Watching Our Water Ways

A parody of the 1996 hit single “No Diggity” by the R&B group Blackstreet has been rearranged into a new video called “Dog Doogity.”

Wanna guess what the video is about?

Produced for the campaign “Puget Sound Starts Here,” the video — posted last night — delivers a clear message about picking up dog waste: Just DOO it!

Three men who grew up together in Seattle and are now based in San Francisco produced the video, which shows a series of people walking their dogs in familiar locations around Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. The animals leave behind little surprises, which provokes singer Martin Luther (McCoy) to rush in with a plastic bag, a song and a smile.

“It was really fulfilling for three Seattle guys to do something that was a lot of fun and beneficial to our hometown,” said Peter Furia, one of three producers for the company called Seedwell. The others are Beau Lewis and David Fine. All will be 30 this year.

Lewis wrote the lyrics for “Dog Doogity” with a little help from his friends. Check it out:

In the rain, it’s a good day
Each and every day, the Northwest way
The girl and her dog, they were fine (wow)
Until they left a doodie, that’s a crime (bow wow)

Furia said the campaign started when the three men were approached by public relations expert Bob Frause, who helped develop the “Puget Sound Starts Here” campaign.

They were asked to develop a video suitable for YouTube viewers, generally a younger audience. They could choose any of the three messages being promoted by the campaign: 1) Wash your car in a carwash, where dirty water won’t wash down the storm drain; 2) Be careful with your use of lawn chemicals; or 3) Pick up after your dog when Mother Nature calls.

The choice was easy, Furia said. “We knew that dog doo was going to be the most suitable for the online video space.”

Lewis remembered the Blackstreet song and thought it would make a great tune to spoof.

“We removed the rap verse and just did the R&B parts,” Furia said. “We wanted it to be shorter and sweeter.”

With a background in music production, the three produced a high-quality sound with original instrumentation by Jeff Kite. The song sounds great through high-quality headphones.

Luther, an actor as well as a singer, really got into the project, according to Furia. “He’d been to Seattle a couple of times and thought the project was fun and funny, and he owns a dog, a mastiff.”

Unfortunately, they couldn’t get Luther’s dog transported to Seattle in time to perform in the video, but the other dogs DOO quite well on cue.

I can’t forget to mention the dance routine, created by Paul Benshoof as an imitation of the funky dancers from the original video. Of course, the full dance number could not fit on the video, but the producers saved it to a separate video for those who want more. Outtakes can be viewed on a third video.

The $40,000 song and video production is part of the $500,000 “Puget Sound Starts Here” campaign, which is spanning over 18 months with numerous radio and television spots along with newspaper and online ads.

Some 81 cities and counties involved in the campaign have organized into seven teams, each of which will receive a portion of the money for efforts in their local communities. In Kitsap County, bus ads will focus on pollution messages.

Suzi Wong Swint of Snohomish County, a leader in the “Puget Sound Starts Here” campaign, said she expects the video will get a lot of viewers.

“Everyone from all the jurisdictions really like it, “ she said.

Nobody seems to know if the original members of Blackstreet have seen the video, but Furia says it is all in good fun. Since “Dog Doogity” is an obvious parody, a commentary on the original, copyright is not an issue, he said.

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I guess we’re lucky in Kitsap County to have local health authorities who not only gather water-quality data but also know what to do with the information. I’m told that’s not the case for many counties in Washington state or across the nation.

The reason I bring this up is because of a story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun. Some of the water-quality report cards being issued by environmental groups are nothing more than a rewrite of raw data from water-quality samples collected by local officials. This could be valuable information in places where no other information is offered. But water-quality specialists at the Kitsap County Health District stand ready to interpret the data and take more samples, if necessary, so we know when we really should worry.

One bad sample does not mean we should run away from the water, but it does serve to raise some questions. Asking questions is the role I play when I see these reports. Fortunately, we have experts in Kitsap County who know our streams and beaches and who are willing and able to answer my questions.

It would be interesting to know how many counties in the state conduct routine monitoring of streams, lakes and marine waters; how many do follow-up tests when they find a problem; how many assess the findings to measure trends; and how many use the data to begin corrective actions. If anyone knows of information compiled on monitoring programs for all counties or cities, please let me know. If not, maybe this would be a project someone could take on.

Kitsap County’s monitoring program is funded by a stormwater fee collected with our property taxes. The residential fee is $70 per year. Commercial businesses may pay more, depending on their size.

Many cities and counties collect stormwater fees, but few use the money for monitoring. Even fewer compile long-term trends with a comprehensive ongoing monitoring program. Such programs deserve consideration.

In addition to paying for water-quality testing, Kitsap County’s stormwater fee is used to investigate sources of pollution; retrofit older communities with stormwater systems; clean out storm drains on county property; inspect all storm drains except for state highways; teach people about clean water; coordinate volunteers in programs including Beach Watchers and Stream Stewards; provide signs and supplies for the Mutt Mit dog-waste cleanup program; fund grants for a backyard rain garden program; and plan for and monitor results of stream-restoration and stormwater-retrofit projects.

