Water quality advocacy group Puget Soundkeeper held a cleanup in downtown Poulsbo last week at Liberty Bay Waterfront Park to expand its footprint into Kitsap County.

The Seattle-based nonprofit also held cleanups in other locations in Kitsap, such as Kingston and Bremerton. The cleanups consisted of volunteers picking up trash and debris to prevent it from getting into the waterways and clear from the shorelines.

“We’re mostly on the landside with this cleanup; grassy parks, parking lots and even streets and sidewalks,” staff attorney Katelyn Kinn said.”We know the wind blows everything in, and when it rains the stormwater is going to wash everything in. We purposely tried to keep it small for COVID prevention purposes. Seems like a pretty clean area so we have people searching; every cigarette butt counts, every bottle cap is protecting a fish.”

To her knowledge, Kinn said Puget Soundkeeper hasn’t held a cleanup in Poulsbo in 10 years.

“We’re still working to really connect with these communities,” she said. “We’re Seattle-based…but it’s important that we cover the whole Puget Sound.”

Puget Soundkeeper started in 1984, and they work to protect the water quality of Puget Sound and all of the tributaries. Some of the work they do also consists of legal enforcement, advocacy and policy improvement. According to its website, Puget Soundkeeper has removed more than 145,000 pounds of marine debris from Puget Sound waterways.

“We try to cover the Puget Sound region; the crest of the Cascades all the way out to the straits and the crest of the Olympics all the way out,” Kinn said.

Another volunteer picks up trash in the nearby parking lot.