Department of Ecology

Tag: Department of Ecology

Ecology, EPA now under the gun to adopt new water quality criteria for aquatic creatures

Long delays in updating state water-quality standards to protect orcas, fish and other aquatic species appear to have finally caught up with the Washington Department of Ecology and its federal counterpart, the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a court ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle found that Ecology has “abdicated its duties” to update certain water-quality standards, as required by the federal Clean Water Act. Meanwhile, she said, EPA has failed to meet its legal oversight obligations to ensure that adequate water-quality standards are protective of aquatic creatures.
The lawsuit, brought by Northwest Environmental Advocates, followed a petition filed by the group in 2013 seeking to get EPA to revise Washington’s water quality standards for aquatic species. The petition followed years of delay by the state. The standards, including numeric aquatic life criteria, place limits on toxic chemicals found in the state’s waterways. It took four years, but EPA eventually denied the petition, refusing to make a determination about whether or not the state’s existing water quality standards were consistent with the Clean Water Act.
In its denial and later court pleadings, EPA stressed its desire to support Ecology’s efforts to update aquatic life criteria. Ecology had discussed the update and even proposed it as part of the agency’s 2015-2020 strategic plan, but the work was never started. EPA admitted that Washington’s aquatic life criteria had not been updated for most chemicals since 1992, even though formal reviews and updates are required every three years, noted Judge Pechman in her ruling.
The judge’s order, issued Wednesday, requires EPA to determine within 180 days if the state’s current water quality standards are consistent with the Clean Water Act or if they need to be revised. If they are determined to be inadequate, the act itself requires EPA to promptly promulgate new regulations — unless the state adopts acceptable standards in the meantime.
Ecology officials acknowledge that the agency has been slow to adopt new aquatic life criteria. In fact, the required three-year “triennial review” has not been conducted since 2010. Ecology currently is going through a new triennial review, and the agency’s draft work plan lists the update to aquatic life criteria as a priority over the next four years.
“We have not conducted a triennial review since 2010 because we were in continual rulemaking efforts for the water quality standards,” states the introduction to the draft work plan (PDF 494 kb).
No doubt Ecology dedicated a lot of time and effort to other water-quality rules the past decade. Much public attention — including a legislative battle — was focused on human exposures to toxic chemicals, as Ecology worked through the long development of new human health criteria. The discussions largely revolved around fish-consumption rates for people who eat a lot of fish, along with what was considered an allowable cancer risk.
In a controversial move after Ecology completed its work, EPA refused to accept some of the state’s human health criteria, imposing stronger restrictions than Ecology proposed. The criteria were later reversed by President Trump’s EPA. Even today, the issue is not yet resolved, with a revised rule in the works from EPA in the midst of a lawsuit. (See Ecology’s timeline along with other background.) I have been following these issues since their inception in 2010, including a 2015 article in the Kitsap Sun newspaper.
Some of the rule-making that Ecology says contributed to delays:

