From an upcoming editorial in a regional boating magazine:


Puget Soundkeeper Alliance Responds:

(Readers will recall that in our last issue this column featured a
conversation with an individual associated with one of the regional
boatyards. We illuminated a controversy surrounding the recently
renewed NPDES master use permit that allows boatyards to operate in the
Puget Sound region. A local organization, The Puget Soundkeeper
Alliance, has filed a legal challenge to this permit and asserts that
the restrictions the permit places on boatyards are not stringent
enough. Sue Joerger of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance called our office
to essentially request "equal time," and in the interest of
journalistic impartiality we conducted the following interview.)

Nor'westing: What should we share with our readers about the Puget
Soundkeepers Alliance's perspective on the NPDES Boatyard permit?

Sue Joerger: Well first I'd like to sort of put a face on the Puget
Soundkeepers Alliance. It's not 'my' organization. We have a
board of directors consisting of 14 people in the business community
that include Suzie Burke of Fremont and the COO of Anthony's
Restaurants. We represent a wide variety of interests around Puget
Sound, and a significant number of us are recreational boaters. I'm a
liveaboard, and one of my staff members and her husband are also
liveaboards so we're very connected to recreational boating and the
water.

We're a small organization, and a number of years ago we were trying
to figure out "What's the number one thing we can do to protect
Puget Sound?" It's a huge resource and there are many challenges.
We looked at storm water runoff, which is the most unglamorous thing
you can imagine- what's running off our streets and our yards and our
cars and our industrial areas and washing into Puget Sound. We decided
that it was virtually unregulated, and we wanted to do something about
it.

We outlined a strategy. There are a number of storm water permits that
the Department of Ecology issues to businesses in an effort to protect
water quality. Some of the biggest issues associated with pollution
from storm water are heavy metals like zinc and copper. There are a lot
of sources for these materials, of course. Copper comes off of the
brake pads of cars and trucks and zinc is a material commonly used for
roofing, gutter galvanizing etc. These heavy metals are everywhere. The
metals are sort of our core mission, along with oil and grease, so we
decided we would be involved in the stakeholder groups that the
Department of Ecology was forming to comment on the boatyard permits.

Your article last month sort of portrayed us as "picking on the
little guy", and that's not correct. We're involved in all
aspects of regulating storm water runoff throughout King County, and
that includes not only boatyards but also small and large industrial
sites. We're concerned with the Seattle city government practices, as
well as each one of us individually.

So, yes we were involved as stakeholders in the boatyard permit
process. The main thing is that the boatyard permit has required the
boatyards to sample storm water runoff. What the results showed after
five years of sampling is that the copper concentrations coming off of
boatyards is significant. You can look at the data a number of ways,
but the state water quality standards for copper is around 3 or 4 parts
per billion. The range of measurements from the boatyards was
everywhere from "off the chart" up around 20,000 parts per billion
(and we all figured that somebody must have been scooping their samples
out of the pressure washing tank) down to levels that were so low they
almost had to be tap water. But the average was generally around 2000
parts per billion or so.

Our real beef is with the Department of Ecology. They were collecting
this data, but they never told the boatyards what it meant. Nobody from
the DOE ever said to the boatyards, "You guys, this is exceeding
water quality standard limits a thousand fold." The permits are based
on boatyards following BMP's, or best management practices. DOE never
went out to the boatyards to say "you're doing a good job," or
"you're not" and over time the practices get relaxed. We have
do-it-yourselfers in boatyards, sanding away, without any idea that the
copper coming off the hull is being washed into the sound and that it
has an impact on juvenile salmon.

When the Department of Ecology issued the permit, they basically
ignored their own copper data. It's like they said, "OK, we know
there's no way you can get from 2000 parts per billion down to a
standard of 3-4 parts per billion, so we're not even going to try.
We'll set the copper standard for your drain waters at 384 parts per
billion." So, basically, they set the standard at over 100 times the
water quality standards that they have determined is necessary for the
health of salmon.