I’m not saying that programs such as Heal the Bay and Testing the Waters (by Natural Resources Defense Council) don’t have value. In some cases, this is all that communities have, and they provide a good reason to ask questions about water quality.

But, as Keith Grellner of the Kitsap County Health District told me, these reports may be like crying wolf for some individuals. If people keep hearing warnings when the problems are minimal or nonexistent, will they pay attention in the face of serious water-quality concerns?

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It was refreshing this week to join 250 students of all ages at the GreenSTEM Summit in Belfair, where young people shared environmental projects they had been working on through the year. Check out my story in Wednesday’s Kitsap Sun.

Jaclyn Davis, 9, a third-grader at Breidablik Elementary School in North Kitsap, looks for birds during Tuesday's GreenSTEM Summit.
Kitsap Sun photo by Larry Steagall

The students came prepared to discuss their projects with others. While some students were more technically astute than others, it was clear that most had learned a great deal from the experience. Most of the 10 schools represented at the summit were engaged in some type of ecosystem analysis, such as monitoring streams for water quality.

During the first part of the day, the students visited educational displays, where experts talked about issues ranging from steelhead to cooking oysters and clams, including geoducks.

Later in the day, they became involved in “nature mapping” at the 40-acre Pacific Northwest Salmon Center. Nature mapping involves observing animals and writing notes in data sheets, as professional researchers would do.

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A third-generation study of toxic pollution in Puget Sound claims to be the best estimate so far of total amounts of toxics entering Puget Sound each year.

New report on toxics in Puget Sound (PDF 7.3 mb). Click to download.
Washington Department of Ecology

As Craig Welch of the Seattle Times points out in a story today, it’s a big exaggeration to think that Puget Sound is suffering through enough drips and drabs of oil — largely from vehicles — to equal an Exxon Valdez spill every two years.

Craig is right to point out how previous studies overestimated the amount of several toxics. After all, politicians having been tossing around the dramatic Exxon Valdez analogy when it serves their purposes. Still, the total amount of oil or any other pollutant in Puget Sound is not really a good measure of the problems we face.

If you want to understand pollution in a waterway, it’s better to measure the concentration of the pollutant, see where that level falls on a toxicity scale, then consider how fish and other organisms are exposed to the pollution.

The new study for the Department of Ecology, titled “Toxics in Surface Runoff to Puget Sound,” analyzed 21 chemicals or groups of chemicals in 16 streams in the Puyallup and Snohomish river watersheds. The watersheds contain all different land types — commercial-industrial, residential, agricultural, forest, fields and other undeveloped lands. The idea is that researchers could extrapolate from these land types to represent all of Puget Sound. But such an extrapolation still requires a number of assumptions, which can throw off the estimates by wide margins.

At least we can say the latest study involved actual water-quality sampling. Previous estimates — including those that produced the Exxon Valdez analogy — were based on measurements of stormwater in other parts of the country.

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I’m still impressed, and a little amused, by the number of videos continually being made about the water cycle.

I guess it’s good to know that even the youngest children are coming to understand this multi-layered concept that regulates all life on Earth. See YouTube video “Water Travels in a Cycle, Yes It Does.”

Government agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have produced dozens of animations about the water cycle. But sometimes it takes a little music to keep one’s attention. Check out “NASA the Water Cycle” and keep your eye on the little red water molecule.

Speaking of music, it seems everyone has a song about the water cycle. Believe it or not, most are called “The Water Cycle Song”:

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The soon-to-be-released cleanup plan for Sinclair and Dyes inlets could become a leading example of how to reduce all kinds of pollution in a waterway. Check out my story in Tuesday’s Kitsap Sun.

Based on conversations with many people involved in the project, I believe the keys to success are continual and ongoing monitoring of water quality, an unfailing commitment to identify pollution sources, and a spirit of cooperation with people who can help solve the problems.

Officials with the Kitsap County Health District and other local and state agencies will tell you that one can never walk away from a watershed with the belief that the pollution problem is solved. Still, at times, the rewards can be relatively quick, as one observes improvements in water quality after a pollution source is turned off.

Every month for the past 15 years, health district officials have gone out into the field and taken water samples from nearly every stream in Kitsap County — some 58 streams at last count. Often, these monthly tests provide assurance than cleanup plans are working. Occasionally, they offer an early warning that someone in the watershed is doing something to degrade water quality.

If you haven’t checked the health district’s Water Quality website, I would recommend reading through some of the reports under “Featured Water Quality Reports,” particularly the “2010 Water Quality Monitoring Report.”

Monthly water-quality testing over time tells a story about differences between wet years and dry years, about the effects of new development, and about successes that follow cleanup of problem farms, septic systems or yards containing dog feces.

I think it would be a big step forward if every significant stream in the state were monitored monthly for at least bacterial pollution. The results would help all levels of government set priorities for dealing with stormwater and other pollution sources.

