KOMONews.com: Video shows the ugliness below the beauty of Puget Sound
Comments (42)SEATTLE -- It's been a wet January in Seattle, with close to 4 inches of rain so far. After such heavy rain, there's a river that rages under Puget Sound, but it's not all water.
Local scuba diver Laura James took her camera down off Harbor Avenue SW to document the stunning stream of storm sediment now rushing into the Sound.
It looks like a thick black plume of muck.
"People don't even think about it," James said.
James says she takes the underwater video to make people aware of the ugliness below the beauty of Puget Sound. She finds cigarette butts, candy wrappers, chewing gum -- the garbage that people toss.
"It goes somewhere. And I like to show people where it goes," she said. "Right out here in Puget Sound."
And there is the toll from our daily lives: detergents, fertilizers, oil, brake dust -- even the rubber that wears off of our tires as we drive.
"Tire rubber? I mean where does that go?" she wondered. "We have to get our tires replaced pretty regularly; I mean where does that rubber go?"
When it rains, the water runs into storm drains and eventually flows out into our local waterways. As the water runs, it picks up all kinds of things in its path.
The city maintains storm water catch basins, designed to collect larger pollutants. But stuff still makes it into Puget Sound and area lakes.
James says she sees it all as she watches the flow and examines the debris field that settles onto the ocean floor.
Seattle Public Utilities Professional Engineer Andrew Lee says storm water pollution is a significant source of pollution for our waters.
He cites a 2009 report by the Department of Ecology showed storm water is the most significant pollutant of Puget Sound. And he says our recent snow storms made things worse.
"Obviously the Seattle Department of Transportation, putting salt, as well as sand on the roads to make sure that people could still drive on them -- some of that salt and sand material might have mixed with oils that are coming off of people's cars and then in the next rain event, that stuff flushes into the separated storm water system and when it comes out it looks like that black soot type of material," he said.
But more often, Lee says it's the things we do daily, from fertilizing our lawns and gardens to tossing trash, that leave the biggest mark on Puget Sound pollution.
And he says people are not supposed to wash their cars at home. You should use a self-service car wash instead, because they collect all of the detergent-filled water, so it does not go into storm drains.
"Every decision we make even if they're tiny decisions can affect what goes out there," Lee said.
And it all effects what's living and should be thriving in Puget Sound.
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