----- forwarded message -----
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 05:29:59 -0700
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Wa: List of polluted local waters grows: 75 lakes, rivers, and creeks deemed
'impaired' by state ecology agency
List of polluted local waters grows
75 lakes, rivers, and creeks deemed 'impaired' by state ecology agency
By LISA STIFFLER AND ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/156881_streams16.html
[map on url]
Sprawling suburbs, trees lost to logging and development, and
record numbers of pollution-spewing cars and trucks have
combined to leave more Washington streams and lakes branded
"polluted" than ever before.
More than 700 waterways are in trouble -- most often because
they're too warm to keep fish healthy, but also because of
pollution from toxic chemicals and bacteria, state Ecology
Department officials said yesterday.
Seventy-five lakes, rivers and creeks were added to Ecology's
impaired-waterways list since it was last compiled in 1998, many
of them in the Puget Sound region.
But the increased number doesn't necessarily mean the problem
is getting worse. Improvements in water-quality testing around
the state have helped turn up more violations, and officials say
some waterways have been cleaned up.
"We see ... very meaningful progress," said Dick Wallace,
Ecology's water-quality program manager.
Environmentalists, pollution experts and some shoreline property
owners aren't convinced.
"The state's not doing enough. We don't have cleanup plans for
many of the streams and rivers in the area," said Ivy
Sager-Rosenthal of the Washington Public Interest Research
Group.
Increasingly, water pollution is being caused by myriad sources,
making it more difficult to curb than emissions from a factory or
discharges from a sewage-treatment plant. And rising water
temperatures have become a serious concern in the struggle to
save Northwest salmon.
"It's predictably going to get worse -- perhaps much worse,
because we continue to build in a way that is going to harm fish
and harm habitat," said Tom Holz of Lacey, an expert on
stormwater pollution.
Holz is concerned about development that insists on
wide streets with concrete gutters and a lack of
vegetation essential to trapping and filtering water.
Instead, rain runs off hard surfaces, carrying pollutants that harm
water quality.
Polluted waters in King County include portions of Elliott Bay,
Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish, the lower Duwamish
River, Green Lake, Lake Union and Issaquah, Tibbetts,
Longfellow and Thornton creeks. New pollution-control plans are
in the works for the creeks because of water-quality violations,
including low oxygen levels, high temperatures and excessive
fecal coliform.
Longtime Lake Sammamish resident Frank Lill has seen the
environmental damage slowly mounting because of just that kind
of development.
The lake was already considered polluted by Ecology in 1998
because of high phosphorus levels, but the agency's draft 2004
list shows that it suffers from low oxygen levels, polluted
sediment and too much fecal coliform and ammonia -- suggesting
sewage pollution.
With all of the tree-cutting development, "you're taking away
something that filters the bad stuff out of the water and replacing
it with impervious surfaces so the water goes straight in," said
Lill, vice president of Save Lake Sammamish, a non-profit group.
Stopping the damage "is really a moving target," he said. "We
have to work harder and harder to stay even."
Once approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
the state's list will help Ecology identify which waterways need
limits set for how much pollution can be released into them and
where cleanup plans are needed. A series of public workshops
are scheduled around the state next month.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, the list is supposed to be
updated every two years, but a change in federal regulations
compounded by a flood of data delayed the process, Ecology
officials said. They anticipate staying on schedule for the next
update in 2006.
Almost 300 cleanup plans have been completed statewide since
1998, and about one-fifth of the specific problems have been
resolved. Officials don't know how many streams, rivers and
lakes came off the previous polluted list, which also includes
chunks of Puget Sound.
Water temperatures above state limits were responsible for
one-third of the water-quality violations, according to the state's
report. Healthy creeks generally need to have temperatures in the
low 60-degree range or lower, experts say.
The release of warm water from industry and urban runoff are
likely contributors to the problem, officials said. So are lower
flows due to water being taken out of streams and rivers for
irrigation and other uses.
That warm water is the No. 1 violation is "no surprise to me at all
because we have a consistent decline in the flows of our
streams," said Karen Allston, executive director of the
Seattle-based Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which
works on water-quantity issues.
Environmentalists and tribal representatives said the Legislature
exacerbated the situation by removing Ecology's ability to curtail
use of water rights when so much water is withdrawn from
streams that they grow too warm. Ecology contends it never had
that authority and is addressing the problem in other ways. Critics
say the agency had the authority but failed to use it.
"When I talk to grade-school kids and ask them if salmon need
water, they all say 'yeah,' " said Tom Geiger, outreach director
for the Washington Environmental Council. "I think there may be
a different answer down in Olympia."
The sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Bob Morton, R-Orient, said
Ecology was trying to use the Clean Water Act to take away
water rights.
"Ecology wasn't considering the other factors, but was placing it
all on the volume of water," Morton said. "Their theory is that
the less water, the greater the temperature."
However, Morton said such factors as the amount of underwater
plants and the color and size of rocks in and around streams and
lakes can have an effect on temperature.
Records show that salmon returns are often best in low-flow
drought years, when temperatures are higher, he said. "We do
not give enough credit for the fish's ability of adaptation."
But Josh Baldi, the Environmental Council's policy director,
found that suggestion laughable.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Baldi said. "The fish runs prior
to water development in Washington and around the West were
obviously ... far greater than anything we've seen in the last
century."
Salmon runs are affected by a number of factors, and most fish
biologists say large flows help outgoing smolts reach the ocean.
Those fish return after two to five years, but a key factor in the
success of runs is how much water is in streams, biologists say.
In the Columbia River Basin, salmon start to get into trouble
when the water temperature rises above 68 degrees, said Bob
Heinith, fish biologist with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish
Commission.
If they're in the warmer water long enough, it can kill salmon
outright. But before that happens, the fish can suffer a number of
other effects, including disease and young salmon ceasing to
migrate, making them easy prey for predators such as birds and
large fish.
Taking water out of streams "has really taken its toll on fish,"
Heinith said. "It's really going in the wrong direction."
The Umatilla Tribe has filed a legal challenge to Ecology's
approval of a plan that it says will leave the Chelan River too
warm.
But Ecology officials warn that rules and lawsuits aren't going to
solve water quality problems and that recovery will take time.
"You can't regulate your way out of polluted water bodies," said
Larry Altose, an Ecology spokesman. "You have to have people
wanting to change behaviors in order for it to happen."
P-I SERIES
TODAY: Urban growth -- and the pollution that comes with it --
is taking a toll on Washington's streams and lakes.
TOMORROW: Some creeks look pristine, but experts say better
testing could reveal problems -- and help protect fish.
More information about pollution in Washington's streams and
lakes is available online. The Department of Ecology has
comprehensive listings and an interactive map at:
www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/303d/2002/2002-index.html.
Public comments on the state's draft water quality assessment
will be accepted through March 15.
Workshops are scheduled for:
Feb. 3 in Spokane: 6:30-9 p.m., Spokane Falls Community
College, 3419 W. Fort George Wright Drive.
Feb. 4 in Yakima: 6:30-9 p.m., Yakima Arboretum, 1401
Arboretum
Drive.
Feb. 10 in Everett: 6:30-9 p.m., Walter E. Hall Golf Course,
1226 W. Casino Drive.
Feb. 11 in Longview: 6:30-9 p.m., Cowlitz PUD, 961 12th
Ave.
Feb. 12 in Lacey: 1:30-4 p.m., Ecology Headquarters
Auditorium,
300 Desmond Drive.
*
The material in this post is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email for
purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission
from the copyright owner.
