FRONTLINE: Poisoned Waters (Puget Sound)

Summary

Puget Sound is facing severe pollution issues that have put it in a critical state, with pollution levels equating it to being in an 'intensive care unit.' Despite decades since the Clean Water Act, the waters are afflicted by historical and ongoing chemical contaminants, including PCBs, affecting the entire ecosystem. Orca populations are declining, becoming a symbol for the region's ecological troubles. The complexities of economic development, industrial legacy pollutants, and the impacts of stormwater runoff compound the issue, affecting wildlife and human communities alike. A collective effort to address these concerns is necessary, with focus shifting towards personal responsibility for pollution. Public engagement is emphasized as essential for driving change and finding viable solutions.

Highlights

• Puget Sound is critically endangered due to decades of pollution, urgently needing cleanup. 🌊
• The killer whales are showing alarming levels of PCBs, a symptom of broader contamination. 🐋
• Efforts to clean the Duwamish River face significant resource and contamination challenges. 🏞️
• Stormwater runoff, a major contributor to pollution, is inadequately controlled. ⛈️
• A significant challenge is finding balance and justice among industrial, agricultural, and tribal interests. ⚖️
• Public involvement is crucial; without it, solving these issues may remain elusive. 🤝

Key Takeaways

• Puget Sound's pollution crisis is severe, with historical and new pollutants threatening the ecosystem's health. 🌊
• Orcas in Puget Sound are drastically affected by pollutants, making them a barometer for ecological health. 🐋
• Locals and governments are disputed on the responsibility and approaches to cleanup efforts. ⚖️
• Stormwater runoff has been identified as a significant source of ongoing pollution. 🌧️
• Collaboration between farmers, tribes, and governments brings challenging but crucial solutions. 👥
• Public engagement and responsibility are essential for addressing water pollution. 🗣️

Overview

Frontline's special report delves deep into the heart of Puget Sound's pollution crisis, likening it to a patient in dire need of care due to decades of toxic exposure. Correspondent Hedrick Smith explores the historical misuse of chemicals like PCBs and their disastrous ecological impact today, highlighting also the alarming decline in orca populations.

This investigative documentary illustrates the complex interplay between economic development and environmental health, detailing the struggles of local communities, industry players, and governmental bodies against the backdrop of Superfund sites, industrial runoff, and a changing estuary ecosystem.

Despite the daunting challenges, the program emphasizes hope through collaboration and advocacy. It shows that significant improvement lies in increased public awareness and involvement, addressing stormwater management, engaging responsible personal actions, and restoring healthy ecological balances in the region.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:00: Introduction Puget Sound, an important estuary in America, is facing severe environmental threats. The situation is described as critical, likened to an 'intensive care unit,' indicating the urgency of the problem. Despite the Clean Water Act being in place for over 30 years, the chapter suggests a need for reassessment of the actions taken and highlights the risks of further deterioration.
• 02:00 - 09:00: Problems in Puget Sound The chapter titled 'Problems in Puget Sound' discusses the ongoing issues with cleaning up Puget Sound. Despite appearances, the sound is suffering from severe contamination similar to a growing cancer. In a special Frontline report, correspondent Hedrick Smith investigates the historical pollution issues in the area. He highlights the contaminants like PCBs, which were extensively used by local municipalities, industries, and the military. The chapter also explores new threats, noting the addition of approximately 150,000 pounds of untreated waste daily, which exacerbates the pollution problem.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Killer Whales as Indicators The chapter discusses the environmental issues facing Puget Sound, with a focus on toxic pollution affecting king salmon, a critical resource in the area.
• 15:00 - 27:00: PCB Pollution in Puget Sound The chapter titled 'PCB Pollution in Puget Sound' investigates the sources and impact of pollution in the Puget Sound, focusing on the presence of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a group of man-made organic chemicals known for their environmental persistence and potential health hazards. This summary delves into the pathways through which PCBs enter the ecosystem, their effect on wildlife and human health, and the efforts being made to monitor, control, and remediate PCB contamination in the area. Insights into policy actions, community involvement, and scientific research are provided to offer a comprehensive understanding of this environmental issue.
• 27:00 - 35:30: Salmon and Native Tribes The chapter titled 'Salmon and Native Tribes' likely explores the relationship between the native tribes in the Puget Sound area and the local salmon population. It begins by setting the scene with a focus on the natural beauty and majesty of Puget Sound, potentially indicating the significance of this location in relation to the tribes and salmon.
• 35:30 - 44:00: Nisqually River Restoration The chapter discusses the Nisqually River as a cherished and beautiful natural area with great ecological and economic significance. It serves as a gateway to the Pacific Ocean and is historically abundant in fish and wildlife. The Puget Sound region benefits economically from this river, highlighting its importance for tourism, fisheries, and broader economic contributions.
• 44:00 - 57:00: Stormwater Runoff Threat The chapter titled 'Stormwater Runoff Threat' discusses the significant role that estuaries play both economically and environmentally, highlighting that these regions are some of the most productive places in the world. Despite their historical productivity, the text expresses concern that these areas, particularly the sound mentioned, are currently under threat, signifying a decline in their health and productivity.
• 57:00 - 66:00: Land Use in King County The chapter discusses the critical environmental situation of Puget Sound in King County. It highlights the dire state of the ecosystem, which has been evident for decades, and stresses the urgency of the matter. The chapter emphasizes the plight of species nearing extinction as indicators of severe underlying problems. It specifically mentions regional icons like killer whales, or orcas, which are not only significant for biodiversity but also a major tourist attraction. The declining condition of Puget Sound orcas is used to underscore the region's environmental challenges.
• 66:00 - 75:00: Conclusion Scientists are closely studying certain indicators in the Puget Sound as a means to gauge the overall health of the ecosystem there. Brad Hansen, a team leader with NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), along with his colleagues, are involved in this research.
