Drops
Of
Water
Issue 20 July 1998
The first people to find errors in spelling or word structure receive a free map of the Chehalis watershed. Send us an e-mail note telling us about the error.
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Issue 20 July 1998 |
This newsletter appears monthly in 45,000 households throughout the watershed. Printing is done by The Chronicle, and distribution is by the Chronicle, the Olympia Daily Olympian, the Tenino Independent, the Rochester Sun News and the Aberdeen Daily World. This is an early edition available only to WWW users. Please send us your feedback.
The first people to find errors in spelling or word structure receive a free map of the Chehalis watershed. Send us an e-mail note telling us about the error. |
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Previous editions have focused on a number of issues. This month we offer part 1 of a review of these issues and suggestions you can use to help protect and improve our water quality.
Each of us, in our own way, impacts the quality of water in the watershed where we live.This guide is for people with homes or small farms in rural and suburban areas who are interested in protecting their environment and quality of life. The practices described here will help protect surface and ground water, and improve the productivity and beauty of the land. Most of them are for small farms, where only a few animals are kept. Owners may not have much money to invest in farm improvements, but many of the ideas in this guide cost nothing or are fairly inexpensive. Emphasis is placed on changes in
The quality of water directly affects the quality of our lives. Polluted water endangers health -- of family, pets and livestock. Most Washington residents rely on well water, and part of the rain that falls on our land recharges groundwater supplies. Clean surface water -- streams, rivers, ponds and lakes -- can also increase the value of our property. Washington's economy is dependent on clean water, too, for industrial supply and for public recreation. Our state is now the second largest producer of shellfish in the nation, and millions of residents and visitors enjoy spending time at our many shorelines.
But, as an increasing amount of pollution enters streams and rivers, shellfish harvest areas are being restricted, and caution is needed to keep our beaches safe. Water that doesn't soak into the ground -- whether from rain, snowmelt, farming operations, car washing, or leaking pipes -- is called runoff. The runoff carries whatever it picks up along the way, including animal wastes, herbicides, pesticides, and septic system overflows. What
Soil erosion occurs naturally when rain falls. Runoff flows to the lowest point of the landscape. The velocity depends on the characteristics of the soils, the slope of the land and the vegetative cover. Erosion can be a serious environmental problem when the land is disturbed by development, agriculture, or forestry. Surfaces like roads, roofs, driveways and hard-packed soils will not absorb water, and the runoff increases. Expanses of pavement like parking lots reduce the chances for ground water recharge. Exposed soils are lost and the land becomes less productive. Fertilizers and pesticides that may have been applied wash away, too, causing water quality problems for people living downstream. Suspended silt keeps sunlight from penetrating waterbodies, robbing aquatic plants, animals, and fish of the light and oxygen they need to live. When silt eventually settles to the bottom, it can smother fish eggs and other aquatic life. Sediments can also reduce stream channel capacity, causing localized flooding. Plants are a natural, inexpensive and highly effective means of controlling runoff.
Runoff slows down and loses much of its erosional force when it reaches a strip of vegetation. Vegetation also works as a filter, straining out sediment, debris and other pollutants. You can do certain things to reduce erosion from your property.
Chemical pesticides and herbicides are poisons. Most of them will harm or kill more than the nuisance plant or animal being targeted -- pesticides often eliminate natural predators. They can damage our health as well.
Safe Use Practices Always consider alternatives. A well thought out pest management program can be more effective and less expensive. Your county extension service can advise you about these means of control.Be especially careful when spraying in spring or early summer. Many beneficial insects, birds and animals are more sensitive to toxics during their juvenile stages. For information and help: Call your county health department or cooperative extension office.
Safe Disposal Practices Never dump chemicals into sewers, drains, toilets, storm sewers, or any other connections to water systems.For information and help: The Recycle Hotline, 1-800-RECYCLE, provides information on waste disposal. Or ask your county cooperative extension agent.
