Debris another culprit harming marine life in Puget Sound
Lost fishing gear, creosote pilings add to dangers
Published 10:00 pm, Friday, January 11, 2008
Lost fishing nets are deathtraps.
In a single week, a gillnet lost near the San Juan Islands killed: one harbor seal, 68 red rock and kelp crabs, 30 spiny dogfish sharks, 25 sockeye and five chinook salmon, 30 rockfish, 40 kelp greenlings, 90 flatfish, 110 spotted ratfish and 30 ling cod.
Creosote pilings are stealthier killers.
The chemicals that keep marine worms and other pests at bay are fatal to herring eggs. The saturated wood will leach its toxic chemicals for half a century, causing fatal mutations in the developing eggs even at low levels of exposure. Its deadly effects on other creatures are less well-known.
While polluted mud and stormwater grab headlines, Puget Sound's restoration efforts also are targeting the macroscopic junk trashing the marine environment. And they're making a difference.
In the past five years, 631 derelict fishing nets and 1,256 commercial and sport crab pots were pulled from the Sound. In the past three years, 1,200 tons of creosote-soaked driftwood and 2,000 tons of pilings were cleaned up.
"People can't see mercury contamination. People can see this," she said, standing among logs and blocks of wood oozing creosote on the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park near Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park.
On Thursday and Friday, about eight workers with the department and the nonprofit group EarthCorps sorted through the driftwood, pulling out wood infused with creosote or other toxic preservatives. They sniffed weathered pieces for the characteristically sweet, oily stench of creosote. Larger chunks were hauled out using "log tongs" that encircled the wood and were attached to a wooden handle. Workers grabbed each side of the handle to haul them out.
It's tough to pinpoint the source of the polluted wood. Some are the tops of dock pilings, lopped off and left to float away. There are telephone poles and railroad ties -- whose prevalence led to talks with the railroad company to get them to stop the dumping, Kaufman said.
The two-day Seattle project was part of a Sound-wide cleanup led by the Department of Natural Resources. From 2002 until next year, the department has received $6 million to do creosote cleanup. Many beaches need to be revisited again and again, but new docks mostly are being built with noncreosote, environmentally friendly materials so the need for cleanups should decrease.
While the treated poles kill some species, others -- particularly colorful frilly anemones -- call them home. That's led some in the scuba community to worry about a loss of diving spots as the pilings are pulled.
"We care about Puget Sound and want to do the right thing, but we want to continue to dive and have places to dive," said Mike Racine, president of Washington Scuba Alliance. He hopes government agencies will fill the gap by improving access to other spots, such as public beaches.
"If we can't figure out how to work together on an issue as easy and simple as this, we will never get to the point of working together on really, really thorny issues like stormwater runoff and growth and development," Racine said. "This is a perfect opportunity to learn how to play well together."
No one's objecting to the removal of derelict nets and crab pots.
"It's a significant threat to some marine resources, and it's so indiscriminate (in what it kills)," said Ginny Broadhurst, director of the Northwest Straits Commission, a government-funded agency that is leading the net removal effort.
Fishermen and divers are encouraged to report lost gear through a no-fault reporting system. Trained divers cut the nets loose and stuff them into float bags that rise to the surface.
A recent analysis found the project was cost-effective based on the market value of the fish and shellfish being killed. It concluded that $1,325 per net and $55 per crab pot was saved.
Declines in commercial fishing and new technology that helps fishermen avoid reefs and other features that snag nets has reduced the amount of gear being lost. The goal is to get nearly all of the nets removed by 2012, at a cost of about $5 million.
It's a step in the right direction to revitalizing the Sound.
"Puget Sound has a variety of ailments, and some of them are seemingly invisible, but marine debris is tangible and visible, and it's also causing harm," Broadhurst said. "We recognize that we need to tackle the whole thing. This is one piece we're focusing on."