About the WSA

Our Beginnings

In 1992, a group of dedicated SCUBA divers formed Washington SCUBA Alliance to advocate for underwater parks. This mission has expanded to advocate for and to be actively involved in promoting a wide range of divers interests including healthy marine ecosystems, safe shoreline access, and underwater parks.

WSA's work is funded by memberships and contributions. WSA is a 501 c(3) corporation. Contributions are tax deductible.

Goals

WSA is committed to working with officials of State, County, City, and Local Departments, and volunteer divers to establish a series of underwater parks that divers and snorkelers may enjoy. Underwater preserves will help prevent the loss of marine biodiversity by creating "safe havens" for all marine life.

WSA strives to create a unified group of divers, as dive clubs, dive stores, and charter operators who work together on projects. These projects make our waters a better place for its inhabitants to live and for divers to visit.

Our Accomplishments

• WSA and REEF divers have been organized by WSA Board member Janna Nichols to do year round surveying of Hood Canal; to make visual observations of the condition and amounts of marine life there. Don and Diane Coleman of Pacific Adventure Charters provide boat chartering for this project every other month. Four sites are surveyed by boat. Other months divers do observations at 4 other sites by shore. Results of the surveys are made available to the UW Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program as well as any other government agency or researcher that is interested.
  
  
• WSA board member Janna Nichols organized WSA and REEF divers to go to Sund Rock in late October to start cleanup of the invasive tunicate Ciona savignyi that grew at alarming rates on the North Wall over the summer months. Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife granted a permit to Janna and 14 other sub-permitees (REEF/WSA divers) to allow removal of the invasive tunicate. The Kelp Krawlers Dive Club, in Olympia, WA, has volunteered to do further monitoring and cleanups, under supervision of the tunicate removal team.
  
  
• WSA members meet with Governer Gregoire and the Puget Sound Partnership at a press conference to discuss the current conditions of Puget Sound and the divers' role in observing the changes.
  
  
• WSA, in cooperation with Swanson Brothers Concrete Company, Roberta's Custom Graphics and the Department of Ecology has successfully completed the Les Davis Stairs project, making shoreline access safer for all Puget Sound divers at this dive site in Tacoma.
  
  
• WSA volunteers assisted in installing 90 educational signs to identify marine life and SCUBA diving areas at 30 Puget Sound marine parks.
  
  
• WSA has helped underwater cleanup projects and marine life education opportunities, such as Earth Day events, National Trails Day, Washington Waterweeks events, and a variety of public festivals.
  
  
• WSA helps disseminate information relevant to divers via a listserv and via contact with dive clubs and dive shops.
  
  
• Assisted with the Seacrest compromise between divers community and the passenger ferry safety zone
  
  
• WSA has assisted in the creation of and signage for several Marine Protected Areas.
  
  
• WSA has assisted in the designation of a portion of the Maury Island Regional Park as an Underwater Park for divers.
  
  
• WSA has supported efforts by Kitsap Trees to promote watershed stewardship both financial and volunteer effort planting trees.
  
  
• WSA has contributed underwater video footage to REEF who is using it as part of their Pacific Northwest fish identification training
  
  
• WSA has supported the Poulsbo and Port Townsend Marine Science Centers, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, and the Orca Pass International Stewardship project.
  
  
• WSA was instrumental in helping to pass the law that set up Washington State Department of Parks and Recreation as the lead agency to re-establish an underwater park system of recreational divers throughout Washington.
  
  
• WSA has assisted with the Americorp Day at the Beach.
  
  
• WSA has contributed to the semi-annual underwater clean-ups in Bremerton.
  
  
• WSA has been involved in the trans-boundary (U.S. / Canada) committee to designate the Orca Pass International Stewardship Area.
  
  
• WSA has assisted with the creation of the video "A Video Tour of the Fort Worden Artificial Reef", which was shown at the Port Townsend Low Tide Fest.