The state of Colorado, where water is scarce, has begun to allow certain homeowners to collect rainwater that falls onto their roofs. A new law, which goes into effect today, removes the legal stigma from people who collect water in rain barrels — provided they meet some strict criteria.

In Washington state, where water is more plentiful (at least in Western Washington), rainwater collection remains stuck in a legal quagmire.

Folks here are growing more aware of the problems that can be created by excess stormwater, which may cause erosion and can transport pollution into the nearest waterway. We are seeing a big push for “low impact development,” which focuses on getting rainwater to soak into the ground as quickly as possible.

But putting rainwater to actual use is another issue. If you intend to use the runoff for watering plants or really any purpose, you are supposed to obtain a water right from the Washington Department of Ecology. In practice, Ecology officials say they allow de minimis use of runoff, such as filling a rain barrel for your garden. But if your goal is to fill a large tank, you could run into problems.

At first, it seems rather ridiculous that a person could be prevented from using the water that falls on his or her property. But when you consider the legal implications, you are forced to confront the extremes. If lots of people were allowed to store all the rainwater they wanted, some streams might dry up in the summer.

For years, Washington legislators have tried to define how much water can be taken without the need for a water right, but the legislation has never gone anywhere. A bill in the 2009 Legislature would have directed Ecology to establish how many gallons can be collected and to describe areas where such collection would and would not be allowed.

A year ago, Department of Ecology officials decided they needed to develop some general rules in the absence of a state law. They offered this rationale:

An acceptable level of rainwater harvesting without requiring a water right has never been defined in law or rule. This lack of clarity has’ created a public perception that even tiny amounts of rainwater harvesting and use is subject to the water code and/or permit process.

Starting in 2003 and every year thereafter the legislature has attempted to c1arify this legal ambiguity. All such efforts have failed. Stormwater management is a major problem, particularly in urban settings. The legal ambiguity concerning rainwater harvesting is hindering efforts to utilize rainwater harvesting as a stormwater management tool. If Ecology does not move forward with the rule, the crippling uncertainty will remain.

The rule was never formally proposed and probably won’t go anywhere for the foreseeable future, according to Judy Beitel of Ecology’s Water Resources Program. Her program has undergone such severe staff cutbacks that special projects like this will be greatly diminished. For further discussion, see Ecology’s page on Rainwater Collection.

Colorado legislators understand that the collection of rainwater could potentially impair uses by people downstream who hold legal rights to the available water. The new law imposes some strict criteria, as outlined in a discussion paper (PDF 44 kb).

Specifically, one’s home must have a legal well or be entitled to have a well designated for domestic uses. Water must not be available from a city or water district. Rainwater can be collected only from the roof, and the use must be consistent with permitted uses of the private well. One must file an application with the state.

A second law will allow limited pilot projects involving large-scale rainwater collection for developments.

These measures seem like a good start to break through the legal quagmire, but Colorado’s law does not begin to address the stormwater problems in urban areas that we see in Western Washington.

New York Times reporter Kirk Johnson explores the implications with some Colorado residents who want to collect rainwater, but his story does not touch on the finer points of the new law.

For Washington state, reporter Jennifer Langston wrote a fairly comprehensive piece for the Seattle P-I about a year ago. In it, she pointed out that Seattle officials had taken steps to solve the water rights problem for many city residents by obtaining a permit for roof collection is areas where streamflow was not a concern.

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We’re getting reports from all over Hood Canal as well as other waterways about plankton blooms that are coloring the water red, reddish orange and other dramatic colors. See the story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

Plankton bloom near Seabeck on Hood Canal yesterday (Click to enlarge)
Photo by Don Paulson, Seabeck

Health authorities and researchers are checking to make sure the plankton are not the kind that create toxins that can poison people, pets or sea creatures. So far, reports indicate that most of the plankton belong to the genus Noctiluca, which don’t appear to cause a safety problem.

I’ve heard some great descriptions regarding “ribbons” of color lining the shore in various places. Folks often have trouble capturing the visual drama in a photograph. A rare exception is a picture we received today from Don Paulson of Don Paulson Photography. Paulson says he captured this picture yesterday at his home near Seabeck.

If anyone else has been able to get a good image, please send it along to me by e-mail, and I’ll post the best.

