Seattle mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan says in a press release this afternoon that bike lanes in the city are painted with "toxic paint."

"Mayor Nickels has tried to pretend to be the pro-bike mayor but, not being a bike rider himself, he has failed to realize that Seattle's bike lanes are unsafe due to years of negligence from the city. Not only are they not cleaned or maintained, they were painted with toxic paint."

Marybeth Turner, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Transportation, says the bike lanes are painted with water-based paint that is not toxic. The bike-rider icons on the streets are not painted on ­-- they're "thermo-plastic applications" stuck to the road.

Are those toxic? I asked. Turner said she didn't know, but she said, "I don't think you would normally eat something that you find on the road."

True.

UPDATE: Mallahan campaign spokeswoman Charla Neuman said the concern is for the salmon. She said the campaign's sources are SDOT employees, but she would not name them. She said the workers say the paint doesn't adhere properly to the road and can make it into streams, where it may harm salmon.

She doesn't know whether the paint in question is really paint, or a thermo-plastic application, but she promised to get back to me, adding, "I don't want to make claims that I don't know to be true," she said.

UPDATING THE UPDATE: Neuman just called back to say the toxic paint isn't all around the city. Rather, she said, the paint in question is the green paint on streets downtown.