Contaminated stormwater has been identified as the greatest
threat to Puget Sound water quality, and state and federal
governments are addressing the stormwater problem in numerous
ways.
The animated videos on this page are part of an educational
program established as part of the “Puget Sound Starts Here”
outreach. This past summer, these videos were posted on YouTube as
part of a school curriculum called “Drain Rangers.”
I spotted the videos this past week while working on a blog post
about how well local governments in the Puget Sound region are
embracing stormwater regulations mandated by state and federal
permits. See
“Stormwater Report …,” Water Ways, Dec. 15.
The first video on this page is a general introduction to the
stormwater problem, based on the idea that it takes 15 minutes for
pollution to reach a river. Two videos in the series are similar,
although one includes more solutions. I’ve chosen the longer one,
called “Video Two.” The third video discusses some basic solutions,
while the last goes into more advanced treatments. Others can be
found on the Drain
Rangers Channel on YouTube.
“Polluted stormwater runoff is one of many environmental
problems our students will face,” the paper states. “By equipping
our students at a young age with the problem-solving tools of the
engineer and the verbal and written skills of an effective
communicator, we are preparing these students to solve the
difficult and challenging environmental issues that affect our
present and our future.”
The lessons are designed to meet state requirements for science,
literacy and other educational standards. The curriculum addresses
the problem of pollution as well as solutions.
“This curriculum introduces students to a problem-solving model
where they think like an engineer and explore ways to solve the
problem of polluted stormwater runoff,” according to the
final report (PDF 965 kb) on the project funded by the
Washington Department of Ecology.
According to the report, the grant project produced 15 teacher
trainings, pilot projects in nine schools, four videos, six
illustrations, 13 facts sheets and five posters. At least 34
schools signed up to implement the curriculum during the current
school year, with about 70 schools expected to participate in
2018-19.
UPDATE, March 10, 2016
I’ve added links for three previous reports related to the
degradation of pharmaceuticals and personal care products.
—–
Concerns are growing about medications and person-care products
that pass through sewage-treatment plants and into Puget Sound,
where the chemicals can alter the physiology and behavior of fish
and other organisms.
Almost everywhere scientists have looked, they have found drugs
that people have either flushed down the drain or passed through
their bodies. Either way, many active pharmaceutical compounds are
ending up in the sewage at low levels. Conventional
sewage-treatment plants can break down up to 90 percent or more of
some compounds, but others pass through unaltered.
Now, researchers are working on a process that would use
specialized bacteria to break down pharmaceutical compounds at
existing sewage-treatment plants. The idea, developed by
researchers at the University of Washington, is ready for a limited
pilot project at one of the treatment plants in the Puget Sound
region.
Heidi Gough, left, and
Nicolette Zhou with a table-top sewage-treatment plant in the
lab.
UW photo
Studies into this issue began more than 20 years ago, when it
became clear that all sorts of compounds were passing through
sewage-treatment plants and getting into the environment. Among the
early findings was that male fish exposed to artificial
birth-control hormones were changing into female fish. Later
studies showed that common antidepressant medications seemed to be
changing the behavior of fish, making them easier targets for
predators.
In addition to estrogens and antidepressants, researchers have
found blood thinners, cholesterol-reducing drugs, various heart
medications, several hormones and painkillers, along with caffeine,
cocaine and various cosmetic and cleansing chemicals.
A study funded by the
Environmental Protection Agency looked for 56 active
pharmaceutical compounds in sewage effluent from 50 major treatment
plants around the country, finding significant levels of many
compounds.
A new study by NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the
University of Washington looked at 150 compounds coming from two
sewage treatment plants in Puget Sound. They were Bremerton’s plant
on Sinclair Inlet and Tacoma’s plant on Commencement Bay. They also
tested the local waters along with juvenile chinook salmon and
Pacific staghorn sculpin to see if the fish were picking up the
compounds.
According to a
NOAA news release, the study “found some of the nation’s
highest concentrations of these chemical compounds and detected
many in fish at concentrations that may affect their growth or
behavior.” For additional reporting on that study, check out the
Kitsap Sun story by Tristan Baurick and the
Seattle Times story by Lynda Mapes.
These chemicals could be having effects on various animals in
the food web — from benthic organisms that live in the sediments to
marine mammals — but more study is needed. Complicating the
situation is that multiple pharmaceutical chemicals may work
together to create different effects, depending on their
concentrations and the affected organism.