Since EPA is in charge of enforcing the provisions of the Clean Water Act, Judge Pechman focused her attention on EPA’s failure to take charge of the situation, other than to encourage Ecology to get moving on the aquatic life criteria:
“The CWA (Clean Water Act) operates on a principle of cooperative federalism where states take the lead in setting WQS (water quality standards) with the goal of eliminating pollutant discharge into navigable waters to protect and enhance human and aquatic life,” the judge wrote in her order (PDF 228 kb). “States must create WQS specific to aquatic life and review them every three years to determine whether new or revised standards are necessary.
“But while states play a lead role in setting WQS, EPA serves as a backstop,” she continued. “Not only does EPA have to review state-adopted WQS, but it must also ‘promptly prepare and publish’ new WQS for a state ‘in any case where the administrator determines that a revised or new standard is necessary to meet the requirements of this chapter.’…
“So while EPA wanted to ‘work in partnership to efficiently and effectively allocate resources to address pollution and accelerate state adoption of new and revised criteria,’ nothing in the record showed that Washington was a willing partner. And certainly nothing in the record supports EPA’s belief that inaction would be an efficient or effective way of ensuring adequate WQS or complying with the goals and requirements of the CWA.”
The judge calls out specific criteria that EPA has recommended for updates, based on scientific studies, including aquatic life criteria for ammonia and copper. She did not accept EPA’s excuse that Ecology may have higher priorities or that EPA lacks the resources to undertake the rulemaking.
“This wait-and-see approach appears particularly ill-conceived in light of EPA’s recognition that copper pollution has an ‘adverse impact on salmonids,’ whose health impacts ‘critically important and endangered species throughout the Pacific Northwest,’” she stated.
Pechman noted that the letter denying the petition for rule-making contains no explanation about how EPA was “marshaling its limited resources to protect Washington’s waters or why simply waiting for Washington to act would be reasonable to meet the CWA’s goals. This undermines EPA’s position.”
The judge also rejected EPA’s argument that the update to Washington’s human health criteria — a related set of standards — would protect aquatic life. She cited EPA’s own recommendations for copper, which are 1,200 micrograms per liter for humans but a maximum of 4.8 micrograms per liter for aquatic life. Under those recommendations, what is considered safe for humans is 250 times higher than what is considered safe for protecting salmon from acute toxicity. (Chronic levels are considered even lower for aquatic life.)
Further, the judge points out, EPA should not assume that its national recommendations would be adequate for the unique species of Washington state — “such as Puget Sound’s Southern Resident orcas who are some of the most contaminated marine mammals in the world due to bioaccumulation through the food stock, particularly through Chinook salmon.”
The judge ordered EPA to make a determination on the adequacy of the state’s aquatic life criteria within 180 days, but she agreed to allow additional time if EPA can provide “specific, detailed explanations of why additional time is necessary and what tasks remain to be performed.”
How that will mesh with Ecology’s time schedule is yet to be seen. Most relevant staffers with Ecology as well as EPA were out this week for the holiday. I will invite them to contribute comments, concerns and additional context when they return.
Ecology’s draft work plan covering the next four years does not lay out a specific timetable for adopting aquatic life criteria. The agency has taken comments on four possible approaches to adopting new water quality standards:

  • Option 1: Stagger three rule-making by group (metals, organics, non-priority)
  • Option 2: Stagger two rule-making by group (all metals, all organics)
  • Option 3: Rule-makings for different groups of chemicals based on highest priority
  • Option 4: Review and update all necessary criteria in one rule-making

In bringing its lawsuit, Northwest Environmental Advocates said Washington state has revised aquatic life criteria for some toxic chemicals since 1992, but many remain less protective than EPA’s recommended levels. For 14 chemicals, Washington has no aquatic life criteria at all, whereas EPA has established maximum levels in freshwater to avoid acute or chronic toxicity, according to NWEA. In saltwater, Washington has no criteria for 11 chemicals for which EPA provides recommended standards, the group says.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service have reviewed the adequacy of aquatic life criteria for the states of California, Oregon and Idaho. (USFWS covers freshwater species, while NMFS covers saltwater species.) For a number of chemicals, the agencies have found that criteria adopted by the states and approved by EPA are likely to jeopardize the continued existence of a threatened or endangered species, the so-called “jeopardy” finding.
To show that Washington’s standards are outdated, NWEA listed more than two dozen chemicals for which the state uses numeric criteria that are either higher or close to the levels found to be in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
“Levels of these and other toxic pollutants are among the reasons that EPA has long been concerned about the health of one of Washington’s most important waterbodies, Puget Sound,” states the legal complaint (PDF 490 kb). “EPA features the toxic contamination of Southern Resident killer whales, Pacific herring and harbor seals in Puget Sound on its website as evidence of its ongoing concerns about toxic pollution of Washington’s waters.”