We said, "Hey! Somewhere between 384 parts per billion and 3 there
has got to be something more that we can do." Research has shown that
copper can have sub-lethal and even lethal effects on salmon at
concentrations even as low as 1 part per billion, so there is already
some flexibility built into the water quality standards.

The copper isn't just off of boatyards, it's also what is washing
in off the streets. The tragedy of the boatyard permit is that because
the boatyards are the only source from which the DOE has collected data
over the last five years, their permit is very precedent setting. If
the DOE eventually collects storm water runoff data from the City of
Seattle, King County, and other large industrial sources we don't
want them to just ignore the water quality standards that we rely on to
protect our endangered salmon, and that's why we appealed the
boatyard permit.

Norwesting: Let me ask a question that occurs to me, and would probably
occur to a lot of our readers as well. We're talking about the parts
per billion of copper and its effect on salmon, and we're measuring
this concentration as the water leaves the storm water drainpipes of a
boatyard. You say the copper content of the average boatyard's storm
water runoff is around 2000 parts per billion, the permit requires
that to be reduced to 384, but that even the 384 isn't low enough and
that's why you have appealed. Isn't it a safe assumption that very
few juvenile salmon will be swimming around in the storm water drainage
pipes? What about the dilution effect of the sound itself? When the 384
ppb water mixes with an equal quantity of water in the sound won't it
drop to 190 something, and then another equal part drop it to under
100, and another part to less than 50, and so forth? It would seem that
it wouldn't take too long to be down below the 3-4 ppb of the water
quality standards.

Sue Joerger: Right now there's a moratorium on construction at
Shilshole Bay, and it's because there are juvenile salmon present.
Studies have shown that the juvenile salmon tend to follow the
shorelines, so the storm water runoff is hitting the juvenile salmon.
There's a compelling video on the Northwest Fisheries Center's web
page where the scientists looked at the reactions of juvenile salmon in
water with less than 2 ppb copper content and the reactions of salmon
in water with 2 ppb or higher. When scientists released the same
pheromones into the water that a young salmon releases when attacked by
a hawk or other predator, the salmon in the water with less than 2ppb
concentration immediately dived deeper in the tank while those salmon
in the water with more than 2 ppb just swam around on the surface where
they could have been easily picked off.

If a boatyard can't meet its water quality standards at the discharge
pipe, there is a "mixing zone" allowed to account for dilution.
This might be 100 X 300 feet, or standards might vary depending on
whether a boatyard is on a lake, a river, or the sound.
We look at the data and have to conclude that with 2000 parts per
billion coming out of the pipe there isn't a mixing zone that could
ever be big enough to reduce the concentration to an acceptable level.
I do have to say that at the head of my dock is the storm water
discharge pipe for one of the local boatyards, and I see blue herons
fishing there all the time. As far as the herons are concerned, it's
a great place to fish.

Nor'westing: And are the herons glowing in the dark?

Sue Joerger: (laughs) No, of course not. On a serious note, our hope in
appealing the permit is that we can get the hearings board to remand
the permit back to the Department of Ecology and then the boatyards,
the NMTA (Northwest Marine Trade Association), the Puget Soundkeepers
Alliance, and the DOE can sit down and try to figure out an actual
solution to this really complicated problem. We don't want to put any
boatyards out of business, but I'm sure that most boatyard owners
have a list of other people in the industry that they would love to see
go out of business. Maybe some of the marginal operators will decide,
"Oh, heck, it's just too much hassle to try to meet the high
standards" and close, but as a boater I want to have a choice between
competing boatyards. At the same time, I want to choose a boatyard that
I think is doing a good job protecting the environment.


(Our pleasant conversation with Ms. Joerger wandered off into some
other related issues, but this portion should serve to clarify for our
readers the rationale of the Puget Soundkeeper's Alliance in a
decision to appeal the NPDES general boatyard permit recently issued by
the DOE).