An opinion piece in the Snohomish County Business Journal. Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington Business (AWB), Washington state’s chamber of commerce.
While efforts to reduce water pollution focus on preventing erosion, controlling storm water runoff from parking lots and streets, and enlarging sewer treatment plants, an underwater junkyard is threatening aquatic life, commerce and clean water in Washington state.
That point became abundantly clear in Tacoma earlier this month when a derelict barge drifted into Hylebos Waterway and sank, forcing the U.S. Coast Guard to ban large ocean-going ships from a key section of the Port of Tacoma.
Blocked shipping lanes is only part of the problem.
Hundreds of derelict vessels contain dangerous chemicals such as cancer-causing PCBs, oil and asbestos, and sunken fishing boats often leave a tangled mess of netting which inadvertently entraps fish and crab.
Fortunately, the Puget Sound Partnership has recognized the importance of this problem by making it a high priority item in its newly released Action Agenda. The Partnership, a state agency created to lead the cleanup of the Sound, calls for the removal of significant blockages and derelict debris as part of its “near-term” list of restoration activities. [...]