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President Obama is being praised for his decision to pull together all the ocean-related challenges this nation faces and for plotting a unified course of action.

On Friday, the president issued a memorandum calling for a task force to develop a national ocean policy along with a “framework” for action and a set of objectives. See the Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, along with a news story by reporter Doug Palmer of Reuters.

I was tempted to state cynically that actions speak louder than words, so we should curb our enthusiasm about what can be done to save the oceans. But then I talked to Bill Ruckelshaus, who co-chairs the Joint Ocean Commission, a national group dedicated to this topic.

Ruckelshaus seems to be thrilled with this latest development, following years of failed promises from the Bush administration.

“This is quite a significant event, really,” Bill told me. “It moves the oceans up on the presidential agenda, which means they will get more attention from Congress and from agencies in the administration. Presidencies are all about setting agendas, and this means more attention will be paid to the recommendations we made.”

I’ll tell you a little more about what my conversation with Mr. Ruckelshaus, but first I’ll review the history.

Five years ago, similar praise was accorded to President Bush after the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy — a presidentially appointed body — released it’s comprehensive examination of the major problems facing the oceans. The report included a list of potential solutions.

Adm. James D. Watkins, a retired Navy officer who chaired the commission, expressed enthusiasm for the reception he felt the report was getting from the Bush administration.

“President Bush’s response to the Commission’s Report and his signing of Executive Order establishing a Secretarial-level Committee on Ocean Policy … sets into motion the important process of developing and implementing a new national ocean policy,” Watkins declared.

Despite the positive reaction, I don’t believe a whole lot came about. (Review the last three “report cards.”) A separate report written by the Pew Oceans Commission received even less attention.

After the two commissions dissolved, some members — including Ruckelshaus — moved into a new organization called the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, a nongovernmental group that maintained pressure for action through annual “report cards” relating the progress, or lack thereof, on ocean issues.

In April of this year, the joint commission issued an urgent new report called “Changing Oceans, Changing World: Ocean Priorities for the Obama Administration and Congress” (PDF 280 kb). I outlined that report in a Water Ways entry on April 7.

And so now we come to today, five months into the new administration, which seems to be trying to do everything at once. Can there really be much energy left for a discussion about the oceans?

Bill Ruckelshaus is undaunted. “I think holding back and doing things one at a time just doesn’t work,” he said. “You have to act while the energy is there.”

Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Nixon, now chairs the Leadership Council of the Puget Sound Partnership, where he is heading the effort to reverse the degradation of our inland waterways.

President Bush created the U.S. Commission on Oceans, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But pulling all the environmental agencies together and getting Congress to focus on budgets, regulations and international treaties just never came to pass.

Why is Obama’s action different?

(more…)

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The Environmental Protection Agency has taken steps to ban carbofuran, a pesticide linked to neurological problems in fish, birds and mammals, including humans. Most recently, the chemical gained notoriety for killing lions, as shown in a recent report on the CBS news program “60 Minutes.”

In a news release Monday, the EPA said it has revoked regulations allowing small amounts of pesticide residue on food crops. The action is designed to entirely eliminate the chemical on all foods sold in the U.S., including imported ones.

For details, see EPA’s Web site on carbofuran.

Carbofuran, sold by FMC Corporation under the name Furadan, is a neurotoxin linked to problems for people eating pesticide-laden foods, people working around the chemical and animals ingesting it.

“While FMC Corporation voluntarily withdrew 22 uses of this pesticide, it was insufficient for the agency to conclude that dietary exposures to carbofuran are safe,” the EPA said in the news release, noting that it is planning further steps to ban the pesticide for all uses.

Carbofuran was among three chemicals linked to problems for salmon, as I reported last month in a Kitsap Sun story as well as a Water Ways entry. The National Marine Fisheries Service said carbofuran and two related pesticides could jeopardize the future of salmon populations unless changes were made in their use.

Josh Osborne-Klein, an attorney with Earthjustice who sued the EPA and NMFS over the salmon issue, told me this afternoon that he was pleased to see the latest EPA ban, though his lawsuit did not require the agency to go that far.

H. Josef Hebert of The Associated Press quoted Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy as saying the pellet form of the chemical — largely ended in the 1990s — was especially deadly to birds, but that the liquid form, still on the market, had taken a significant toll.

FMC Corporation reported in a news release that it will file objections to EPA’s action.