Voluntary removal of BPA from food cans leaves state regulators with a key decision

As Washington state regulators contemplate a ban on the chemical BPA from food and drink cans, a manufacturers organization insists that BPA has already been removed voluntarily from nearly all food cans.
Washington Department of Ecology is engaged in Phase 3 of the Safer Products for Washington program, which is evaluating five groups of chemicals known to cause health effects. Agency toxicologists are studying whether safer alternatives are practical and should be required as a matter of state law.

One of the compounds under review is bisphenol A (BPA), which can interfere with hormonal functions in humans and animals and affect development and reproduction. The chemical was once widely used as a coating on the inside of food and beverage cans to resist corrosion. Although the federal Food and Drug Administration has declared the chemical safe at common exposure levels for adults, there is a lot more to this story, as I have described in a series of blog posts, including Watching Our Water Ways in 2019 and Our Water Ways in July of last year.
As Ecology considers safer alternatives, the Can Manufacturers Institute, a national trade organization based in Washington, D.C., responded with a laboratory study of 234 sample cans containing various food products purchased at stores in Seattle and Yakima. Only two imported products being sold in Seattle were found to contain BPA in the ends of the cans: coconut milk from Thailand and peaches from Australia.
That’s a dramatic change from similar surveys conducted just a few years ago, including the 2016 Buyer Beware report (PDF 5.2 mb) by the Breast Cancer Fund, which found that about two-thirds of the cans tested contained BPA.
Because of consumer demand, the voluntary transition away from BPA is nearly complete, and Washington consumers face no significant exposure to bisphenols from eating canned foods, according to Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokeswoman for the Can Manufacturers Institute.
“We continue to urge (Ecology) to remove food cans as a priority product associated with exposure to bisphenols from its Safer Products program,” she said in an email. Check out CMI’s full comments.
Behind the scenes, there is kind of a skirmish going on over possible replacement chemicals — and industrial espionage is part of the intrigue. But let’s first touch on what is happening in Washington state.
If the latest survey of BPA in canned foods is confirmed, it is good news for the consumer. One could argue that there is now no need for new regulations to ban BPA. On the other hand, considering what appears to be a new stance in the industry, one could argue that a ban would provide legal assurance of greater safety with no significant harm to the vast majority of can manufacturers or to the food industry as a whole. The law does not require testing or reporting.

Since CMI found BPA in two cans imported from other countries, we have to wonder if the phase-out will eventually be complete or if foreign sources of canned foods may always pose some risk.
As part of an increased effort to improve environmental justice, Ecology officials are trying to make sure that disadvantaged populations, such as low-income or certain ethnic groups, are not affected more than others. Early studies showed that low-income populations were more prone to higher exposures to BPA, in part because of their greater consumption of canned foods. (See Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 2006.)
Ecology officials are still evaluating their options as part of Phase 3 of the Safer Products process. The CMI report provides helpful information, but it isn’t a formal, peer-reviewed study. As such, it cannot be considered as formal evidence in the decision-making process, according to Ecology officials. If nothing else, the report shows that alternative chemicals are available.
The Breast Cancer Fund, which produced the 2016 Buyer Beware survey of BPA in canned food, expressed support for the apparent phase-out of BPA, as determined by the Can Manufacturers Institute. But the fund bemoaned the lack of explicit information about which chemicals are being substituted in particular products.
“Identifying the safety of BPA alternatives is challenging, given the insufficient FDA review and approval of packaging additives and highly protected trade secrets in this product sector,” states a fact sheet (PDF 469 kb) from the organization.
The study by the Can Manufacturers Institute used infrared spectroscopy to identify the chemicals associated with can linings from a variety of food products. Some cans had no lining. Other linings involved acrylic, polyester or vinyl compounds as well as epoxy-based linings made with or without BPA.
Not included in the CMI’s analysis, however, were drink cans, which appear to present a special challenge because they are made from aluminum rather than steel. But a breakthrough by scientists at Valspar — now a subsidiary of Sherwin-Williams — offers hope that BPA-free liners could soon be widely available for drink cans as well, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News.

