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Practice Reading: Fill in the Blanks (Dropdown) ID: #47278 Salmon
Instructions
Each  fall,  thousands  of  coho  salmon  flock  to    rivers  to  spawn.  But  many  never  get  the  chance,  especially  near  big  cities  like  Seattle.  "And  in  some  of  these  urban  areas,  up  to  90  percent  of  the  females  were  dying  before  they  spawned,  which  is  not  a  good  thing  for  a  population  long  term."  Julann  Spromberg  ,  a  toxicologist  affiliated  with  the  Northwest  Fisheries  Science  Center.  Researchers  suspected  these  deaths  were  partly  a  matter  of  bad  timing.  The  fish  often  reach  streams  during  the  first  showers  of  the  rainy  season,  which  flush  chemicals  from  roads  and  parking  lots  into  the  water.  Now,  Spromberg  and  her  colleagues  have  produced  the  first  direct  evidence  that  this  runoff  kills  coho  salmon.  Their  study  is  in  the  Journal  of  Applied  Ecology.  The  researchers  found  that  fish  exposed  to  storm  water  from  Seattle-area  highways  quickly  grew  sick  and  died.  Surprisingly,  though,  the  salmon  did  not  seem  to  mind  taking  a  dip  in  a  cocktail  of  common  road  pollutants,  including    and  metals.  That  detail  suggests  the  killer  ingredient  in  runoff  may  be  a  different  kind  of  chemical  or  a  lethal  combination  of  several  .  "There's  a  whole  lot  of  stuff  in  here  that  we  haven't  been  able  to  measure  or  don't  have  the  capabilities  of    at  this  point."  However,  Spromberg  says  there's  a  way  to  help  the  fish  even  before  scientists  hunt  down  the  culprit.  Her  team  also  found  that    runoff  through  just  a  few  feet  of  soil  made  storm  water  safe  for  salmon.  Cities  can    this  simple  form  of  clean  water  technology  by  building  more  systems,  including  roadside  rain  gardens,  to  collect  runoff  from  paved  areas  and  pass  it  through  soil  before  it  enters  urban  waterways.  Literally  a  quick  and  dirty  solution.

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