Look around your house and notice what you might have stored. Paint, solvents or rat poison in the basement? Cleansers such as ammonia, bleach and spot removers in the kitchen, bath or laundry? Oils, gasoline, antifreeze or an old battery in the garage? Slug bait, no-pest strips or weed killer in the shed? These toxic materials are not only in your own home, but also in your neighbors' and in homes up and down the road. Together, they present a serious public health and safety concern. It is everyone's responsibility to handle and dispose of hazardous materials in a safe manner. Use
Recycle! Call 1-800-RECYCLE for your local center or for advice about what can be recycled. For information and help: If you have any questions about the proper use or disposal of a hazardous product, call the Hazardous Substance Information Hotline, 1-800-633-7585 or your County Health Department.
Reprinted from: Washington State Department of Ecology, Water Quality Guide Recommended Pollution Control Practices for Homeowners and Small Farm Operators Publication No. 87-30 (Revised) December 1997
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<-bold>By COOKSON BEECHER, Capital Press Staff Writer, The Capital Press , 5/29/98
BURLINGTON, Wash. - Skagit County dairy farmer Sidney DeBoer has been working at salmon recovery for a long time now - even if it wasn't called that 20 years ago when he first turned to the local conservation district for help in developing a manure lagoon.
As he made further technological improvements and increased his herd size in the ensuing years, change continued to play an important role in the way he managed his dairy. When he started in 1963, for example, he was milking 120 cows. Now he's milking 1,150.
But with all that change, there were several constants.
"I have worked very closely with the conservation district to make sure my farm plan is updated," he said. "And as I've expanded, I've made sure I have enough land base. It's easy to bring a bunch of cows onto a place, but that's only the beginning."
This year when Environmental Protection Agency inspectors showed up for an unannounced visit, DeBoer showed them around and explained how he put in curbs so manure runoff from slabs is diverted to sump pumps that lead to the lagoon and how he pumps the lagoon dry in the spring and then pumps again after every cutting so that by fall the lagoon is empty.
"They left here with a handshake," said DeBoer. "I'm not bragging about this, but I do feel confident that I'm running this farm in a way that protects salmon. I have always followed the practices recommended to me by the conservation district."
Now with the new statewide dairy-waste management regulations passed into law, DeBoer believes the industry has a policy it can live with.
"I do recommend that those who intend to stay in business follow the state's policy," he said.
But he's not just talking about avoiding fines and citizen lawsuits. He's also talking about the benefits that dairy farmers will see if they follow the regulations.
"It makes economic sense to do this," he said. "Having a clean dairy is better for productivity. And It will show up in the health of the herd." DeBoer is one of the many farmers across the state working to make sure his operation doesn't pollute the state's waterways or harm salmon habitat. In doing so, they're on the way to meeting the requirements being developed to protect the state's wild salmon runs.
In Eastern Washington, wheat growers are working on developing a habitat conservation plan with the goal of assuring federal fisheries agencies that their agricultural practices are in compliance with the Clean Water Act and salmon recovery.
Crop growers in Western Washington are exploring the idea of following the wheat growers' lead.
In Skagit, Whatcom and Snohomish counties, there is talk about developing some sort of regional habitat conservation plan.
In a letter to the members of the Western Washington Farm Association, Manager Paul LaCroix explained why:
"It would be easy if we could just say, 'Let the salmon become extinct.
We'll eat farmed salmon.' That however is not a choice. The federal courts will enforce the endangered species listing, and we will have to comply." A far better approach, he wrote, would be for the crop growers to be active in the process and to try to shape the outcome so they can continue to farm and work toward the recovery of salmon habitat.
"If we don't," he warned, "then eventually you will see NMFS and other government agencies on your land, telling you what kind of plan you will implement.
The state's Conservation Commission and the Natural Resource Conservation Service, meanwhile, are working on developing farm-plan guidelines. Steve Nissley, a Conservation Service scientist in Western Washington, said progress is being made.
"Hopefully in about six months, we'll be able to have an idea about how we can get regulatory certainty through farm plans," he said.