Sinclair and Dyes inlets animation of hypothetical treatment system failure in East Bremerton (Click to launch; shift-reload to restart)
Project Envvest

Another factor worth mentioning in regard to the Sinclair-Dyes cleanup is the Navy’s funding for Project Envvest, a cooperative effort between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington Department of Ecology and the Navy. The resulting computer model helped describe the flow of pollution under various rainfall scenarios. It can even predict the movement of pollution resulting from various kinds of spills.

The animation (right) shows what would happen if the ultraviolet infection system were to fail in the East Bremerton treatment plant, which handles stormwater mixed with sewage during periods of heavy rainfall. Tidal flows make a big difference. This simulated spill is 7,000 gallons per minute for a total of 10 million gallons. See CSO Simulation Scenarios to view other animations from the model.

Other websites related to the Sinclair-Dyes project:

Project Envvest Status, Progress, Reports, and Deliverables (Navy)

Sinclair/Dyes Inlets Water Quality Improvement Project (Ecology)

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In 1988, I took a flight in a Cessna single-engine airplane over the South Fork of the Skokomish River. The trip was offered by Project Lighthawk, an organization that used small aircraft to provide a bird’s eye view of environmental problems throughout the West.

We flew over Hood Canal before reaching Olympic National Forest, where the scene was dominated by extensive brown patches — clearcuts, where all the trees had been removed from mountaintops, valleys and even steep, impassible slopes. Gone were old-growth trees, with trunks up to 6 or 8 feet across.

At the time, The Wilderness Society was working with Lighthawk to estimate how much land had been logged over and how much remained. Their conclusion was that the Forest Service had overestimated the amount of standing timber remaining in the area. Check out the Time magazine article by John Skow from Aug. 29, 1988.

Pictures taken from Lighthawk airplanes helped awaken people across the country to the need to protect remaining old-growth forests, recalled Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society. I quoted Mike in a Kitsap Sun story from February of 2009:

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To me, Earth Day has always meant two things: education and action. Of course, I would never object to the entertainment that accompanies many Earth Day events, because learning and good deeds ought to involve fun and laughter.

For years, my wife Sue and I drove over to Sequim on the Saturday after Earth Day to help clean up Dungeness Spit, which happens to be the place she and I went on our first date many years ago. We stopped going for health reasons but hope to get started again.

Tracyton resident Don Larson has organized the Sinclair Inlet Cleanup twice each year for the past 21 years. Now Don and his fellow organizer John Denis are a couple of guys who truly understand the Earth Day spirit and what it means to give back to your community.

Don told me this week that he was impressed with the crew that showed up at Saturday’s cleanup. He was particularly inspired by Jim Anderson, a 66-year-old Bremerton resident who regularly picks up trash along the Bremerton boardwalk as he moves along in an electric wheelchair, accompanied by his guide dog Raffle.

“He’s a phenomenal guy,” Larson said. “He has these hand-grabber picker-ups. He and his wife Jackie clean up periodically all year long as he moves around the waterfront.

“With Jim and Jackie, the human spirit really comes out. You hear about all the bad stuff in the world, then you meet a person like that who gets out and helps the community. It just makes you feel good.”

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An investigation into the causes of low-oxygen conditions in Hood Canal is coming to a close with this week’s release of a final report by the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program.

The pattern of fall oxygen levels show severely depleted waters from Twanoh State Park to Hoodsport with much better conditions to the north. (Click to enlarge.)
Map courtesy of Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program

I described the report in general terms in a story published in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun. You may read the report for yourself at the HCDOP website.

What the five-year study learned about Hood Canal seems quite impressive. The full report contains extensive discussions about what causes oxygen to decline, the triggering mechanism for fish kills, the inputs of nitrogen that drive the system and much more.

One of the conclusions, which I focused on in my latest story, is that nitrogen from septic systems in Southern Hood Canal appears to be a pivotal factor in fish kills. When the natural decline in oxygen approaches a dangerous range, the added nitrogen from septic systems can tip the balance, causing excessive stress and sometimes death for marine creatures.

According to the report, one cannot easily separate the natural factors from the human factors that create problems in Hood Canal. The long, narrow fjord is flushed slowly compared to most marine systems. Organic carbon and nitrogen, which are the major players in oxygen decline, naturally come in from streams, groundwater and the Pacific Ocean. Numerous human sources, such as septic systems and fertilizers, must be taken into account.

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Kitsap County Commissioner Steve Bauer may have been appointed to his county post because of his financial abilities, but his concern for the environment will be his legacy for the county.

Steve Bauer

That’s the opinion of his fellow commissioner, Josh Brown, who talked about Bauer last week during Bauer’s last formal meeting of the commissioners.

Bauer, a former member of the Puget Sound Partnership’s Ecosystem Coordination Board, had been city manager in Bellevue. He also served for nine years as director of finance and administration for the city of Portland.

In Bauer’s four years as a Kitsap County commissioner, his financial abilities have proven useful as the county suffered through a “financial meltdown” and severe budget cuts as a result of the recession, Brown said, adding that the county’s budget has been slashed from $89 million to $80 million in a single year.

From the first time they sat together as commissioners, Brown said it became clear that Bauer’s greatest passion was for cleaning up Puget Sound.

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