Unlike its neighbors to the north and south, Oregon has historically never received state funding for its harmful algal bloom (HAB) monitoring. Instead, Oregon state agencies have relied on competitive grants from NOAA. Now, for the first time, HAB monitoring has received state funding from Oregon’s Legislature as a priority in the approved state budget. This recognition of the importance of Oregon HAB monitoring to the state is a direct outcome of successful NOAA-funded projects.
HAB toxins have been a public health concern in Oregon for many decades and were linked to a serious illness outbreak in May and June of 2024. Consuming shellfish contaminated with HAB toxins can cause human health issues ranging from mild to severe gastrointestinal distress and vomiting, short-term memory loss, and in extreme cases paralysis and death. HAB related shellfish closures also can have negative impacts on coastal economies. A 2009 state-sponsored estimate valued recreational shellfisheries to be at least $31 million to Oregon coastal communities, while the commercial Dungeness crab fishery had an ex-vessel value (a measure of the dollar value of commercial landings) upwards of $100 million dollars in 2024-2025.
History of NOAA Funded Efforts
NOAA-supported HAB monitoring along Oregon beaches began in 2005, after a coastwide shellfish harvesting closure due to the algal toxin, domoic acid. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) utilized NCCOS HAB Event Response funding, to quickly initiate a monitoring program similar to Washington State’s Olympic Region Harmful Algal Blooms partnership. This bloom response fostered a collaboration between ODFW, Oregon State University, University of Oregon and NOAA Fisheries’ Newport Research Station.
These partners successfully competed for NCCOS Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Bloom (MERHAB) funding to start the Monitoring Oregon Coastal Harmful Algae (MOCHA) project in 2007. Receiving nearly $2.3 million over five years, the MOCHA team developed an integrated HAB research and monitoring and event response program focused on measuring the two most common HAB species, Alexandrium and Pseudo-nitzschia, and their related toxins in the waters just off popular clamming beaches. They repeatedly demonstrated the value of HAB early warning to protect Oregonians including alerts in 2010 and 2012.
Prior to MOCHA, little was known about Oregon oceanographic conditions that promoted the growth of toxin-producing HABs or how their toxins reached shellfish beds, and state recreational shellfish managers had no advance warning of where and when toxins in shellfish might exceed regulator thresholds. If safe levels were exceeded on one beach, Oregon officials had few options but to issue precautionary coast-wide closures for recreational shellfish digging, resulting in reduced tourism and negative economic impacts to these communities.
MOCHA provided the first ever detailed overview of HAB occurrence in Oregon and a new understanding of the oceanographic and biological factors that align to move HABs onto clamming beaches, enabling the team to predict when HAB risks were elevated. Additionally, MOCHA advances in monitoring and prediction helped NOAA and Oregon partners show how recurring cycles of extremely warm Pacific ocean water are a reliable predictor of increased HAB toxins levels in Oregon shellfish.
In 2016, a second MERHAB project allowed ODFW to continue its HAB monitoring and early warning and integrate it into a forecasting system to mitigate impacts from toxic Pseudo-nitzschia HAB events for Oregon and Washington. The project reinstated the Pacific Northwest HAB Bulletin and transitioned it to operations by the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems in collaboration with NCCOS. The Bulletin predicts risks due to rising levels of toxic Pseudo-nitzschia and domoic acid toxins, and aids regional managers in safeguarding recreational and commercial shellfish and Dungeness crab fisheries.
Successive NCCOS research awards to ODFW scientists were integral to showing the value of HAB monitoring and early warning to Oregon and NOAA, and providing a bridge to sustainable state funding. The new state funding has already enabled ODFW to make permanent program enhancements piloted with NOAA NCCOS funded research support. Once fully implemented, the new ODFW HAB program will support a full-time marine phytoplankton specialist, sufficient staff to cover HAB sampling needs of Oregon’s coastal communities and renewed partnerships with coastal tribes and industry partners to enhance monitoring.
This work is authorized by the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act (HABHRCA) 33 U.S.C. §§ 4001 et seq.