Timber growers on both sides of the mountains are also hard at work on salmon recovery efforts. They have joined tribal, state, federal, local and environmental groups in negotiations using the Timber/Fish/Wildlife framework.
In other cases, farmers and timber growers are joining watershed groups.
Probably the farthest along is the Yakima Watershed Coordinating Council.
And there are also proposals that would combine a number of watersheds into a regional watershed plan.
The carrot at the end of the stick in all of this is to ward off overly heavy federal control and to achieve some degree of regulatory certainty - a safe harbor. By agreeing to follow specified, approved plans designed to protect a listed species, farmers and timber growers stand a good chance of being exempted from the Endangered Species Act's "incidental take" clause.
An incidental take can occur when a listed species is killed accidentally.
Degradation of wildlife habitat can be considered an "incidental take" if it leads to the death of a listed species.
If on the other hand, farmers and timber owners aren't following an approved plan, they could face stiff fines and a possible jail sentence for accidentally causing the death of a threatened or endangered species.
That's especially important now that so many wild fish species are either proposed for listing or have been listed under the Endangered Species Act.
"We're starting down the road so farmers can at least know that 'If I do this, I'm safe,'" said Steve Meyer, director of the state's Conservation Commission.
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<-bold>Water: a natural history, by Alice Outwater. Basic Books, 1996.
Alice Outwater, an environmental engineer, has written a compelling treatise on the state of waterways in America.
Water pollution problems are not simple to solve and even more complicated to fully understand. Tainted water is still a problem even in the face of toxic clean-ups. Scientists have found that polluted water is the result of extensive changes to the natural water cycle, changes associated with the habitat destroying activities of people.
Outwater explains in fascinating manner the beneficial effects of beaver, prairie dogs and buffalo on the water cycle. She chronicles what went wrong after these species came to the brink of extinction. She explains the relationship of the forest and rain, a process not long understood.
Deforestation, paving over and plowing under wetlands and grasslands along with our ignorance of the interconnections of our water systems is leading to problems that cost millions and solutions that often are useless.
A great explanation of natural water processes for the layman.
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<-bold>By TIMOTHY EGAN, NY Times
A good 64 inches of rain has pelted this valley of fine wine and pursuers of the sublime since last July. So last month, in the middle of yet another El Nino-driven storm, Napa Valley residents went to the polls and decided to do something about it.
By a two-thirds majority, Napa County voted to raise taxes to pay for ripping out its flood-control system, allowing the near-dead Napa River to return to life and run wild for much of its 55 miles. After suffering 27 floods in less than 150 years, with flood controls, the Napa Valley now will take a chance with unfettered nature.
In a state where virtually every major river is shackled by a dam, pinched by levees or siphoned for use by distant cities, the vote in Napa amounts to a call for revolution in the nation's war against high water.
By voting to let the river run free, reclaiming much of its own meandering path, Napa residents have also steered the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that usually acts like the orthodontists of nature, on a new path.
''What we will be doing in Napa is radically different from anything we have ever done before,'' said Jason Fanselau, a Corps spokesman in Sacramento. ''It's going to totally change the way we do business.''
Under the Napa plan, some of the dikes and levees built to keep the river in a straight channel -- largely without success -- would be lowered or removed. Bridges that block the flow of high water would be raised or torn down. People living in areas that regularly flood would be bought out and asked to move. About 600 acres of low-lying land would be given back to the river, as wetlands. The river's water will go where it usually goes in floods, but in the future nobody will live there.
In Napa, the change is coming from voters; three times in the last 22 years, the county has voted down Corps proposals for expanding its traditional concrete-walled flood control system. But the engineers are also undergoing a rethinking of their own.
Since the epic Mississippi River floods in 1993, the Corps has taken a long second look at its century-old efforts to hold back flooding rivers with dams, levees, diversions and drainage ditches. A levee system unrivaled by anything but the Great Wall of China has not only failed to keep the Mississippi between its banks, but also made floods down river more severe by blocking natural outlets for the rising waters.
