Public campaign targets Hood Canal's dirty secret

By David Ammons
The Associated Press

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OLYMPIA — Hood Canal, a scenic and seemingly pristine arm of the Pacific Ocean, is polluted, and government needs to quickly identify the culprits and reverse the damage before the fjord becomes a dead sea, Gov. Gary Locke and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said yesterday.

The two announced a crackdown that will include federal, state, local, tribal and volunteer efforts, underwritten by millions in state and federal dollars. They're hoping to announce a plan of attack by April.

Hood Canal is one of the worst pollution hot spots on the West Coast, said Brad Ack, chairman of the interagency Puget Sound Action Team.

"This is an area that rises to the top as a flashing red light, a situation that needs attention," he said.

Dicks, D-Bremerton, and fellow Democrat Locke said it probably will require the thousands of people who live along the 61-mile-long fjord to change their ways, preferably through voluntary compliance, rather than government edict or shutdowns.

The "canal" was formed by glacial action 3 million years ago and got its final hook shape about 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. It has 242 miles of shoreline, compared with the total Puget Sound shoreline of about 2,500 miles.

In the past two years, thousands of fish and shellfish have died and parts of the fjord have been closed to fishing. At their joint news conference, Dicks and Locke displayed a jarring set of pictures: one a peaceful seascape, the other a still life of dead fish that washed ashore.

Locke said the pollution includes stormwater runoff from roads and developed areas, failing septic systems, agricultural runoff and fertilizer from lawns and farms. The pollution causes plankton and algae to grow, robbing the oxygen that fish need to survive. The problem is particularly bad for bottom fish, octopi and sea cucumbers.

Monitoring shows the problem is growing worse, Locke said.
 
"It's the development," Dicks added.

As population and the trappings of civilization spring up along the shoreline, pollution seems to follow, he said. It's not a single industrial polluter or U.S. Navy operations on the canal or some other installation causing the bulk of the problem; "It's us," he said.

There are, for instance, about 6,000 cabins and year-round homes in lower Hood Canal and 5,500 septic tanks in the lower canal watershed. Mason County has one part-time employee assigned to regulating septic tanks and no ordinance requiring property owners to allow the inspector on their property.

In the past 10 years, Belfair, at the tip of the canal in unincorporated Mason County, has been allowed to grow into a full-scale town, with supermarkets, restaurants and video stores, all without a sewer system.

Many of the cottages and fancy homes lining the shore are not hooked up to a sewer.

"It's a death by a thousand cuts," Ack said, referring to the numerous causes of the problem.

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