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Questions and Answers about Protecting Lake Whatcom Resevoir

Nearly 30 rivers, streams and lakes in Whatcom County need new pollution-prevention plans, state officials announced Thursday.

The state outlined 54 different pollution problems on 28 bodies of water in the county as it unveiled its new proposed list of the state's most polluted waterways.

Public comment
Public comments on the proposed listings of polluted waters will be taken until March 15. Comments can be sent to: Water Quality Program, Department of Ecology, P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504-7600. Or e-mailed to 303d@ecy.wa.gov.

A public meeting on the listings will be from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 10 in Everett at the Walter E. Hall Golf Course, 1226 Casino Drive.

State officials had already listed some of the rivers, lakes and streams as polluted, but new problems have been identified since the last list was created in 1998.

Among those is Lake Whatcom, where state Ecology Department officials are developing a plan to increase the amounts of dissolved oxygen in the lake. On Thursday, officials said mercury and PCB pollution in Lake Whatcom would also be included on the list. The lake is the drinking water source for Bellingham and surrounding communities.

In 2002, state and local officials announced that high levels of mercury were found in Lake Whatcom fish and they advised women of childbearing age and young children to avoid or limit their consumption of certain fish from the lake.

Mercury has never been found in actual drinking water treated by the city of Bellingham, but the announcement flagged the problem of mercury and PCBs in the lake itself for Ecology Department officials.

The proposed listings are now open for public comment. The final list will be submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which must approve the list.

The statewide list released Thursday includes 2,682 listings on 717 bodies of water, compared to 2,362 listings on 643 bodies of water in 1998.

Despite the growing list, there are successes.

Dick Wallace, ecology's program manager for water quality, pointed to the Nooksack River, where fecal coliform pollution from dairy farms, sewage-treatment systems and septic systems has been dramatically reduced in recent years. The pollution declines led to reopening of previously polluted shellfish beds on Portage Bay in October.

"People are getting involved in understanding and improving water quality in their communities and it is paying off," Wallace said.

New problems

New to Whatcom County's list of most polluted waters is Baker Creek near Marine Drive, California Creek near Birch Bay, Dakota Creek near Blaine and Schell Creek near Lynden.

The increased number of listings doesn't necessarily mean that more pollution is occurring, said Wallace.

Many of the new listings are for warm temperatures, a detriment to salmon and other fish species that need cold, clean water for spawning. Wallace said many agencies and groups have increased the monitoring of creek temperatures since Puget Sound chinook salmon were listed as threatened on the Federal Endangered Species List.

On Lake Whatcom, the discovery of mercury in fish tissue of smallmouth bass and yellow perch led to two studies on the origin and possible continued mercury contamination of the lake.

A study by the Ecology Department that took core samples of the lake sediments will help determine when mercury was deposited in lake sediments. Scientists expect to release the study next month.

Separately, the U.S. Geological Survey is studying whether there are continuing sources of mercury contamination in the lake. The study is expected to be released in early spring.

USGS researchers will look at wind patterns to determine if industrial sources, such as Georgia-Pacific West Inc., which formerly used mercury in its operations, could have transmitted mercury through the air. Other potential sources discussed by researchers included former coal mines in the watershed and a dump site that drains into the lake.

Or, mercury traveling through the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants in China and other locations across the Pacific Ocean could have polluted Lake Whatcom and other lakes in the region, said Steve Hood, an environmental engineer with ecology's Bellingham field office.

An Ecology Department study last year found fish with mercury above the level at which health officials start to take notice in 95 percent of state waterways.

"A big question to answer is 'are we putting a load of mercury into Lake Whatcom that we can control?' " Hood said.

Polluted waters

The draft list of the state's most polluted waters includes these in Whatcom County.

The listing includes only portions of each lake, river and stream. Although some of the waters have been listed previously, the new listings include different forms of pollution.

• Austin Creek

• Baker Creek

• Bellingham Bay and Whatcom Waterway

• Bells Creek

• Black Slough

• California Creek

• Chuckanut Creek

• Connelly Creek

• Dakota Creek

• Edfro Creek

• Fever Creek

• Fourmile Creek

• Hardscrabble Creek

• Kamm Creek

• Kenney Creek

• Lake Whatcom

• Nooksack River Middle Fork

• Nooksack River South Fork

• Padden Creek

• Portage Bay

• Rosario Strait

• Schell Creek

• Squalicum Creek

• Sumas River

• Sygitowicz Creek

• Tennant Creek

• Todd Creek

• Whatcom Creek

For more detailed information go to www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/303d/2002/2002-index.html .

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phone: 360-676-1254

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