• 75:00 - 82:00: Call to Action and Resources The chapter explains the significance of studying orcas, given their position as top predators in the food chain. This gives insight into the ecological health of their environment since they accumulate contaminants from their prey, serving as indicators of the ecosystem's state. The narrative hints at concerning findings from orca research.

FRONTLINE: Poisoned Waters (Puget Sound) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] Puget Sound it's one of America's great Coastal estuaries and it is in Peril I would put Puget Sound in the Intensive Care Unit the situation is critical you can't let it continue to deteriorate without paying a real price later on three decades after the Clean Water Act Frontline takes a hard look at why we
• 00:30 - 01:00 failed for so long to clean up pet sound this is sick doesn't look sick but it is sick it's like a cancer that's growing in a special report Frontline correspondent Hedrick Smith uncovers the danger to Puget Sound tracking historic pollution Puget Sound is contaminated because pcps were heavily used by municipalities by industry by the military probing new threats we put in about 150,000 lb a day day of untreated
• 01:00 - 01:30 toxics into Puget Sound following King Salmon nobody can make a living anymore out of strictly sammon these people exterminated their resource and now I'm the guy who's to blame and discovering the ultimate problem it's about the way we all live and unfortunately we are all polluters people say you your generation you lost it you weren't willing to step up and save it tonight on front line
• 01:30 - 02:00 investigating what's poisoning Puget [Music] Sound
• 02:00 - 02:30 [Music] [Laughter] Puget Sound one of America's great natural wonders overwhelming in its sheer Beauty its stunning Vistas its vast Majesty
• 02:30 - 03:00 it's a place I've come to know in recent years and to cherish as a phenomenal resource a gorgeous natural playground gateway to the Pacific and historically a treasure House of Fish and Wildlife Puget Sound is an economic engine for this region so it's yes it's about tourism and yes it's about Fisheries but it's also about the
• 03:00 - 03:30 fundamental quality of life that we all enjoy here it's economic and environmental significance transcends the region it's a global asset I think these sort of estuaries large estuaries are the most productive environmental places in the world and this is one of the biggest historically one of the most productive but today the sound is in peril
• 03:30 - 04:00 I would put Puget Sound in the Intensive Care Unit I the situation is critical we've known for decades that Puget Sound had serious issues but we're at a point now where the the species that are almost extinct are are telling us we've got some real bottom line problems here take these Regional icons the killer whales or orcas they're a major tourist attraction but Inc increasingly Puget Sound orchids
• 04:00 - 04:30 are being closely studied by scientists as a barometer of the health of the entire Puget Sound to see what scientists are learning I headed out with Brad Hansen a team leader with Noah the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration up over there yep Hansen and his colleagues have been
• 04:30 - 05:00 tracking and sampling the orcca population for several years why study these whales well they're the the top predator in the food chain so they're essentially accumulating all the contaminants they're the you know the last stop and in the food chain and so they're a laboratory in a way they're a laboratory that tells you tells you what's going on in the whole ecosystem yes yeah the Orca story is troubling last
• 05:00 - 05:30 year seven local orcas died their population is now down to 85 so low that three years ago Noah declared Puget Sound orcas and endangered species to figure out why the Orca population is in Decline Hansen's team goes out after biological samples you're going to get up pretty close to these whales in order to take samples at some point right we get within just four or five meters four or five meters so that's up close yep
• 05:30 - 06:00 they shoot darts into the orcas and extract small samples of blubber that blubber is sent to the lab to be tested for a slew of contaminants especially Telltale toxins like pcbs the lab results have been alarming our research over the last 10 to 13 years has been able to demonstrate that these killer whales are the most PCB contaminated marine mammals in the world
• 06:00 - 06:30 so we're very very concerned about what that might mean to their health pcbs are cancer-causing chemicals so toxic that Congress banned them three decades ago but they keep showing up pcbs are probably the number one persistent contaminant of concern anywhere at the Northern Hemisphere they bio accumulate in food webs you mean they build up they build up in food webs and in organisms we have trouble getting rid of them we we have a lot of trouble
• 06:30 - 07:00 getting them out of our system when I say we uh I mean humans rats Killa whales harbor seals doesn't really matter pcbs are a problem not just for orca whales these animals are eating wild fish wild fish is good for us too but if there's contaminants in it it's going to have an adverse impact on us so you that's that's the thing is that that's why these animals are important Sentinel Spees not just for the ecosystem in general but also for him
• 07:00 - 07:30 [Music] as at the whale Research Center Director Ken balom has been keeping records for three decades on the whales that make Puget Sound their regular home fewer whales are making it to maturity the population is declining we are seeing uh probably
• 07:30 - 08:00 the next 20 years will be witnessing the departure of this population do you think they're gone they're going to die out I've already told our government folks that we can go through this for about 20 more years if we don't provide a remedy and we will see the end of this population balam and his staff know these whales so well by sight that they can track them from birth to death so what's this what are these charts uh these are the family trees of all the whales we've been studying for the past
• 08:00 - 08:30 32 years the tombstone markers balol told me underscore a worrisome Trend among the youngest most vulnerable orcus mothers and babies these older whales up here they died that that's kind of normal but to have so many down here these younger whales dying is that a bad sign that's the distressing part is the mortality pattern we're seeing now is that young whales are dying way before they even mature so the is alarmed at
• 08:30 - 09:00 the high levels of pcbs that Hansen's team found in younger whales which absorb the toxins from their mother's milk EXA in the last two or three years my reaction has been astonishment that the levels of toxins are rising so rapidly are there enough parallels between the way the human body works the chemistry and biology of the human body and the whales so that we can actually take lessons from them yes we can take lessons from not
