Boats Off!

Tim Paxton is a software developer and a board member of Clean Water Alliance. The Clean Water Alliance endorses the Boats Off! Initiative.

November 2004 voters in Bellingham and Whatcom County will likely get a chance to vote on a citizen initiative that proposes to restrict internal combustion engine usage on the city’s sole drinking water reservoir, Lake Whatcom. The “Boat’s Off!” Initiative is fairly simple in its content: voters will decide if pollution-emitting internal combustion engines should be removed from the city of Bellingham’s drinking water reservoir.

The initiative does not attempt to restrict “all outdoor activity” as is claimed by the “Motor Boats On” group nor does it preclude motorized boats to be used in patrolling or rescue operations on the reservoir. The initiative text can be read in its entirety at http://www.motorboatsoff.com.

While voters may make their voting decisions based on pure science, it is possible that the initiative may become a referendum based on a combination of science, common sense, self-interest and the current state of protecting the reservoir.

Here are a few of the potential reasons that informed voters will possibly consider as reasons for supporting the Boats Off! Initiative as they make their decision this fall.

Pollutants Discharged Into Water

All internal combustion engine motorboats discharge pollutants into the water and air as they operate. BTEX components (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene) are the main gasoline chemicals of concern but there is also the contaminant group known as PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Two-cycle engines, used in older jet skis for example, spew out from 20-40 percent of their fuel mixture as unburned contaminants. PAHs are generated by operating internal combustion engines on the reservoir and are considered to be as dangerous to human health as PCBs.

The city of Bellingham public works department has tested and found measurable levels of benzene in the city’s tap water over the last few years. The levels are present only during the summer boating season and are currently below the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maximum contamination level (MCL) standards for drinking water. The EPA goal for benzene in your tap water is zero parts per billion. Benzene is that potent of a carcinogen. Most other toxic contaminants in the lake are measured in parts per million. Benzene is regulated at a level a thousand times smaller.

According to the city public works department, benzene, which is lighter than water, reaches to depths of 37 feet to be sucked into the intake of the city’s water supply in Basin 2. As the numbers of motor boaters on Lake Whatcom increase, the benzene contamination arguably will get worse. EPA set the current MCL for benzene based on the fact that it is very expensive to remove this carcinogen from drinking water supplies—requiring water purveyors to meet the zero parts per billion goal would force many of them out of business.

PAHs or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are present in Lake Whatcom in amounts that are considered very serious. Motor boating contributes to these high levels of PAHs. Following is a quote from Marc Lappe, Ph.D., a toxicologist who looked at the Lake Whatcom watershed data recently. “The presence of high sediment levels of PAHs in Basin 1 of Lake Whatcom is indicative of prior contamination with petroleum derived chemicals. The observed levels (14,600 ug/kg of sediment) are extremely high, and are likely to remain a reservoir of contaminants in the lake water proper over the next few decades. Surface waters of tributaries to the lake contain several PAHs of health concern at levels at or above those which generate a cancer risk of one in a million, namely benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(k)fluoranthene and benzo(b)fluoranthene, each of which is present at levels ranging from five to 10 times higher than the Human Health criteria value of 0.0028ug/L.

Additional PAHs of concern in contributing waterways include chrysene and fluoranthene. Without further treatment and removal. (e.g. through activated carbon filtration), the continuing flows of PAHs at these levels would make Lake Whatcom water an unacceptable drinking water source. The likely impact of further development and accompanying increase in combustion byproducts would only add to this contaminant level.” PAHs are considered by some state ecology departments to be as dangerous to human health as PCBs. Fish in Lake Whatcom are reportedly contaminated with both PCBs and PAHs and mercury at levels so high as to be unfit for human consumption.

Many federal and state laws already exist which make it illegal to allow motorboats to dump pollutants into the drinking water reservoir. Since all internal combustion motorboats discharge pollutants into the water, it is logical to pass an initiative that simply enforces these state and federal laws. The city, county and Department of Ecology currently refuse to enforce these anti-pollution laws.

Common sense would urge a majority of voters who don’t motor boat on the reservoir to simply look at the situation in common, unabashed self-interest. Do I want my family to drink and shower in benzene-contaminated water? Allowing an ever-increasing number of polluting motorboats on their reservoir is simply not in their best interest.

Most other cities in Washington have long ago banned motorized craft from their drinking water reservoirs. For example, the city of Everett had an advisory vote in 1968 to restrict fishing boats on their civic reservoir, Spada Lake. The voters rejected motorized boating on their reservoir by a margin of nine to one. The city of Seattle has a fence around their main reservoirs.

Potentiation

The local health department is unable to answer questions such as “What happens when you combine PAHs with benzene to the PCBs and heavy metals already in the drinking water?” Potentiation is the term used when two toxins or poisons act in concert on some otherwise healthy organ in humans. For example, PCBs and mercury are known to potentiate and attack the same portion of the brain.

So, while a toxin considered alone may not generate concern, they are usually not considered in tandem with other known contaminants. Not knowing the answers to these vital public health questions argues for the use of the common sense “precautionary principle.” When in doubt, remove the risk factors to err on the side of protecting human health.

Some other possible reasons that are mentioned for removing the noisy and polluting motorboats: wildlife disruption and the elimination of potential boating-while-drinking accidents. Migrating and nesting birds are disturbed by wake, noise and water pollution. Fish in Lake Whatcom are heavily contaminated with PAHs and already largely inedible due to mercury and PCBs. The future cost to filter out contaminants should not be borne by non-boaters.

Another undeterminable factor in the voters’ minds may well be that this initiative will serve as an outlet for voters to comment on the failed efforts to protect Bellingham’s drinking water source. The Lake Whatcom reservoir is in such bad shape under the last eight years of mismanagement that it is now listed as an EPA 303(d) failed waterway for toxic mercury, PCBs and dissolved oxygen.

Urbanization of the reservoir has been given the green light by the city and county with little regard to costs or public health. Certainly no environmental impact statement has ever been done on the entire reservoir. Current management efforts are obviously failing and apparently based entirely on guesswork. The voters may decide to send another signal to the city and county officials who choose to ignore water quality problems in the reservoir while continuing to “study” the lake.

In conclusion, the Boat’s Off! Initiative will allow voters to decide yes on removing one small but serious controllable factor regarding pollution in our drinking water reservoir. §