims of the program. SoundCitizen encourages involvement with citizen volunteers and school groups, who voluntarily collect water samples from aquatic systems, perform a series of simple chemical tests, and then mail samples to the lab to be analyzed for cooking spices and emerging pollutants. You too can be a part of Soundcitizen!

Since the program’s inception in November 2008, more than 300 volunteers and 500 K-12 students have participated in the program. Nearly 1000 kits have been distributed. More than 95% of the returned samples pass initial quality control screening and are fully processed for emerging pollutants and cooking spices. Our scientific findings illustrate a strong seasonal links between household activities (cooking, cleaning etc.) and the subsequent release of chemical “fingerprints” of these activities in aquatic and marine environments.