• 09:00 - 09:30 only the whales but the seals and the fish and it's been demonstrated in the health statistics in especially Arctic environments cold environments where there's a high fat diet the children of these high Arctic people are suffering these same problems immune deficiencies reproductive problems nervous disorders attention deficits all of these things are affecting humans as well as the other mammals okay those are the sish fish like humans
• 09:30 - 10:00 orca whales like to eat King Salmon known locally as shanuk so scientists at this Noah Testing Lab are studying just how badly pcbs have contaminated the Puget Sound food web Sandy O'Neal and her team are measuring PCB levels in shanuk Salmon I head Sandy how are you good to see you so tell me what's going on here well these are fish that are going to be analyzed for contaminants so we want to
• 10:00 - 10:30 know what levels are in the fish that killer whales are eating this is like salmon hamburger meat which you then sample exactly it's basically a salmon burger for a whale what do you find out about the Puget Sound king salmon how contaminated are they in general Puget Sound um salmon shinuk salmon are about three to five times more contaminated with pcbs than other salmon populations along the west coast
• 10:30 - 11:00 that we've sampled everything we see points to Puget Sound being a hot spot for pcbs and a persistent problem we've seen uh contamination of animals we've seen no improvement in uh the levels of pcbs in the last 20 odd years despite regulations implemented in the 1970s and that to me indicates there are continuous inputs from landbase sources from the set
• 11:00 - 11:30 and delivering them right into that food [Music] web one big reason pcbs are a persistent problem is that it takes so long to clean up places like the dames River Seattle's industrial Corridor some of Seattle's heaviest Industries settled here decades ago and today it's the Region's largest Hotpot for pcbs
• 11:30 - 12:00 [Music] my name is BJ Cummings I represent the dames River cleanup Coalition BJ Cummings leads tours of the river but this isn't your typical tourist outing it's an environmental wakeup call BPA did an investigation here on the dames River about 10 years ago and concluded that the industrial history here had left behind such a legacy of toxic pollution that the river
• 12:00 - 12:30 was declared a Federal Superfund Site in 2001 superf fund is one of epa's Big Sticks it was the regulatory program created in 1980 to clean up America's worst pollution problems your typical super fun site used to be Factory pipe Superfund Site right at the bottom of your pipe that's not what we have here we have what's called a mega site we have a 5 five and Half Mile Stretch of River end to end
• 12:30 - 13:00 that's being investigated for cleanup this is one of the largest super fund sites in the country the river was listed as a super fun site because of an accumulation a legacy of toxic pollution that has built up in the mud at the bottom of the river there's a direct link between contaminated settlements in certain areas and contamination of the food web above those settlements in fact one might even think of the pcb's r ring an elevator up from the sediments up into
• 13:00 - 13:30 Plankton up into little fish big fish harbor seals killer whales Eagles humans the toxic buildup in the damh river bottom is the product of more than a half century of Industrial Development along the river Boeing for example the area's biggest corporation had its main operations here during World War II we are the builders we are the Builders of the B17 with our hands a milli and strong we and drilled and Shar and saw
• 13:30 - 14:00 the success of Boeing mirrored the 20th century boom in the American economy an era when industrial progress brought unprecedented expansion ours are the hands that build the Queen the B7 The Fortress but that progress also left behind an unprecedented amount of pollution or what's called Legacy pollutants the term Legacy pollutants is when it's historical practices what what
• 14:00 - 14:30 was acceptable in the 40s and 50s is we would find very unobjectionable today in the 90s and the ' 80s and and Beyond um people did not know the damage that some of these uh materials caused at the time they did not know um the long-term effects of them that we do today pcbs are a classic Legacy pollutant found here at boing a toxic chemical once widely used by industry often as a high stress
• 14:30 - 15:00 lubricant in power stations and also in building materials frequently it takes a lot of detective work to find hidden pcbs so Steve you found a contamination problem in the flight linee out here yeah it's um the this material that we see between the concrete panels it's called joint compound material that was installed in the in the late' 60s contained um very high levels of PC CBS and you know since we'd made this
• 15:00 - 15:30 discovery you know in the late '90s we've now removed about um 50 miles of this throughout 50 miles throughout all Boeing this black car looking stuff yeah this material um throughout all of the Boeing facilities here in the Northwest is that right why was it so hard to find well it wasn't obvious to us and it was you know normally when when people talk about pcbs you think about electrical equipment you think about hydraulics that's where normally pcbs are used the
• 15:30 - 16:00 fact that they were used in something that was right in front of us was difficult it was really difficult that we we overlooked it making sure that Boeing doesn't Overlook any of its Legacy pollutants is the job of Shawn blocker a former Marine who has been epa's Point man on the cleanup at Boeing what I want to talk about today is basically some additional data that we have that's on the sediments outside the current boundary of the cleanup for for the Boeing plant too and the significance of the Boeing
• 16:00 - 16:30 facility is the number of contaminants that originate from the facility it has over 24 things in the groundwater 40 some odd different things that are in the soil that are above cleanup levels so it's the biggest accumulation of contaminants in that area from the get-go Boeing and EPA have clashed over how to clean up those Legacy pollutants and the arguments have led to Long delays when will you first ready to go with a cleanup plan we submitted a plan
• 16:30 - 17:00 to EPA in 1999 when um you know to dredge um we call it an inim measure to take what is adjacent to Boeing and and excavate that material Boeing says that over a decade ago it was ready to clean up and all that held it up was bureaucratic red tape from the EPA I would disagree with that from my review of what they were going to do I didn't think they had fully defined
• 17:00 - 17:30 where all the bad stuff was they didn't know the the totality of what the contamination was even groundw or soil but you obviously had a higher threshold for let's get to the bottom of how bad this pollution is than Boeing did Boeing is doing what they're asked to do no more no less so time and again blocker pressed Boeing to do more more work and more tests by now Boeing has spent $80 million on testing and interim