Rather than rebuilding old, flooded structures, Federal authorities have been buying up property in the Mississippi flood plain. But the new philosophy has yet to penetrate all of Congress -- where the California delegation has been trying to get money for at least one new billion-dollar dam -- nor until the Napa vote had it been tested at the ballot box.
The Napa plan is the most systematic effort in the country to try what is known as the ''living rivers'' approach to improve flood control. In South Florida, the Corps is similarly dismantling dikes and dams, but in an effort to restore the Everglades.
The Napa Valley's existing network of braces, dikes and levees, while protecting some people from flooding, sends so much water downstream so quickly that it always manages to spill over somewhere.
The plan now is to combine ecology and engineering. Some dikes and reservoirs will be strengthened to slow the river in crucial places. But dredging and straightening the riverbed will be largely abandoned, and in other sections, the river will be allowed to widen during floods, filling the marshlands south of the city of Napa. These restored wetlands will work as a sponge, the thinking goes.
The cost, over 20 years, will be $220 million, half paid by the Federal Government, and half coming from a half-cent rise in the county sales tax and from the state.
To many who live in Napa, the most famous wine-growing region in the United States, the price is a bargain. Floods from the last 40 years have cost more than $500 million in property damage.
''For over a century, we have fought a losing battle against the Napa River,'' city officials wrote in a voters guide published before last month's election. ''We have failed because we didn't respect the river's natural tendencies.''
California requires a two-thirds majority to raise the local sales tax. The vote in Napa just made that threshold, getting 68 percent, or 308 votes more than needed, out of more than 27,000 cast. Opponents of the measure, who did not mount an organized campaign, worried that the plan would not offer enough certainty for future years.
The plan seems radical because it calls on people to trust that a raging, chocolate-colored river, if allowed to reclaim its old floodplain, will ultimately provide more protections than the existing network of levees, decades of dredging or a plan once backed by the Corps to line the river with concrete.
''It will require us to go wider instead of deeper,'' said Paul Bowers, the Corps of Engineers official who will co-manage the project with the county. ''That was the biggest issue: Will people be able to give up that much land to restore a river?''
Napa County officials say they will buy out several businesses, a trailer park, some warehouses and about 16 houses. They will raise bridges that have served as blockage points to high-charging rivers. Most of the farmland, from high-quality vineyards on down, will stay just that, subject to floods in the dormant season in winter, but dry in California's typical eight rainless months.
But some farmland will be bought. Joe Ghisletta 3d, whose family has owned farmland in Napa Valley for nearly a century, will sell 68 of the family's 192-acre hay farm to the county; it will revert to a marsh.
''I think over all the whole plan is going to be a blessing for this valley,'' Mr. Ghisletta said.
Tourism is big business in the valley, which gets about five million visitors a year. The constant television images in recent years of couches floating down the Napa River, or people taking rowboats to flooded homes, are not considered the best advertising.
''Image is everything in this valley,'' said Moira Johnston Block, president of Friends of the Napa River, a citizens group that was instrumental in bringing the living river plan to the table. ''The floods have been the most ongoing, negative image. Some of the winemakers saw this plan as image protection.''
During the campaign, most of the vineyards promoted the plan. But despite the weekend traffic jams of limousines touring the wine country, Napa is much more than the gilded valley that tourists perceive, Ms. Johnston Block said. The city of Napa, where 70 percent of the voters live, is largely blue collar, and the county is full of fifth-generation farmers who live by the whims of weather.
David Prewitt, who lives in a trailer park that is to be moved, said he had to abandon the park in January and February because of high water. A 20-year resident of Napa, he said he generally favored the plan.
''They had to do something,'' Mr. Prewitt said, sitting in the bright sunshine of a day when Napa's hills were brilliant green from the rains. ''They've dredged this river time and again, and put up flood walls, and still it always seems to go over its banks.''
Whether other communities will adopt the Napa plan is uncertain. To the east, the Sacramento River and its side creeks are lined by more than 1,000 miles of levees, protecting much of the city of Sacramento. But new housing developments are planned for areas that have seen frequent floods over the last two decades, and business leaders are promoting a large dam for the American River, saying it will allow the Sacramento area to grow.
