Letterbox

Dear Watchers:

I found Tim Paxton’s no boats article in the May issue (page 9) to be so full of half-truths that one hardly knows where to begin, so I will address only one. He states that, “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.”

I grew up in Everett but was too young to vote in 1968, so I don’t know about the wording or circumstances of that vote. I do know some facts about Spada Lake, however. Unlike Lake Whatcom, it was a man-made lake created by damming the Sultan River in 1965 for use as a drinking water reservoir. It is smaller in size than Lake Whatcom but has a 50 percent greater volume of water since being expanded by four times its size in the 1980s. Spada Lake provides water to almost 600 percent more people, plus industries—over 500,000 population compared to the 85,000 served by Lake Whatcom. Snohomish County claims it can serve a much larger population without shortages. Totally man-made and man managed, and quite isolated, Spada is stocked with trout and touted by Snohomish county as a popular boat fishing recreation area where electrically motorized craft are allowed and provided with several public launches and picnic areas.

Since water sources vary, no blanket rules can apply to them all. It is not at all uncommon for drinking water sources to have multiple use watersheds, including residential, and certainly recreational. The proof is in the water quality. Lake Whatcom drinking water, before treatment, tests better than Seattle’s, and I would bet as good as or better than Everett’s as well. We are blessed with a drinking water source that is a close-in, large deep natural lake with a surrounding watershed that is about 70 percent forestry zoning and much of it in public ownership. It is misleading to compare it with other, much different areas or to ascribe conditions in the lake’s Basin 1, the shallowest and most urbanized part of the lake containing only 2 percent of the volume, as characterizing the whole lake and the whole watershed, as the “Clean Water Alliance” typically does.

The public deserves accurate information in deciding policy, not misinformation and disinformation.

Dear Watchers:

I wonder why no one has addressed the problem of airplanes on the lake? Having worked with aircraft for a number of years, I know firsthand that they leak gasoline and oil all the time. They also blow lots of unburnt, leaded gasoline when they are running rich for takeoff. Considering how sloppily some of them fly (low and loud), I would suspect that the care that they give to preserving the lake is about the same consideration as they give their neighbors.

Dear Watchers:

The Georgia-Pacific wastewater lagoon is a blight on any Bellingham waterfront restoration. Just from the standpoint of esthetics, many citizens would be delighted to see it converted to a marina and look at boats instead. Add income for Bellingham and it would be a win-win situation.

Or would it? The eight hundred pound gorilla sitting there is 21 acres of mercury-contaminated sediment three feet deep. Who would pay for disposing of it? The Bellingham Herald said that the Port of Bellingham was for upland disposal if the port condemned the lagoon and Georgia-Pacific had to pay for the disposal.

On-the-other-hand, if the Port/Georgia-Pacific agreement reaches fruition and the port gets the lagoon in exchange for the obligation to dispose of the toxic sediments in the lagoon, the shipping channels, and who knows what else, will the port be for upland disposal? Or will the port “poorboy” disposal instead of what would be sound for the long-term health of our citizens?

The public is likely to regard the cost of mercury disposal by the port as public money, and by Georgia-Pacific as not only somebody else’s money but also as money of a firm with deep pockets that also is going out of business.

The “Pilot Project” for the so-called Bellingham Bay cleanup was signed by some dozen and a half governmental agencies on 1/5/2001 after years of political conflict driven by money versus sound science on how the mercury would be disposed of. The Department of Ecology was given final authority on how the mercury would be disposed of. That does not assure impartiality as Ecology is said to be controlled by political power to cut its budget.

Surely, contracts are binding, but do they cover what is not in the contracts? Is conversion of the lagoon to a marina in the contract? Does the pilot project contract have authority over whether the lagoon is zoned for use as a marina? I don’t think so.

It is my understanding that the city of Bellingham has authority to zone Bellingham Bay including the lagoon. That was recently corroborated by a Bellingham City Council member. I believe the council’s zoning authority could be used to assure that mercury does not injure the health of citizens now and for generations to come.