• 17:30 - 18:00 cleanups there's over 500 sampling locations at this facility that have been drilled over time and if we came here 10 years ago how many would there have been 50 okay so hundreds more have been drilled because of this back and forth with the EPA that's correct not only has Boeing been feuding with the EPA but it's been locked in a fierce battle with the city of Seattle
• 18:00 - 18:30 which used to operate a Steam Plant next door to Boeing field typical of super fund sites these two powerful neighbors have been wrangling over who's responsible for pcbs flowing through this ditch or Flume when it rains The Flume runs from the now defunct Steam Plant through Boeing's territory to the river Boeing says it's the city's pcbs so was this just the
• 18:30 - 19:00 city Steam Plant or did Boeing and other people put storm drains into this and use it pretty much it was just for the cooling water from the Steam Plant the city Flatout disagrees and it is taken Boeing to court pcbs are coming by connections of other people to our ditch they come through line drainage lines that come from other properties uh most specifically Boeing's property so Boeing was attaching its drainage pipes to your Flume sending some of its dirty stuff
• 19:00 - 19:30 down your Flume to the river there have been over 20 lines attached to our ditch that came from the boing property 20 lines yeah so it's got to be an endless argument with Boeing over Whose Line put the dirty stuff in that Flume it's a continuing argument and that argument is holding up the big cleanup on the damh river J Manning who heads Washington's Department of ecology which helps EPA supervise the clean showed me the cost of this continued
• 19:30 - 20:00 delay to Puget Sound we're looking at four very large outfalls of drainage pipes that carry storm water from more than 30 square miles of this area you can see the one there to the right so this is an industrial Dumping Ground in effect this is this storm water drains a very large industrial area are you all still finding pcbs and other contaminants in that water unfortunately the storm water coming coming out of those drain pipes were still detecting
• 20:00 - 20:30 pcbs this is going to cost Millions to clean up maybe tens of millions and owning 90% of that liability is not a place you want to be so these folks who are not stupid are busy trying to prove that it's somebody other than them that are the pointing the finger at everybody else and they are trying to prove probably that not that they have no liability because that's pretty hard to do but proving that they have very little compared to their neighbor that's what it's about and it's about
• 20:30 - 21:00 money ultimately the issues of cleanup time and money are tied to a larger question for all of us that is how clean do we expect our waterways to be here on the damh the state has posted warnings not to eat local fish and shellfish because of pollution and so the fight now is over whether the river can be cleaned up enough to let the locals fish the river once again without risk what we determined was that the
• 21:00 - 21:30 most sensitive population we had out there were Native Americans that eat the fish out of the daish and they eat a lot more fish than most of us they do and so that was the standard you wanted to set clean it up so the tribes can eat the fish safely without getting poisoned from pcvs yes okay and Boeing objected to that basically they don't feel that that stretch of the river can ever be returned to where you could Harvest these kind of uh fish and shellfish we
• 21:30 - 22:00 disagree with that I think people need to understand is that there are going to be certain uses of the dames river that aren't going to be possible in the future and I'll give you an example I don't think people are going to be able to subsistance fish out of the the species that are in the duwamish I think we have to set reasonable expectations for clean up in industrial areas where do you come down on that how clean is clean I mean do we need to get Rivers back to where where people can fish and safely eat the fish without
• 22:00 - 22:30 fear to their health that's the goal that is the goal that has to be the goal because every one of those rivers and streams are going into Puget Sound so it's not as if it's about that River or that stream alone it's about the whole ecosystem just across the river from Boeing the threat of Legacy pollution and the question of how clean is clean became personal right here in South Park where in 2004
• 22:30 - 23:00 the community was rocked by news that some of its streets and people's yards were contaminated with pcbs people in South Park particularly people with with families with small children got incredibly nervous I mean out and out scared um about what this might mean I push my kid stroller down that street every day you know I go down there and I fish my dog runs along that Waterfront you know what does this mean for me what does this this mean for my health I mean you try to do the best for
• 23:00 - 23:30 your kids and all of a sudden something like this comes and then it feels so scary what you're saying she's talking about pcbs cancer-causing microbes banned in the 70s but taking an emotional toll on the residence of South Park today the city of Seattle realized it had a crisis and moved quickly to pave the contaminated streets clean up the polluted yards and tell people how to take safety precautions s suddenly South Park a largely
• 23:30 - 24:00 immigrant workingclass neighborhood surrounded by industry was galvanized into action residents demanded a long promised cleanup of an abandoned industrial site called Malarkey asphalt Malarkey asphalt for years operated directly across the street from homes in South Park and was a really really dirty business for many years there was was open dumping on the River Bank there was waste oil that was
• 24:00 - 24:30 sprayed in the area to keep the dust on the unpaved streets down and that contaminated the roads and yards um right in people's gardens around the property years earlier the old Malarkey site had been bought by the Port of Seattle which did a PCB cleanup on part of Malarkey's property but people in South Park suspected there were still many more undiscovered PCB hotspots Upland from the riverbank at Malarkey so the neighborhood said go
• 24:30 - 25:00 take some tests there tell us what's there EPA and the port said oh no no we did the Upland it's finished we eventually were able to succeed in getting just a few more tests just assure us show us it's okay we were finding numbers that were higher than any of the other Doug hotkis the ports manager for the Malarkey site ran tests and what he found surprised everyone was the hottest spot you found how high was it the hottest spot for
• 25:00 - 25:30 pcbs was right in this area here and it was about 9,000 parts per million 9,000 and the federal limit is 25 I mean this is a really hot spot yeah and luckily it was under asphalt but it was still something that even under asphalt you couldn't just leave there so hus drafted a plan to clean up Malarkey but it backfired we would be cleaning up to 25 parts per million which was the cleanup level that that EPA had accepted before and how did the community take that how did they