Nationally, reimbursing people for flood damage costs about $5 billion a year, from disaster aid and related help. The Army Corps of Engineers, the agency charged with flood protection, seems committed to the new direction.
''Napa will be the showcase, because there's nothing quite like it anywhere in the country,'' said Homer Perkins, a spokesman for the Corps in Washington.
The test for Napa will come 10 years or so down the road, when the living river plan is complete. Ms. Johnston Block said she had an image of a benign river: ''You will see a living river, a restored river downtown, with marshes and wildlife on one side and latte and wine on the other.''
The Corps is more prosaic. ''I think, 5 to 10 years from now, when it starts to rain in the winter, people will be able to sleep at night,'' Mr. Bowers said.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company, reprinted with permission.
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<-bold>Copies of a new Chehalis River Basin flood-control study are available for inspection in five public locations.
The 113-page study, prepared for Lewis County by Pacific International Engineering of Edmonds, recommends a massive excavation project along the river near Centralia and installing an inflatable rubber weir atop Skookumchuck Dam.
PIE estimated the projects would cost $93.3 million.
PIE did not recommend building new dams on the upper Chehalis River, which it had recommended in an earlier report. It now calls the projects "economically infeasible."
Pe Ell, Dory and Dryad residents objected to the dam proposals.
Copies of the report will be available at the Chehalis and Centralia branches of Timberland Regional Library, the county commissioners' office in the Lewis County Courthouse, and Pe Ell Town Hall.
Note: The above information was reported in The Chronicle on May 12.
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<-bold>A little something for the kids to color, while learning a bit about water habitats in the process, is available free from EPA's Public Environmental Resource Center.
Each of the coloring sheets is 11x17 inches, and can be easily photocopied. One sheet depicts a wetland, another illustrates an estuary, and the third shows a stream environment---all show the types of creatures and vegetation that might dwell within that habitat. For copies, call 1-800-424-4EPA or 206/553-1200.
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<-bold>The Washington State Legislature's Joint Task Force On Rural Land Use And Economic Development is holding hearings around the state. The comments presented during the public hearing May 27 in Chehalis demonstrated how wide the range of opinion is. Democracy is based upon respectfully considering each citizen's input, and that we must do. The Task Force also heard from our local elected leaders. Most testimony faced the issues. But a few are still trying to kill the messenger because they do not want to hear the message. Federal and State agencies did not create the problems that led to the necessity for growth management planning and endangered species protection; but they are the designated messengers. The depth of denial of these problems by some of our leaders is astounding, and in my view is not acceptable coming from those elected to find solutions.
A city mayor complained about the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) limitations imposed on his city. The TMDL concept recognizes that we can only dump so much waste into a river without destroying its biodiversity. The mayor acknowledged that in the past the Chehalis River was used as a sewer, but suggested it is clean enough now. Clean enough, says who? The salmon and oysters? This country had a similar debate 30 years ago over how clean is clean enough for smokestack emissions. The reactions were "we can't afford it", "we can't compete", and "a dirty smokestack means a full lunchbucket". Fortunately, the downwind public (and that is all of us) prevailed, and emission limitations were legislated. TMDL is for water quality what emission limits are for air quality.
There were numerous comments by officials regarding the need for development of industry, and the implication that growth management and environmental regulations are a threat to jobs. I am very skeptical of any politician or economic development advocate that still uses that line from the 1970's. The real threat to jobs and social stability in our community is lack of planning and liquidation of our natural assets at a rate greater than can be sustained. Would a computer chip factory be our salvation? Ask the 650 folks who are losing their jobs in DuPont. Tax giveaways to industry do not guarantee jobs. Nothing guarantees jobs, but the best bet is to plan for the long term and to not give away our natural resources to the highest bidder like some third world country. In Lewis County we are sitting on an economic rural treasure. Let us not blow it on an outmoded "industrial" quick fix. There are other successful models, based on "Sustainable Development", with communities taking the responsibility for the planning.