Many people would argue that we have enough information to
dramatically increase our efforts to remove these compounds from
wastewater going into Puget Sound. Drug take-back programs have
been started in many cities and counties throughout Puget Sound to
encourage people not to flush unused pills down the toilet or
drain. See the
Take Back Your Meds website. Still, Washington state has yet to
develop a comprehensive statewide program that would cover
everyone.
Meanwhile, nobody can say what percentage of the drugs going
into the treatment plants were dumped down the drain versus being
excreted from the human body. But it wouldn’t matter as much if the
chemicals could be eliminated at the sewage-treatment plant.
More than a decade ago, Heidi Gough of the UW’s Department of
Civil & Environmental Engineering began working on the development
of bacteria that could break down these chemicals of concern. She
and her colleagues have isolated cultures of bacteria that can
break down triclosan, an antimicrobial; bisphenol A, a plasticizer;
ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory drug; 17β-estradiol, a natural
hormone; and gemifibrozil, a cholesterol-lowering drug.
The process of isolating helpful bacteria and boosting their
numbers could theoretically be used to break down almost any
chemical of concern. To be suitable, the bacteria must 1) break
down the target chemical to a very low level, 2) grow well in
common growth media without the target chemical, 3) break down the
chemical even when other nutrient sources are abundant, and 4) work
quickly within the normal rate of sewage treatment.
Nicolette Zhou, a former UW graduate student, worked with Heidi
to successfully develop a bench-top treatment plant to test the
process. Nicolette also produced a computer model of how the
operation would perform at a large-scale treatment plant. She
completed her analysis and received her doctorate degree last fall.
Her latest findings are now awaiting publication in a scientific
journal.
Degradation of triclosan and bisphenol A by five bacteria,
Pub
Med.
Cultivation and characterization of bacteria capable of
degrading pharmaceutical and personal care products, Pub Med.
Other systems have been proposed for breaking down complex
pharmaceuticals, such as advanced oxidation or other chemical or
physical treatment. But biological breakdown offers the most hope
in the short term,
because it is how most
sewage-treatment plants workcan be implemented quickly without
major modifications and appears to be economical on a large
scale, Nocolette told me.
In a large-scale system, the first step would be to identify the
specific contaminants to be reduced and then select the bacteria.
Some bacteria will break down multiple chemicals, she said.
The bacteria would be grown in a tank and be fed into the sewage
digestersreactors,
preferably in a continual flow. Multiple chemicals of concern might
require several tanks for growing different bactieria.
If the process is successful and adopted by many treatment
plants, an alternative process could be developed. Instead of
growing the bacteria onsite, where conditions could be difficult to
control, all sorts of bacteria could be grown in an industrial
facility. The industrial plant would isolate the actual enzymes
needed to break down the chemicals and ship them to the treatment
plants. The enzymes could be stored and fed into the treatment
process as needed.
The research into this treatment process has progressed to where
the next step is a small-scale pilot project at a sewage-treatment
plant in the Puget Sound area, Nicolette said. A portion of the
actual wastewater would be diverted to the pilot plant, where
sewage would be subjected to the specialized bacteria and tested
for the level of treatment.
Ultimately, more studies are needed to establish a safe
concentration for the various chemicals that come from
pharmaceuticals and personal-care products. That way, one could
culture the appropriate bacteria and establish a reasonable
effluent limit for chemicals going into Puget Sound.
Water-quality leaders in the Washington Department of Ecology
and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were quick to respond
yesterday to a
Seattle Times’ story, which begins:
“Seattle and King County are poised to spend more than $1.3
billion of ratepayer money on pollution-cleanup programs that won’t
even move the water-quality needle in Puget Sound.”
Yesterday’s story, by reporter Linda Mapes, is about combined
sewage overflows — something that Bremerton knows a little about,
having completed a cleanup program after 20 years and $50 million
in expenditures. See my story from
May 30 in the Kitsap Sun.
The premise of Linda’s story is that it might be better for
local governments to focus on reducing stormwater overall rather
trying to meet a 1988 state pollution standard focused on raw
sewage discharges. After all, the reasoning goes, stormwater
containing toxic chemicals may be worse for Puget Sound than
stormwater mixed with sewage.
The state requirement, by the way, limits discharges of raw
sewage in stormwater to one overflow per year, on average, for each
outfall pipe.