“Rather than look in the toolbox of epoxy alternatives for food and beverage cans, Valspar sought to develop a new epoxy without using monomers that affect the endocrine system,” states the article by Melody M. Bomgardner. “Now, after a decade of effort, Sherwin-Williams is commercializing a new can-lining epoxy, built from the ground up with a new monomer. The company says it is safe and performs just like those made with BPA.”
The new epoxy, called valPure V70, is used in many beverage cans in California and elsewhere. Although not identified specifically, this non-BPA epoxy may well have been seen in the steel cans tested by CMI in Washington state.
In her article, Bomgardner describes how scientists searched for, discovered and eventually tested a chemical replacement for BPA that was not biologically reactive. That chemical, tetramethyl bisphenol F, is being studied in labs across the U.S. and is under review by advocate groups.
Other available products coming on the market include metal coatings that use acrylic or polyester resins, such as Toyochem’s new Lionova brand.
The competitive rush to find acceptable replacements for BPA in drink cans involves some major players, including Coca-Cola. How much is at stake can be gleaned from the story of chemist Xiaorong “Shannon” You, who was recently convicted of stealing trade secrets that prosecutors valued at $120 million. She was said to be negotiating a deal to share chemical information with Chinese partners, as described in a story by Craig Bettenhausen in Chemical & Engineering News.
How these new can coatings will affect regulations in Washington state is yet to be seen, but a major part of the Safer-Products-Phase-3 effort is to decide — as the name implies — whether safer chemicals are available for use in food and drink cans. That would involve a review of the studies focused on the various alternatives, including new products certified for safety and performance by Cradle to Cradle and other certificate programs.
An interesting aspect of the Washington law is that regulators need not establish a threshold for human safety, such as the FDA has done. After determining that a chemical can cause harm, the question becomes whether a safer chemical is “feasible and available” before considering regulations. The process for determining whether an alternative chemical is safer is outlined in a working draft of “Phase 3 Criteria for Safer” (PDF 954 kb).

A webinar to discuss the issue of chemicals used in food and drink cans is scheduled for July 13 and is open to anyone interested. Also on the agenda that day is the use of flame retardants in recreational polyurethane foam and potential substitutes. Visit the registration page and sign up to take part. A draft of the Phase 3 report is expected by the end of this year, with a final report due on June 1 of next year, followed by potential new rules coming out the following year.
In addition to food and drink cans, people may be exposed to BPA by handling those slick receipts made with thermal paper containing the toxic compound. The chemical is absorbed through the skin, and hand sanitizers have been shown to increase the absorption and exposure. (See 2014 study in PLoS One.) Retail clerks and checkers who handle a lot of receipts are considered the most at risk.
The Phase 2 report from the Safer Products team at Ecology covers those issues surrounding thermal paper, as well as all the products of concern identified among the first set of priority chemical classes:

  • Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
  • Phthalates
  • Organohalogen flame retardants and flame retardants identified in RCW 70.240.010
  • Phenolic compounds
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

The draft Phase 3 report from Ecology, scheduled for the end of this year, could signal some important changes to consumer products, with powerful implications across the country.

Voluntary removal of BPA from food cans leaves state regulators with a key decision

As Washington state regulators contemplate a ban on the chemical BPA from food and drink cans, a manufacturers organization insists that BPA has already been removed voluntarily from nearly all food cans.
Washington Department of Ecology is engaged in Phase 3 of the Safer Products for Washington program, which is evaluating five groups of chemicals known to cause health effects. Agency toxicologists are studying whether safer alternatives are practical and should be required as a matter of state law.