• 25:30 - 26:00 react they were they were not happy with it they didn't find it acceptable in fact South Park was up in arms insisting on a cleanup to the residential standard of one part per million Dames River cleanup Coalition residents from South Park um started calling up Port Commissioners and explaining the problem to them they got in Vans and buses and went down where the Port Commission was meeting and one
• 26:00 - 26:30 after another got up and told the Port Commission that they were worried about their health and that the Port Commission had the responsibility to the community to make sure that that cleanup would be safe for the entire Community to use well it was a very emotionally charged meeting I wouldn't necessarily say it was confrontational but it was a lot of emotion in the room and I remember a particular episode where a young mother came up to the stand and said you know if it's only a question of money how can you forsake the children
• 26:30 - 27:00 of South Park and that was something that really hit home to me so the elected Port Commissioners sensitive to public opinion backed down they adopted the more protective residential standard at twice the cost I think that this effort has been successful because this community has been uncompromising in speaking up for itself and in insisting that people listen we essentially have a community here that has been on the fringes of any kind
• 27:00 - 27:30 of economic or political power in the city of Seattle for many decades so it's a community that has only recently of refound its Voice by finding its voice South Park redefined the meaning of clean and the community is now at work developing Riverfront habitat zones at Malarkey and elsewhere along the dames in the of BJ Cummings or somebody like her who
• 27:30 - 28:00 is out there on the water knowledgeable aware of what's happening and poking and prodding and asking us the hard questions we would not be making the progress that we're making moving around Puget Sound I learned that we've played Havoc with our waterways and decim ated Wildlife not just by dumping toxic chemicals but by
• 28:00 - 28:30 massively disrupting the normal workings and biorhythms of Mother Nature like pcbs in the dames River most man-made intrusions are legacies of the past unintended consequences of economic growth I saw the impact of the human footprint up close here in the scet River delta about 80 Mi north of
• 28:30 - 29:00 Seattle we can fish from here way up the gadget but we just choose to fish in this location because it it's a nice line drift Brian clisby is Chairman of the swinish Indian tribe every fall he and his tribal members head out on the scet river the biggest source of salmon in all of Puget Sound for Generations even centuries the swinish and other tribes have depended
• 29:00 - 29:30 on salmon fishing for their livelihoods I guess the salmon to us was like the Buffalo to the natives in the in the midwest in the the Great Plains it is something that God has put here for us to allow us to sustain ourselves clb's problem is that the salmon here have gone the way of the Buffalo King Salmon are now down to only about 5 to 10% of historic levels
• 29:30 - 30:00 they're officially listed as endangered nobody can make a living anymore out of strictly salmon it's just not possible and so there is nobody in our tribe anymore just focusing on salmon and making a living like we used to just just doesn't happen the salmon here according to the tribe and state scientists are victims of Economic Development along the gadget logging hydroelectric dams and
• 30:00 - 30:30 agriculture which have wiped out much of the habitat that salmon need to spawn and grow if you took a map of this gadget before the white man came here in the 1850s and you see where the salmon used to go you would be surprised how many stream miles they had here on this gadget that's why this gadget was able to produce millions and millions and millions of fish when the non-indians came they basically dyed and cut off all that
• 30:30 - 31:00 habitat when settlers arrived in the mid 1800s the scet Delta was a tidal plane flooded daily by the sea but through Ingenuity and hard work the settlers built an extensive system of dkes as a seaw wall and turned the water soak silt into incredibly productive Farmland what many people don't realize is this is a subtitle Valley think Holland this there would be 30,000 of these Acres that we're standing on
• 31:00 - 31:30 including where we're standing right here that would be underwater at high tide were it not for the dkes so the dkes are keeping the salt water out the salt water off of the Delta the Johnson family has been farming the Delta for five generations and regulating water in the subtitle Gadget Delta is vital to their Farms that's managed by tide Gates that let flood water from rains get out to sea and block saltwater from coming in
• 31:30 - 32:00 and ruining their crops that is the way the system operates and the tide gate itself is the heart and soul of this thing you've got dkes running North and South along this Coastline for I don't know 10 15 20 30 miles yeah probably the the whole system in the count scgi county has 140 tide Gates that's a lot of Tide Gates those tide Gates have become the flash
• 32:00 - 32:30 point of a Battle Royal the tribes want to recover 3,000 Acres of lost salmon habitat they argue that tide Gates block salmon from going Upstream to their natural habitat and they want them removed scet Farmers balk at giving up their land or their tide Gates I got an earful from Curtis Johnson and his brothers about the salmon problem which they say was caused by the IND indan themselves Oh I thought this the salmon have declined simply
• 32:30 - 33:00 because they kill them faster than they can reproduce so you're saying the problem is over fishing it's not Estuary it's not dking absolutely these people exterminated their resource and now I'm the bad guy I'm the guy who's to blame why in the hell don't I quit farming and let let them use my land to raise fish on these people that work for the tribes I I believe that behind every picture over there in the office is a sign that says get Whitey and that's their Mantra
• 33:00 - 33:30 yeah they're they're they're Indian lovers they got screwed we're going to save them to hell with the farmers and the farming to hell with everybody they got screwed in 1870 in Little Big Horn or wherever it was I wasn't there I didn't do it hell when my great grandpa came here nobody said don't don't farm this land it's Fish Country what we're seeing here is a collision of two cultures a collision of
• 33:30 - 34:00 two industries if you will a collision of two ways of life two natural resource Industries are on a collision course this cultural and economic Collision landed in court the tribe filed suit to remove title gates in one of the seaw wall dkes to recover old salmon habitat a federal judge ruled firmly in favor of the tribe pushing the two sides to strike a limited the deal that will be tricky to carry out but prospects are
• 34:00 - 34:30 dim for negotiating a wider settlement I mean if you're going to negotiate with somebody there's got to be trust doesn't there I mean if you're going to do it I mean is is trust a problem it is it is not easy and I think you nailed nailed it when you said trust I mean there's not too much trust right now is there any trust left is sounds like you don't trust them and and they don't trust