“We are very disappointed by the EPA revocation and their unwillingness to recognize that our voluntary changes to the label allowed the product to meet the dietary safety standard using EPA’s own conservative assumptions,” said Michael Morelli, director of global regulatory affairs for FMC’s Agricultural Products Group. “President Obama has committed EPA to regulating on the basis of sound science, and FMC is confident that a fair hearing based on sound scientific principles will prove carbofuran’s safety to the satisfaction of all.”

The “60 Minutes” segment on the illegal use of carbofuran to kill lions can be seen in the following video.

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It is becoming clear that unused medications are getting into our waterways, but serious questions about how they’re getting there and how much of a problem they create for sealife are still largely unanswered.

For example, are the medications found in the water coming from people dumping them in the toilet, passing them through their bodies or doing something else entirely? What specific chemicals can be found in certain waterways and in what concentrations? How much of these chemicals does it take to affect marine life? What are all the possible effects, and are they really a threat to individual animals or entire populations?

I tried to cover some of these issues in a story published in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun. An editorial appeared in the Sun today.

It’s easy to come up with questions, and it is clear to me that more research needs to be done. But another thing is equally clear, as pointed out by advocates of take-back programs and the Sun’s editorial: Making it easy for people to safely dispose of unused medications would be a step toward removing biologically active chemicals from our waterways.

Whether getting pharmaceutical companies involved in disposal is the right step or the only step is open to debate, as we’ll see when this issue comes back to the Legislature next year. But if someone opposes this approach, I hope they’re ready to recognize the problem and offer serious ideas for addressing the problem.

For additional information, check out:

House Bill 1165, allowing for the safe collection and disposal of drugs through a producer-funded take-back program

Washington state’s Unwanted Medicine Return Web site with a page with links to more information

In Kitsap County, unused medications can be taken to Group Health clinics, according to the county’s Moderate Risk Waste Program.

Margaret Shield of King County’s Local Hazardous Waste Management Program has compiled two documents filled with facts about:
Human Health Concerns (PDF 28 kb)
Environmental Concerns (PDF 108 kb)

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It appears that local trailbikers have taken it upon themselves to upgrade makeshift trails on state land in the Newberry Hill area of Kitsap County.

Without permits, a boardwalk was built on state land destined to become a county park.
Kitsap Sun photo

The work — including installation of wooden boardwalks, concrete pavers and plastic culverts — was all done without permits or review by state or county authorities charged with protecting the environment.

So are these unofficial trail-builders good guys or bad guys?

That is, are they well-meaning folks who just happened to bypass the approval process? Or are they a calculating group trying to ensure that their wishes for the land become stamped into the landscape before anybody can question whether trails are appropriate for certain areas?

Kitsap Sun reporter Brynn Grimley raises this question in a story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

The state property in question is destined to become part of Kitsap County’s park system, thanks to a proposed land exchange. Those working on the Newberry Hill trials apparently are part of a group that deserve thanks for volunteer work on trails at another county park — Banner Forest. But there appears to be an important difference: Banner Forest went through an extensive planning process to decide what uses were desirable and appropriate given environmental constraints.

I have not been to the property nor discussed it’s environmental values, and I promise to keep an open mind. It does seem fair, however, that when the county goes about planning this park, no priority should be given to keeping open trails that were built illegally — or, to put it more kindly, trails not officially sanctioned. After all, trails can be removed if that’s what people want.

From Brynn’s story:

Planning for the future of the park could get tense as officials wade through the differing opinions of how the land should be used…

The county also probably won’t remove the trails once it acquires the land from the state, said Chip Faver, Kitsap’s parks and recreation director.

But Central Kitsap Commissioner Josh Brown said the public will determine the uses of the park, not one interest group over another.

“An individual or a group doesn’t get to squat on county property and determine its use,” he said. “I don’t want to in any way discredit the work of volunteers, I appreciate their enthusiasm, but they need to work through the public process like the rest of us.”

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The National Marine Fisheries Service has been studying the effects of chemical pesticides on threatened and endangered salmon species, and I have to say that I’m impressed with the thorough approach to this scientific challenge.

Not everyone is so impressed, however, and pesticide manufacturers have filed a federal lawsuit to block implementation of protection measures proposed by NMFS, but more about that in a moment.