There is plenty of room for disagreement, as the Times’ story
points out. Christie True, director of King County Natural
Resources and Parks, stresses that upcoming CSO projects will
reduce the public’s exposure to untreated sewage. But Larry
Phillips, a member of the King County Council, says dollars spent
on CSO projects can’t be spent on buying habitat or attacking the
surface-runoff problem, which the Puget Sound Partnership has
deemed the region’s top priority.
Bill Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the EPA and former
chairman of the Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council, was
quoted as saying:
“This is just crazy; we don’t have unlimited funds in this
country, and whatever we do, we ought to spend where we get the
most bang for the buck … Cost-benefit has not been part of the
discussion.”
David Dicks, former executive director of the partnership and
now a member of the Leadership Council, said this:
“It’s just momentum. And what you learn in these things is you
can go in and scream and yell and be a revolutionary for a while,
but the institutional momentum of these laws has a lot of power,
and it is just dumb power. … What we need to do is turn off the
autopilot and see what makes sense here.”
Ecology and EPA officials took a stand in favor of the existing
rules for reducing sewage discharges. Both issued quick responses
to the Seattle Times article, writing on a blog called
ECOconnect
From Kelly Susewind, manager of Ecology’s Water Quality
Program:
“Infrastructure investments are needed to address water
pollution caused by both CSO and stormwater discharges. In areas
served by combined systems, CSO projects provide solutions to both
CSO and stormwater pollution.
“The investments ratepayers make in their communities’ CSO
programs protect public health and Washington’s waters, two
principal missions of sewer and stormwater utilities. The success
of these projects advances the goals of our state and federal laws
to protect, clean up and preserve our waters for present and future
generations.”
Adds Dennis McLerran, EPA’s regional administrator:
“Discharging large amounts of raw sewage to Puget Sound and Lake
Washington is simply not acceptable. That’s why EPA has worked
closely with the state, King County and Seattle over many years to
address sewage treatment and the ongoing problem of Combined Sewer
Overflow (CSO) pollution. With that work nearly completed, now is
not the time to lose our resolve to finish the job visionary
leaders in the Puget Sound region started some 40 years ago.”
Cost versus benefits for
Bremerton CSO project (click to enlarge)
Kitsap Sun graphic
Shellfish were not mentioned in this discussion — maybe because
it was focused on Seattle and King County, where industrial
pollution is a major problem. In Kitsap County, shellfish are worth
millions of dollars a year to the local and regional economy. For
Dyes Inlet, the reopening of shellfish beds probably would not have
happened except for a lawsuit that forced the city of Bremerton to
comply with the federal Clean Water Act on a strict time
schedule.
Lisa Stiffler, former PI reporter who now works for Sightline
Institute, discussed Bremerton’s accomplishment with a focus on the
cost. See “How Bremerton cleaned its waters, and came to wonder
about the costs” in the online publication
Crosscut.
A case can be made that shellfish beds in Dyes Inlet could have
been cleaned up enough to be reopened by spending just the first
$33 million, thereby saving the extra $17 million that it took to
bring the city into full compliance with federal law.
But state and county health officials have told me on many
occasions that Bremerton and Kitsap County, along with local
residents, must continue to work hard to keep the Dyes Inlet
shellfish beds open. Beaches in the inlet remain on the verge of
closure again, and population growth tends to exacerbate the
bacterial pollution.
Kitsap County Health District is respected for its monitoring
and pollution-fighting program, but it does help to know that
release of raw sewage into the inlet has become a very rare
event.
Lisa makes a good point when she says Bremerton would have saved
money if engineers would have known more about low-impact
development during the planning for CSO reductions. Infiltrating
rain water near the source (preferably before it runs off the
property) reduces the need to deal with stormwater flowing through
pipes. Keeping stormwater out of sewer lines by using LID
techniques effectively allows the pipes to carry all the sewage to
the treatment plants, even during heavy rains.
Bremerton has become a leader in LID. If city officials had
known 20 years ago what they know today, they probably would have
spent more on pervious pavement and rain gardens and less on
expensive piping networks. But it appears they did their best with
the knowledge they had — and LID has become a major part of ongoing
efforts to address stormwater.
Cities still working on CSO problems may find Bremerton’s
experience helpful. Keeping stormwater out of pipes is proving
effective, whether or not those pipes also contain sewage.