• 34:30 - 35:00 you that there is no trust between me and them none zero entrenched economic interest can seem immovable but 150 mes south of scet along the Nali River I learned that resolving our pollution problems can be achieved by individual initiative and cooperation among feuding parties like tribes and farmers
• 35:00 - 35:30 on the Nali I caught up with two local leaders who' been on opposing sides it all started tribal Elder Billy Frank and Jim Wilcox a large farm owner you're the guy that's responsible like the scet up North this River was disrupted by logging dams and large farming operations and the salmon population was decimated Billy Frank had grown up fighting for Indian fishing rights protesting that the white establishment
• 35:30 - 36:00 was blocking the Indians from getting their fair share of the fish they didn't want no Indians catching any of their fish and so that was what the fight was all about and we took it to him we took it to him we uh you know went to jail over uh 50 80 times finding common ground with the tribes to restore the river and its salmon did didn't come naturally to Farmers like Jim Wilcox who ran a huge
• 36:00 - 36:30 $300 million dairy farm on the Nali I went to school with a lot of members of the Nali tribe we also employed uh Native Americans and and they were they were good workers but but kind of the prevailing attitude was that uh you know most of the Indians were were beset by alcohol problems that you couldn't depend on them that they never would keep an appointment and those were just kind of
• 36:30 - 37:00 the the stereotypes that uh that I can recall that almost everybody sort of had a 1974 Landmark Federal Court decision by judge George Bo upheld the Indian fishing rights Billy Frank started pushing to force the area's economic stakeholders into a negotiation over how best to protect the river the state set up the Nali task force but
• 37:00 - 37:30 there was little trust and prospects for Success were poor when the Nali River task force was formed what did you think what was your reaction I was scared out of my wits because well I I didn't think anything good could come out of it in terms of how it would affect me I I was a farmer and I just wanted to keep farming and I can considered that the the task force would come up with just a
• 37:30 - 38:00 lot more regulations that would that would make it even more difficult for me to continue farming and ultimately force me out so why did you take part in the Nali River task force out of a feeling of fear that I had to to be an advocate for for our farm there was a kind of a coalition that we ultimately formed in the beginning of land owners and Timber companies and Farmers well warehouser one of them yes and and the Coalition was intended to do what block anything
• 38:00 - 38:30 that the task force could come up with you know they tried to kill the kill the task force and uh I mean this this was the the you could when you walk into the a situation like that it's not good because you you know the air is not good and people are uh are uh over and Corners figuring out what their next move
• 38:30 - 39:00 is after many confrontational meetings the task force was deadlocked then Billy Frank made a surprise move never forget the night we I think it was a particularly uh stormy session everybody was emotional it was the tempers flared and Billy Frank got up as I say I'll never forget this and he said he said we we've got to stop this right now he said I I want uh I want everybody to know
• 39:00 - 39:30 that we want Warehouse or Timber Company to continue to operate and own land along the river we want Willcox Farms to keep farming we don't want to do anything that's going to put them out of business uh we want other Farmers to stay along the river I never gave up on any of these people I never gave up on uh on Jim or or any of our our leaders up and down The Watershed I said you know we we we have to be together I I
• 39:30 - 40:00 recognized that this was a turning point and uh and that we could probably complete the process in a spirit of cooperation at least I hope that's what could happen with a New Foundation of trust the deadlock broke and in time the task force supported by state funding but driven by local leadership developed a restoration plan for the Nali negotiating buffer zones along the
• 40:00 - 40:30 Riverbanks to help restock the river with salmon Fort Lewis provided the tribe with land for a fish hatchery land historically owned by the tribe Congress provided funds to build the Hatchery and Tacoma power put up money to run it but getting tidal Wetlands back was the key Billy Frank found a few Farmers willing to sell Choice land to the
• 40:30 - 41:00 tribe the tribe tore down the dkes and flooded the land with seawat the dyes are already open the water goes right up to the freeway behind us here so this is an estuary we'll it the tide comes in and there's there's little salmon fishing swimming all over here so in the 20 years or more since the Nali Tas force was set up can you see improvements in the river in the wildlife in the salmon coming back yes
• 41:00 - 41:30 absolutely the Eagles and the the habitat the the Beavers are coming back the the the little animals that lived on this Watershed they're coming back you know these are very important uh life on the Estuary and the ecosystem of a water shed
• 41:30 - 42:00 well James is this James God dang it J boy long time no see at the annual Nali Salmon Festival the old rivals celebrate the restoration of the river and its salmon we got a lot more in common oh yeah and we have the other side when we have our auction it's always for the river the story is an object lesson that repairing the damage that we humans have
• 42:00 - 42:30 done to Mother Nature requires taking responsibility and finding common ground what we really need to do is sort of reinstitute a Jeffersonian Barn raising kind of philosophy about people who are living in an ecosystem that has been taken care of for many decades Often by them and figure out what's wrong here what's the problem what do we need to do to solve it and once they decide that and once they decide they're going to bring everybody else in that area together to try to solve it with
• 42:30 - 43:00 them it just breaks all kinds of barriers and all kinds of things going to happen that are [Music] good the greatest threats to our waterways are often invisible to the naked eye evidence crops up in unlikely places like alai Beach across Elliott Bay from downtown Seattle it's a favorite spot for scuba divers
• 43:00 - 43:30 but taking to the water here isn't for the faint of heart temperatures in the Puget can be in the' [Music] 40s but for the adventurers underwater exploration offers a unique perspective on the marine environment today we saw a giant Pacific octopus underneath the honey bear which is a little boat that's sunk out here it lives underneath the bow of the
• 43:30 - 44:00 boat it also provides a close-up view of the Hidden threat to puget sound like this drainage pipe one of the main outfalls for Seattle's rainwater runoff we swam by the end of the storm water drain and it was pretty dramatic the end of the pipe creates a brown noxious soup of nastiness that is unbelievable and kind of dram atic and a little bit