Risk analysis is always a tricky subject, but it appears that the NMFS researchers have taken a step-by-step approach, turning over every stone.

The latest “biological opinion” (PDF 11.7 mb) is a 600-page report covering pesticides containing carbaryl, carbofuran and methomyl. Like the previous biological opinion (PDF 11 mb) on diazinon, chlorpyrifos and malathion, the agency has determined that the pesticides pose a significant risk of extinction for listed salmon and outline further restrictions on their use.

Read my story in Wednesday’s Kitsap Sun and a well-written piece by Associated Press reporter Phuong Le.

NMFS scientists have been looking at how much of each pesticide can get into a stream under various kinds of applications. In the water, these neurotoxins can affect a fish directly — if not by killing them, by impairing their response to predators, their ability to get food, their ability to find their natal streams or their ability to connect with a mate.

Even if a fish is not harmed directly, these insecticides can affect fish simply by doing their job very well — killing off all or a significant portion of the insects that a fish needs to eat, grow and survive.

As if measuring all these effects are not enough, now we learn that chemicals may exhibit synergistic effects — making it necessary to look not just at the effects of a single chemical but how multiple chemicals in the water work together.

(more…)

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If you missed Hedrick Smith’s two-hour Frontline program called “Poisoned Waters” last night, you can catch it again by setting your recorder for Saturday at 2 a.m. on KCTS 9. Also, you can view the full program online.

Meanwhile, some extra information has been loaded onto the program’s Web site.

You may be interested in extended interviews with Jay Manning, director of the Washington Department of Ecology; Bill Ruckelshaus, leader of the Puget Sound Partnership and the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Steve Tochko, environmental remediation manager for Boeing; Ron Sims, King County executive; J. Charles Fox, former associate administrator for the EPA now working on the Chesapeake Bay problem; and Jim Perdue, chairman of Perdue Farms, the leading poultry processor on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

Hedrick Smith had told me that the Web site was supposed to include deleted interviews with Billy Frank, chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and others. But so far I have not been able to locate them.

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My offering for Earth Day is a story I wrote about the new Clean Technology Trade Alliance, a nonprofit organization that hopes to market innovative small companies that will play a part in a cleaner and greener world. (See story in today’s Kitsap Sun.)

Mark Frost, a Bremerton business consultant who conceived of the alliance, already is working with a bunch of companies doing interesting things in the Northwest.

As he builds membership, Frost plans to define “clean technology” and offer a certification program across a broad spectrum of the industry. As the organization states in its news release (PDF 20 kb):

The Clean Technology Trade Alliance will create green collar jobs by helping identify and grow clean tech businesses. Headquartered in the Seattle area CTTA will focus on identifying U.S. clean technology companies, profiling their products and services and provide a global sales force to identify and qualify business opportunities for its member companies.

In my story, I provide examples of a type of “synergy” between clean tech companies — including a nontoxic cleaner developed by Inland Technology that helped Watson Furniture, a highly awarded company, get away from the last toxic cleaner it was using.

For details about how to define a “clean technology sector” and develop new markets for clean technology, visit the Web site for the Clean Technology Trade Alliance.

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We’ve been talking a lot lately in Water Ways about potential endocrine disruptors. It seems that trace amounts of chemicals with potential effects on hormonal systems are turning up everywhere researchers take the time to look, from local streams to large estuaries — and they may be coming from common household products.

The latest development is an announcement this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is finally moving into a program to test chemicals on the market, beginning with 67 pesticides.

The following is a story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun. If you wish to dig further, a good deal of information can be found on EPA’s Web site dealing with the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Environmental Protection Agency will soon order the manufacturers of 67 pesticides to conduct tests to determine if chemical ingredients in their products can affect the hormonal systems of humans and animals.

These upcoming orders mark the beginning of a massive chemical screening program first envisioned in 1996, when Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act. The law called for testing potential endocrine disrupters, chemicals that interfere with body systems regulated by hormones, which travel through the blood.

Environmental and health advocates have long worried that common chemicals may be interfering with growth, reproduction and metabolism by triggering unnatural responses by endocrine glands. These glands include the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal glands, along with ovaries in females and testes in males.

“Endocrine disrupters can cause lifelong health problems — especially for children,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. “Gathering this information will help us work with communities and industry to protect Americans from harmful exposure.”

(more…)

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