One of the compounds under review is bisphenol A (BPA), which can interfere with hormonal functions in humans and animals and affect development and reproduction. The chemical was once widely used as a coating on the inside of food and beverage cans to resist corrosion. Although the federal Food and Drug Administration has declared the chemical safe at common exposure levels for adults, there is a lot more to this story, as I have described in a series of blog posts, including Watching Our Water Ways in 2019 and Our Water Ways in July of last year.
As Ecology considers safer alternatives, the Can Manufacturers Institute, a national trade organization based in Washington, D.C., responded with a laboratory study of 234 sample cans containing various food products purchased at stores in Seattle and Yakima. Only two imported products being sold in Seattle were found to contain BPA in the ends of the cans: coconut milk from Thailand and peaches from Australia.
That’s a dramatic change from similar surveys conducted just a few years ago, including the 2016 Buyer Beware report (PDF 5.2 mb) by the Breast Cancer Fund, which found that about two-thirds of the cans tested contained BPA.
Because of consumer demand, the voluntary transition away from BPA is nearly complete, and Washington consumers face no significant exposure to bisphenols from eating canned foods, according to Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokeswoman for the Can Manufacturers Institute.
“We continue to urge (Ecology) to remove food cans as a priority product associated with exposure to bisphenols from its Safer Products program,” she said in an email. Check out CMI’s full comments.
Behind the scenes, there is kind of a skirmish going on over possible replacement chemicals — and industrial espionage is part of the intrigue. But let’s first touch on what is happening in Washington state.
If the latest survey of BPA in canned foods is confirmed, it is good news for the consumer. One could argue that there is now no need for new regulations to ban BPA. On the other hand, considering what appears to be a new stance in the industry, one could argue that a ban would provide legal assurance of greater safety with no significant harm to the vast majority of can manufacturers or to the food industry as a whole. The law does not require testing or reporting.

Since CMI found BPA in two cans imported from other countries, we have to wonder if the phase-out will eventually be complete or if foreign sources of canned foods may always pose some risk.
As part of an increased effort to improve environmental justice, Ecology officials are trying to make sure that disadvantaged populations, such as low-income or certain ethnic groups, are not affected more than others. Early studies showed that low-income populations were more prone to higher exposures to BPA, in part because of their greater consumption of canned foods. (See Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 2006.)
Ecology officials are still evaluating their options as part of Phase 3 of the Safer Products process. The CMI report provides helpful information, but it isn’t a formal, peer-reviewed study. As such, it cannot be considered as formal evidence in the decision-making process, according to Ecology officials. If nothing else, the report shows that alternative chemicals are available.
The Breast Cancer Fund, which produced the 2016 Buyer Beware survey of BPA in canned food, expressed support for the apparent phase-out of BPA, as determined by the Can Manufacturers Institute. But the fund bemoaned the lack of explicit information about which chemicals are being substituted in particular products.
“Identifying the safety of BPA alternatives is challenging, given the insufficient FDA review and approval of packaging additives and highly protected trade secrets in this product sector,” states a fact sheet (PDF 469 kb) from the organization.
The study by the Can Manufacturers Institute used infrared spectroscopy to identify the chemicals associated with can linings from a variety of food products. Some cans had no lining. Other linings involved acrylic, polyester or vinyl compounds as well as epoxy-based linings made with or without BPA.
Not included in the CMI’s analysis, however, were drink cans, which appear to present a special challenge because they are made from aluminum rather than steel. But a breakthrough by scientists at Valspar — now a subsidiary of Sherwin-Williams — offers hope that BPA-free liners could soon be widely available for drink cans as well, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News.