Obviously there are no clear solutions to growth and land use issues. One thing is clear though. We must have elected officials and institutions in this county that are committed to bringing all interested parties to the negotiating table, keeping the public well informed of all the arguments, and working for a broad public consensus.
Tom White
Adna
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<-bold>Have questions about your water supply? Ever wonder if your water is safe to drink?
Answers to many questions regarding drinking water can be found in a free EPA publication called Water On Tap: A Consumer's Guide to the Nation's Drinking Water. This 23-page booklet offers easy-to-understand information about drinking water sources, treatment methods, threats, contaminants, and more. It also lets you know what you can do to protect your drinking water supply and how to proceed if there are problems. For a copy, call EPA's Public Environmental Resource Center at 206/553-1200 or 1-800-424-4EPA.
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<-bold>This past Memorial Day I went for an afternoon hike on one of my favorite Chehalis Basin streams. I found a few fossils, watched spotted sandpipers defending nesting territory, and saw strings of western toad eggs along the edge of the stream. I was especially happy to discover a couple dozen steelhead nests (redds) in the gravel. I also found one steelhead carcass, which goes to show that not all steelhead survive to spawn again. Most of the redds, over a 3-4 mile reach, had been flagged by spawner-survey crews. The latest date I saw written on a flag was May 13th, and this was May 25th. Now for the bad news: Someone had ridden a four wheel ATV right through several of the redds. I won't tell you what my first thought was, but my second thought was that I knew what my next Drops of Water article would be about. I'm sure this person was just having fun, and would not have done anything on purpose that might kill the steelhead eggs incubating in the gravel. So perhaps a little information will do some good. To be fair, four-wheeling in the stream is not the only recreational activity that can disturb and kill salmon and steelhead eggs. Fishermen wading streams, swimmers, rockhounds looking for agates, and even rafters traversing shallow bars can all kill eggs in the gravel. Really, anyone who uses a stream has the potential to kill salmon eggs. Stepping on, riding through, or otherwise disturbing a redd can squash or fatally injure the eggs and newly hatched salmon (alevin) that are in the gravel. We just need to know what to look for, and avoid the places where salmon are likely to spawn. So, where are salmon and steelhead likely to spawn? Unfortunately, they like to use the areas that are usually the easiest places for us to cross a stream. They often like to dig their redds on the shallow margins where gravel accumulates at the downstream edge of a pool. This area is the crest of what is often called the "tailout." One reason that salmon like this particular spot is that water is "pulled" through the gravel as it picks up speed heading into the riffle. This flow through the gravel bathes the eggs and alevin in clean, well-oxygenated water. It also helps wash out silt that can suffocate the eggs and alevin. You may be able to see a depression in the gravel for some time after the fish have spawned. The depression may be several feet in diameter and fairly deep. Or you may notice that the gravel looks cleaner in a small area, or that there is no algae on the tops of the rocks. You should also look for the colored flagging tied to branches adjacent to the stream where spawner survey crews have marked a redd. You may have no obvious sign that a redd is present, so it is perhaps best to avoid disturbing any likely looking spot. Most Chehalis Basin salmon, including fall chinook, coho, and chum, spawn and hatch during months when redds are less likely to be disturbed by recreational activities. However, steelhead and cutthroat trout generally spawn in late winter and spring, and their eggs may be in the gravel well into the summer. And spring chinook will hold in the river until they spawn in late summer and early fall, so their redds are often vulnerable during high recreation periods. Of course, salmon are not the only animals that may be impacted by recreational use of streams. Streams, streambanks and even gravel bars are sensitive areas used by many species. Western toad eggs and spotted sandpiper nests are just two examples of other things that may be the victims of careless recreational use. So be aware and be careful out there, and please be especially careful of the redds. Please call Mike Kelly of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chehalis Fisheries Restoration Program at 360-753-9560 if you have questions about your local stream, or are interested in participating in a stream restoration project.
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