March 29, 2006

Unsafe and Sound
Stormwater carries threats for human health, economy

By J. JACOB EDEL
Contributing Writer

From the decks of a boat, everything appears to be good. Bald eagles perched on top of derelict pilings in the Duwamish River scout for food, orcas occasionally show their white bellies while breaching off West Point, and the racy smell of salt water still permeates the shoreline.

But numerous scientific tests and studies have recently shown that under the water’s surface there is a multitude of problems pouring into the Puget Sound.

Harmful oil spills, toxic metals, household chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, and inorganic fertilizers enter local waterways and flow into the Sound everyday, leaving residents concerned for the ecosystem’s health.

In addition, these same toxic pollutants are making their way into the food chain, harming fish and marine mammal populations and ending up in humans. These contaminants are also known to cause various human health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and neurobehavioral disorders.

In a holistic effort, several activists from numerous environmental agencies are working to prevent unnecessary harmful discharges into the Puget Sound.

In Seattle, the Puget Soundkeeper’s Alliance (PSKA) — a nonprofit organization that helps clean the local waters through monitoring potential pollution outlets, pursuing legal litigation, promoting educational outreach, and hosting shoreline cleanups — takes weekly cruises up the five-mile industrial span of the Duwamish River

The region is flooded with economic and environmental stresses caused by toxic contaminants entering the Sound from storm water run-off. According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, one third of the state’s water pollution is caused by storm water: pollution that adversely affects marine populations, maritime industries and human health.

As storm water runoff passes over impervious surfaces, it collects pollutants and transports them from the nearest storm drain to local streams and waterways that eventually meet the Puget Sound.

The Department of Ecology states that storm water pollutants include oil, grease and heavy metals from cars, fertilizers and pesticides from gardens, household chemicals, bacteria from pet wastes or septic systems and sediments released by poor construction practices.

“ Storm water is not getting treated well and there’s definitely evidence of it harming stream life, like salmon,” says Scott Redman, the Program Manager of Toxic Reduction with the Puget Sound Action Team. “That’s the reason why we’re seeing more urban bays contaminated.”

The Puget Sound Action Team was created by the state legislature in 1996 to administer Washington’s environmental agenda. Their primary focus is to find and prevent pollution in the Sound.

“ Storm water is what we consider the last big thing that needs to be addressed,” Heather Trim, the Urban Bays Coordinator for People for Puget Sound. People for Puget Sound is a citizens’ group whose goal is to protect and restore the health of the Puget Sound through education and action.

Trim says that the goal of the educational outreach is to teach people how to enjoy their lives with the smallest impact on the environment. For instance, she says home gardeners don’t know how harmful pesticides and fertilizers can be and generally misapply them by using them too often or over a large area.

“ There are a lot of home gardeners in Seattle that buy and use pesticides at a heavy rate and that leads to a large amount of run-off with pesticides entering the Sound,” Trim says. “Also people dump the little bit of kitchen and bath chemicals left in the bottle down the drain or flush them down the toilet, thinking that it will be treated at the sewage treatment plant. But most of those chemicals aren’t treated and end up in the Sound.”

On March 17, four hours before Paul Fredrickson, a program assistant with the PSKA, left Elliot Bay Marina to the Duwamish River to scout for pollutants entering the Sound, an estimated 15 gallons of an oily substance flowed out of a storm drain culvert on the northwest side of Harbor Island. The spill had disappeared with the outgoing tide, but the Coast Guard’s presence around the culvert served as a reminder for need of the PSKA.

“ We’re making a presence and they know we are,” Fredrickson says of the industries along the river.

As for the origin of the spill, Joerger doesn’t think they’ll ever locate it. It could have come from anywhere along the way that the water flows, leaving a plethora of possible sources and a shortage of resources to investigate.

“ The problem is, unless you see it coming out there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s really elusive. I’ll bet they never find out who did it,” Joerger says.

In addition to harmful chemicals, scientists have recently documented the environmental impacts of pharmaceutical drugs. The tests show traces of pharmaceutical drugs in fish around the country. Notably, smallmouth bass males in the Potomac River have been found to produce eggs and sperm. Scientists think this may be caused from hormonal drugs like birth control.

According to Trim, the drugs are showing up because the body doesn’t absorb 100 percent of the chemicals in pharmaceuticals so there is a trace in the human waste of those taking them. Plus, there are regulations that require facilities to flush pharmaceutical drugs down the toilet when a patient no longer needs them.

Toxic pollutants and drugs, however, aren’t the only thing being dumped into the Sound. Large quantities of money and economic resources are also diverted to repairing and sustaining the health of the Sound and its human inhabitants.

In addition to the direct costs of preserving the Sound, health care costs and lost productivity caused by pollutants drain the region’s economy.

“The economic costs at the Washington state level — that’s health care costs, lost productivity, and special education to name a few — cost about $2.5 billion a year,” says Kate Davies, a professor at Antioch University Seattle. “In perspective, that’s about .7 percent of Washington’s Gross State Product.”

Davies and several other scientists will be speaking at a forum on April 5 titled “Toxics in Puget Sound.” One of the featured speakers that evening, Rob Duff, who works for the Department of Health, will talk about the health concerns associated with toxic contaminants. He will mainly focus on the latest types of toxics showing up in humans and how the government should regulate such technologies to avoid new health hazards in the future.

“ I will be answering the question, ‘How and why did we get here?’” Duff says, “because we need to become smarter in how we regulate and produce chemicals.”

To reduce negative impacts on the environment, Duff says we all need to be smarter about the choices we make. Regarding storm water runoff, Joerger suggests washing the car at an environment-friendly car wash, like Brown Bear in Seattle, or on a lawn or gravel area so the water is absorbed into the ground. Of course, she says fewer car trips help, and so does reducing or eliminating the use of lawn or garden fertilizers and pesticides. n

[Resource]

To find out how to reduce stormwater pollution, view the PSKA website at www.pugetsoundkeeper.org/get_involved/pledge.html

[Event]

To register for the Town Hall forum on April 5, call (206) 382-7007 or do it online at pugetsound.org/toxics-evening.html.