“Rather than look in the toolbox of epoxy alternatives for food and beverage cans, Valspar sought to develop a new epoxy without using monomers that affect the endocrine system,” states the article by Melody M. Bomgardner. “Now, after a decade of effort, Sherwin-Williams is commercializing a new can-lining epoxy, built from the ground up with a new monomer. The company says it is safe and performs just like those made with BPA.”
The new epoxy, called valPure V70, is used in many beverage cans in California and elsewhere. Although not identified specifically, this non-BPA epoxy may well have been seen in the steel cans tested by CMI in Washington state.
In her article, Bomgardner describes how scientists searched for, discovered and eventually tested a chemical replacement for BPA that was not biologically reactive. That chemical, tetramethyl bisphenol F, is being studied in labs across the U.S. and is under review by advocate groups.
Other available products coming on the market include metal coatings that use acrylic or polyester resins, such as Toyochem’s new Lionova brand.
The competitive rush to find acceptable replacements for BPA in drink cans involves some major players, including Coca-Cola. How much is at stake can be gleaned from the story of chemist Xiaorong “Shannon” You, who was recently convicted of stealing trade secrets that prosecutors valued at $120 million. She was said to be negotiating a deal to share chemical information with Chinese partners, as described in a story by Craig Bettenhausen in Chemical & Engineering News.
How these new can coatings will affect regulations in Washington state is yet to be seen, but a major part of the Safer-Products-Phase-3 effort is to decide — as the name implies — whether safer chemicals are available for use in food and drink cans. That would involve a review of the studies focused on the various alternatives, including new products certified for safety and performance by Cradle to Cradle and other certificate programs.
An interesting aspect of the Washington law is that regulators need not establish a threshold for human safety, such as the FDA has done. After determining that a chemical can cause harm, the question becomes whether a safer chemical is “feasible and available” before considering regulations. The process for determining whether an alternative chemical is safer is outlined in a working draft of “Phase 3 Criteria for Safer” (PDF 954 kb).

A webinar to discuss the issue of chemicals used in food and drink cans is scheduled for July 13 and is open to anyone interested. Also on the agenda that day is the use of flame retardants in recreational polyurethane foam and potential substitutes. Visit the registration page and sign up to take part. A draft of the Phase 3 report is expected by the end of this year, with a final report due on June 1 of next year, followed by potential new rules coming out the following year.
In addition to food and drink cans, people may be exposed to BPA by handling those slick receipts made with thermal paper containing the toxic compound. The chemical is absorbed through the skin, and hand sanitizers have been shown to increase the absorption and exposure. (See 2014 study in PLoS One.) Retail clerks and checkers who handle a lot of receipts are considered the most at risk.
The Phase 2 report from the Safer Products team at Ecology covers those issues surrounding thermal paper, as well as all the products of concern identified among the first set of priority chemical classes:

  • Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
  • Phthalates
  • Organohalogen flame retardants and flame retardants identified in RCW 70.240.010
  • Phenolic compounds
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

The draft Phase 3 report from Ecology, scheduled for the end of this year, could signal some important changes to consumer products, with powerful implications across the country.

Washington’s Water Quality Assessment offers insights into status of pollution

More than 2,000 segments of streams, lakes and marine waters have been added to the state’s massive list of water-quality data, allowing more Washington residents to take stock of pollution levels near their homes.
The latest Water Quality Assessment for Washington waters, released for public review this week, covers 9,279 miles of streams, 434 lakes and 619 square miles of marine waters. One can use the statewide Draft Water Quality Atlas to zoom in on places of interest and review available information on a given water body.
This vast database, which contains 65 million data entries, is managed by the Washington Department of Ecology. It is used to list polluted water bodies as “impaired” — designated Category 5 — if they fail to meet state water quality standards. If they are not so bad or data is insufficient, they may be listed in categories from 1 to 4.