• 44:00 - 44:30 scary unbelievable because the water looks so good from up here so we're looking at something we think is clean and underneath you can see diving there it's dirty it's not clean it's dirty it's not clean when we when we see that thing running in in full flow we turn around and we swim the other way quickly there is just this unbelievable Gunk gunk coming out of the
• 44:30 - 45:00 end of this pipe this is our front yard would you allow your front yard to be sick this is sick this is sick doesn't look sick but it is sick what's making this water so sick is what scientists have now label the number one menace to our waterways storm water runoff in Seattle peak time for storm water runoff is during fall and winter when the rain comes down in
• 45:00 - 45:30 Torrance everywhere that rain falls and hits the ground it's going to pick up something it might be nothing more hazardous Than Dirt or it might be pcbs it might be some toxic pesticide and it will travel along with the water into the nearest drainage ditch into the nearest Swale into a creek into a river and ultimately into Puget sand and whatever pollutants that water picks up on its journey to Puget Sound it's going to deposit in
• 45:30 - 46:00 Puget Sound we put in about 150,000 pounds a day of untreated toxics into Puget Sound we thought all the way along that it was like a toilet to be honest with you which put in you flush out it goes out to the ocean and gets diluted we know that's not true it's like a bathtub so what you put in stays there the pollution and storm water runoff in major cities like Seattle or in suburban
• 46:00 - 46:30 and urban areas across the country is massive yet until recently it was little controlled the original Clean Water Act didn't regulate storm water at all though some limits have been adopted since but the problem remains poorly understood because so much of the pollution is invisible people go nuts over over a 50 gallon oil spill it's cuz you can see it and it's really nasty looking when you
• 46:30 - 47:00 see it on the water it is impressive how horrible it looks and so oil spills aren't invisible they're highly visible and they Galvanize people like nothing else what about the invisible what about the auto traffic what what kind of quote oil spill is there from our ordinary living based on actual sampling in the Puget Sound Basin we've estimated that the volume of oil that is carried into Puget Sound by storm water runoff is equal to the oil spill in
• 47:00 - 47:30 Prince Williams Sound but the Exon vald spill every two years storm water in puet sound carries that volume of oil into Puget Sound the heart of the problem is concrete asphalt streets sidewalks buildings shopping centers Suburban housing rooftops hard surfaces what scientists call impervious Sur surfaces that block the downpour of rain from naturally sinking into the ground how the land is
• 47:30 - 48:00 developed how intensely will have a direct impact on the quality of storm water you take down a forested area and replace it with pavement or a rooftop and instead of almost all of the water slowly moving through the forest canopy and down to the ground and infiltrating down into groundwater where it will move slowly that water the day it lands within minutes of it hitting the ground it's going to be
• 48:00 - 48:30 gone and so scientists environmentalists and Regulators all say that combating pollution is not just a matter of regulating industry but the key to storm water runoff is land use how we develop and use our land King County I learned has become elaboratory for testing the politics of land use it's an area bigger than the state of Rhode Island home not just to Seattle and 1.8 million people but 2/3
• 48:30 - 49:00 of it is still Forest so it's an area where environmentalists want to strictly control the pace of development and the man who has been leading the charge is longtime King County chief executive Ron Sims you have to protect our Force you have to in our agricultural areas you must because if we don't protect them our water quality will be significant signicantly diminished and why sacrifice clean water for growth har Sim says his
• 49:00 - 49:30 mission has been to save Puget Sound by protecting critical areas like forests way up here 45 miles east of Seattle he paid $22 million in tax money to buy development rights on 90,000 Acres of forest meaning that no developer could build on that land 200,000 we have 100 people are going to build their homes here they were going to have their supermarkets here their
• 49:30 - 50:00 gas stations here we stopped it and we stopped it forever what is saving this Timberland have to do with Puget Sound the waters that come off this 90,000 Acres flow into the snami river which flows into Lake Washington which flows into pidet sound we need pristine Waters coming from this Timberland into the pet sound and so this property is absolutely critical to it Washington State's growth management act directs local government
• 50:00 - 50:30 leaders like Sims to concentrate new growth in cities and to prevent sprawl in lightly populated rural areas for King County Sims pioneered a critical areas ordinance that limits just how much forest in Woodland Property Owners can cut down Sims targets places like this a 5 one family plot of land that belongs to Howard and Patty van
• 50:30 - 51:00 Laken back in 2004 King County passes critical areas ordinance that uh takes away the usage of 65% of your property if you don't have it cleared off and we didn't have ours cleared off at the time so we're we cannot touch 65% of our property so why would you want to clear more than 35% of this wonderful Forest what what we originally did planned when we were in 1980 when we bought it was that we could subdivide and uh maybe give our kids a parcel land to build a
• 51:00 - 51:30 house on or Andor sell off part of the property for the proceeds to be able to keep our house um and retire how do you feel about that rather angry very angry very angry it's our property we have been paying taxes on this property since 1980 and we can't even plant grass angry at whom angry at what I'm angry with the King County government because they more or less took away our property rights
• 51:30 - 52:00 without any compensation for our property we're getting the shaft we're they're putting the burden on the small land owner not on everybody the van lakens problem actually stems from a zoning ordinance passed in the early 1980s that barred subdividing properties under 5 Acres but to many rural landowners Sim's new ordinance was the last draw and they formed the citizens Alliance for property
• 52:00 - 52:30 rights I met with several of them one evening over a beer in isore you're going have to SL we're we're in the same position that the blacks were in the in the 1950s absolutely we we are calling we are crying we are doing everything we can to talk to those who have their hands on the levers and they aren't listening everybody one throbbing refrain was resentment against political Domination by the urban majority which outnumbers rural voters nearly 5 to one we talk about critical areas ordinance
