Whatcom Watch Celebrates 15 Years of Publishing!

May 2006 through May 2007 marks our 15th year of publishing local environmental news for you. It’s our seventh year of presenting voting reports. Thank you to those of you who support us through subscription donations, advertising with us, volunteering in some capacity or by reading Whatcom Watch. Thank you to writers, photographers, artists and poets who contribute to our pages. We exist because of you.

For years, Whatcom Watch has presented the “state of Lake Whatcom reports” and in this paper we offer another front-page report on this issue. We feel Bellingham’s drinking water supply, Lake Whatcom, is of utmost importance to our health, our future survival and to the health and survival of other living creatures. We’ve harped on this issue more than any other issue. In 2001 and again in 2005, Whatcom Watch published candidate questionnaires, which asked hard questions about candidates’ views on Lake Whatcom watershed protection. The Clean Water Alliance held a few forums, during which certain candidates promised to protect Lake Whatcom.

Did the City Council and County Council candidates who are now in office practice what they preached in their questionnaires and at the forums? If so, then why is the lake in trouble? Who do we hold accountable for the demise of our drinking water resource? Which of them buckled under pressure from developers? More to the point, which elected official did not buckle?

Do we really think any of our local leaders will object to the addition of more chlorine, a carcinogen, to our drinking water supply? Will any single elected official finally grow a backbone and demand immediate action to halt the rapid degradation now occurring in all basins of Lake Whatcom?

Citizens began speaking about the need to protect our drinking water source at public meetings in the early 1980s. What does it take? How many Whatcom Watch articles, how many people advocating for public health, how many cancer deaths? Do the rights of builders and developers to make huge profits trump the right of all citizens to drink clean water?

It’s past time to demand answers, folks. We’re losing our drinking water resource. §