Washington’s Water Quality Assessment, required under the federal Clean Water Act, is one of the most extensive assessments produced by any state in the nation, according to Ecology officials. The data can be a guiding light for pollution-reduction and habitat-improvement projects. It also reveals gaps in knowledge about problems that may be causing a decline in fish, wildlife or aquatic vegetation.
While the database contains a mind-boggling amount of information, the data cover only 13 percent of identified stream miles, 21 percent of the total marine area, and 10 percent of the lakes in the state, according to figures provided by Jeremy Reiman, water quality assessment scientist for Ecology. As such, they are not a good indicator of trends, especially when considering that water-quality standards themselves change over time, he said.
The data are more like a snapshot of conditions at a given point in time, but the good news is that more than 100 listings of polluted waters have been upgraded to clean after meeting water-quality standards. Much of the improvement can be attributed to water cleanup efforts involving state, local and tribal officials working with local residents and business owners.
The most common water-quality problems are elevated water temperatures, which have direct impacts on salmon, and high bacterial levels, which can threaten human health and force closure of shellfish beds. Combined, those two problems make up more than half of all the impaired listings. Other problems include low dissolved oxygen levels and excessive contamination from a list of more than 100 toxic chemicals.
Data are collected by Ecology staffers; federal, state and local agencies; tribes; and anyone who receives state grants to work on water-quality issues. Others can submit data, provided it meets specific quality controls.
Ecology will be taking comments on the water quality assessment until June 4. For information, go to the Water Quality Assessment webpage. Those who would like more information on the document and the overall process can sign up for an April 20 webinar from that page.

Ecology’s Water Quality Atlas allows a search for water bodies using many search criteria.

If you would like to jump right in, a good starting point with the Water Quality Atlas is to click on “add/remove map data” at the top of the page, select the first box “assessed water/sediment” and hit “go.” Then go to “Zoom” at the top of the page, type in an address in the left column and hit “go.” From there, one can use “+/-“ to zoom out until you see water bodies. Click on those elements to reveal available information.
Instead of using an address, you can name a stream, lake or marine region under the heading “map area” in the left column and type in a name, selecting from the drop-down menu. That section also includes options for cities, counties, highways and more. The map and its data have grown more sophisticated over time, and there are plenty of things to review.
One of the new features is demographic information from the U.S. Census, connecting a water body with information such as income, education and language proficiency of people in the area. Ecology and others can use the information to make sure they are focused on environmental justice issues while setting priorities.
Since the last Water Quality Assessment in 2016, 11 cleanup plans have been approved by Ecology for one or more water-quality problems. These plans are nicknamed TMDLs, because they include limitations on pollution from different sources, spelled out as “total maximum daily loads.” New TMDLs for Puget Sound include the Pilchuck River in Snohomish County, the South Fork of the Nooksack River in Whatcom County, and Padilla Bay in Skagit County.
For a variety of streams in Kitsap County, Ecology has proposed an alternative process called “straight to implementation” instead of state-managed investigations and cleanup plans. This proposal is the result of Kitsap’s 30-year history of monitoring for bacterial problems, tracking down sources of pollution and correcting the problems. See Water Quality Assessment Submittal to EPA (1.4 mb), which includes streams in other areas as well.
Kitsap’s Pollution Identification and Correction (PIC) Program, managed by the Kitsap Public Health District, has been tried successfully in other counties, some with the help of federal funding. So far, only Kitsap and a few other counties have an aggressive, ongoing, fully funded program in place. Check out Kitsap’s numerous water-quality reports.
“Kitsap has a very disciplined and focused effort,” noted Melissa Gildersleeve, watershed management supervisor for Ecology, adding that the health district enforces locally adopted ordinances to ensure cleanup in those rare cases when voluntary actions are not successful.
Ecology has designated 20 watersheds all over the state for high-priority cleanup, including eight in the Puget Sound region: Greater Key Peninsula, Lower Skagit Tributaries, South Skagit Bay, Snohomish Basin, Lower Nooksack River, Drayton Harbor, Samish River and Samish Bay and Whatcom Creek.
The number of water-quality listings by category in the latest assessment. Toxics numbers are high because many chemicals can be tested from a single sample. Category 1: meets standard; Category 2: waters of concern; Category 3: insufficient data; Category 4: has a plan; Category 5: “impaired” and on 303(d) list. Table: Washington Department of Ecology