• 52:30 - 53:00 like it's a nice little onepage thing we're talking about over 400 pages of amendments to existing law 400 over 400 Pages how how much of the frustration out here is a matter not just of a single ordinance but of a series of regulations that that feel honorous I mean how how much of this is built up over time much of it is built up it started in 88 with the sensitive
• 53:00 - 53:30 areas ordinance uh in 2000 we had a gigantic down zoning fight and then the Cuda gr was the 2004 critical area ordinance so it's an accumulation of thing very much an accumulation of of of Regulation they told me people were so steamed up that Ron Sims rarely dared to come to their part of the county people on his staff say he's gotten threat if it wasn't for us I bet somebody would have gone for 30
• 53:30 - 54:00 OD six talking about they would go for 30 OD sixes guns I'm not saying they would I'm saying they're terrified I'm saying there are people who are so angry if we didn't have a way to to direct that to get some results I know there are people in this County that probably would have shot a few key people they are so angry we have been involved destroy theber IND did you get any threads I always get threads I mean serious threats I always get serious threats do you take them seriously I
• 54:00 - 54:30 cannot restrict my life and what I do based upon people who are angry and people who wish to threaten me but in this particular case it wasn't pleasant people were yelling at me we got a lot of nasty phone calls and emails and it wasn't fun being on television and and quite frankly I was abandoned by a lot of people even the environmental community at the time for saying Ron you might be too heavy-handed but Sims has not back down he asserts that the County ordinance was prompted by scientific analysis of
• 54:30 - 55:00 runoff water flows and he gets solid political backing from an overwhelming majority in King County what do you say to critics who say or to people who say look they've taken my land in effect I can only use a third of my land two thirds of my land I've got to leave in forest and bushes no one has lost the value or use of their land there's not not one case in King County where anybody's been able to show that you mean nobody's come forward and
• 55:00 - 55:30 said I want to do this on my property and you've turned them down what people have found is that we're not going to allow them to develop their land in terms of building a lot of homes on it but the use of their land they still enjoy it to this day the rural people are saying this burden all falls on us there the city people don't have any burden on them how do you respond well the city people have far more burdens and restrictions are on their land than anyone in the rural area has far more um and they have far more regulation on
• 55:30 - 56:00 their land folks stay tuned this thing with another round on the lawsuit and the enforcement of some angry rural Property Owners filed suit an State appeals court has struck down part of Sim's critical areas ordinance that issue is now before the state supreme court if the Supreme Court upholds the court of appeals decision it'll be the abandoned of everything that this state has voted on consistently which is they
• 56:00 - 56:30 want Environmental Protection here while the Lego drama plays out the lesson for Ron Sims is unmistakable we will never recover puid sound if we don't get a hold of the uh storm water I mean I never imagine that that body of water would just fundamentally be unhealthy for whales and for salmon all the things that make
• 56:30 - 57:00 it a rich wonderful environment we may in the next couple of decades and when I'm 80 years old if we don't do anything people will say you your generation you lost it you weren't willing to step up and save it
• 57:00 - 57:30 [Music] we do have choices to make and from what I saw and heard on my journey time is much more urgent and the stakes are much higher than I had once realized our economic well-being ultimately depends on a healthy environment if we
• 57:30 - 58:00 don't take the steps in the world to begin to adjust demand's impact on the environment so that we don't systematically destroy all these natural systems that underpin life itself that our chances of doing well economically are greatly diminished do your suggesting we're on a dangerous track you can't let it continue to deteriorate without paying a real price later on the danger signs are everywhere dead zones dying young whales interex and
• 58:00 - 58:30 male fish the growing risk of serious health problems for humans the 70s were a lot about we're the good guys we're the environmentalists we're going to go after the polluters and it's not really about that anymore it's about the way we all live and unfortunately we are all polluters I am you are all of us are so it's not a time of going out there and looking for the bad guys and
• 58:30 - 59:00 saying we're going to crack down on you it's a time of looking at ourselves and the way we live and saying we're going to have to change some things to make these improvements and that's hard success is possible but the lesson driven home to me again and again is that the key is public engagement if the the public is not engaged in Puget Sound for example we will fail we will fail I have no
• 59:00 - 59:30 confidence whatsoever we can get the job done unless and until everybody steps up accepts responsibility and becomes part of the [Music] solution you have to change the way you live in the ecosystem in the place that you share with other living things you've got to learn to live in such a way that it doesn't destroy those living things it's got to be become part of our culture water pollution has slipped off
• 59:30 - 60:00 our radar screen in the face of other seemingly more urgent crises but pollution is a ticking Time Bomb it's a chronic cancer that is slowly eating away natural resources that are vital to our very survival the fact that it's in slow motion or you know one cut at a time is one of the hardest things about trying to save the environment there are so few things so few insults to the environment
• 60:00 - 60:30 that are in in of themselves so massive that everyone would recognize [Music] it we have not as a nation been as attentive as I believe we should have been on our treasures and we're going to lose them it's not too late it's not too late to recover the Chesapeake Bay it's not too late to recover ped sound but if
• 60:30 - 61:00 we continue to believe that time favors us we will lose [Music] them
• 61:00 - 61:30 there's more to explore on our website where you can watch the full program again online explore what's safe to eat and drink find out why it's taking so long to clean up the waterways what the quality of your water is and what you can do to help you're talking about billions of dollars of economic impact with oysters crabs Shad strip plus read the interviews with
• 61:30 - 62:00 absolutely no oxygen in these dead these are the modern Canary in the mind humans rats Killa whales harbor seals doesn't really matter and join the discussion about this program at [Music] pbs.org [Music]