Puget Sound's Poisioned Waters

FRONTLINE’s Poisoned Waters, airing Tuesday, April 21, 2009

"...growing environmental threat comes not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers’ face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, and eventually into America’s waterways and drinking water."

“We thought all the way along that [Puget Sound] was like a toilet: What you put in, you flush out,” says Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who notes that about 150,000 pounds of untreated toxins find their way into Puget Sound each day. “We [now] know that’s not true. It’s like a bathtub: What you put in stays there.”

No mention of SAVE OUR SALMON in the entire press release about the show.

So not to worry.

Convergence of Plastic Bigger than Texas

This is text from places cited - how many of the plastic bags I throw away end up here? How can there be any more debate about paper or plastic or recyclable? Great Pacific Garbage Patch In the broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. The area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean. The gyre has actually given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, sometimes collectively called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas. Th

See you at the Native Plant Sales, starts Tomorrow!

Well, we made it into the Everett Herald, thanks to the editors there! Plant sale benefits shelter for homeless families in Everett Picture of plants getting ready, by the new greenhouse at Glacier Peak High School. Students in biotech classes did the work! We are getting lots of help and interest in our project, and looking forward to a great sale on what is looking like a SPRING DAY after months of freezing, rain, rain, and more rain. The plants at volunteer's yards have all been fine over the winter, the native plants know how to shut down so to speak in the cold. Leaves turn red, wait for a while, then turn green again as it warms up. Here's what my Native Planter looks like now, recovering from winter. And yes, I did add some non-native pansies from the supermarket.

Moving Water, Having Fun

Here's what happens when we were testing with the hose to add water to the garden basin. Looks like it just rained, but not on day this taken, April 4. This was last week, and recent cold weather and rain have added to the lower rain garden basin, to be shown next. My "raingarden" is not actually the same as what may be pictured in recent articles about this concept. What I have is more of a drainage system with a swale at the upper side, pictured here, and another swale at the lower level, with drainage channels running in between. Basically all this is more like the playing with sand and water at the beach that I did as a kid. We'd work on rerouting the stream channel that ran into Puget Sound near our house, using beach rocks, logs, and the sand. Now its dirtier, and there's an actual purpose to it other than just having fun. But when I'm out there and the rain is pouring down and I'm poking at the little blockages in the drainage patterns, removin

The Convergence Zone

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