Letterbox

Editor’s Note: The opinions in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Whatcom Watch.

The total Lake Whatcom Watershed, from which (currently) some 90,000 humans (and untold dogs) must derive their water, consists of 35,000 acres. Doing the math then, each one of us folks in Bellingham and many parts of Whatcom County must rely on the rain, mist, hail and snow which falls on a mere .38 acres or 16,552 square feet which is approximately the size of a slightly large Bellingham residential lot. That’s your share…and your friend’s got another.

Unlike other Northwest cities, such as Seattle, Everett and Tacoma, which secured high and remote Cascade Mountain watersheds (from which most humans are barred) from which to draw their drinking water, Bellingham relies on a very local (non-remote) and increasingly urbanized lake and watershed.

Not surprisingly, Lake Whatcom water quality has been diminishing steadily for many years. The state of Washington has entered the picture lately largely as a result of a “TMDL” (total maximum daily loading) study that called for dramatic decreases in the amount of nutrients (particularly phosphorous) reaching the lake that feeds algae blooms that eventually die, sapping oxygen from the water. The lower depths of the two northern basins have been devoid of oxygen during the summer months for quite a few years now.

In actuality we’ve been withdrawing our drinking water from right above an annual dead zone for quite a while. It’s an inherently dangerous situation. The summer of 2009 was marked, for the first time, by trouble with algae plugging up screens used to pre-filter water coming out of the lake and headed for our homes. Problems with Lake Whatcom water are steadily becoming more severe. There’s a lot more background information about the history, problems and challenges Lake Whatcom Reservoir faces easily available on the Web. Type in “Lake Whatcom” and your plate (and your computer screen) will be full.

My attempt here will be to focus on what I’ve personally seen at Bloedel Donovan Park (which I will refer to hereafter as “Bloedel”) the last four winters since I’ve taken on an older dog who is too old for trail running but who likes to go to the Bloedel off-leash area and frolic with the other dogs. My goal here is to do my part to help Bloedel become the wholesome place it could and very definitely should be for 1) the many children and adults who frequently and directly contact the park on a year-round basis and 2) it’s effect both as an example for the community and as a singular property located directly on our drinking water source, Lake Whatcom.

It was during the very early spring of 2007 when I first began to frequent Bloedel. Although I’ve lived in the Lake Whatcom watershed (Silver Beach area) since 1989 and had become quite familiar with the issues surrounding Lake Whatcom, my visits to Bloedel had always, previously, been few and far between. I’d been an avid Bellingham trail user for many years, though, and the recognition that “somethin’s wrong” about Bloedel emerged in my mind in the first months of 2007 when I initially began to go there.

What I saw there then is essentially what one sees there now, four years later. If anything, it’s gotten worse. If you and I could be at Bloedel near water’s edge as you read or as I write what we would see if we lowered our gaze onto the ground is 1) a whole lot of mud, 2) one very sparse and cut to the nub grass species cut as short as possible, and 3) sidewalks and steps into the lake covered with mud. The picture, in fact, of what the Bellingham Silver Beach Ordinance and the city and Whatcom County’s (these are identical) phosphorous ordinances are supposed to address and prevent.

What we would not see is 1) any moss (a native species...hello!), 2) any “weeds,” 3) any diversity of the plant growth one would normally expect to find that had evolved over time in this area, 4) anything vaguely resembling healthy turf which could, would and needs to seal the ground.

“Nature” it is said “abhors a vacuum,” so why the vacuum of healthy riparian plant growth and healing at Bloedel? In my view based on the evidence, and in a word, the answer is…chemicals. Chemical use, both in fertilizers and pesticides, has been in longtime favor at Bloedel, the record shows.

“To Protect and Improve Drinking Water Sources” is our Bellingham City Council’s number one (Numero Uno) stated goal. Why then is Bloedel Donovan Park, which is entirely owned and managed by the city of Bellingham such a, literally, sore spot? Is what we see there presently really the best we can do? If we, meaning city/county and citizenry cannot recognize obvious problems at a place so accessible and visible as Bloedel, how much hope for reversing the downward trend Lake Whatcom’s been on is there? After all, Bloedel is about seven minutes from City Hall.

The record shows extensive pesticide use at Bloedel around the buildings, “tree circles,” bushes and sidewalks. A lot, but not all, of these applications were in the middle of the summers when Bloedel was in full use and adults and younger people were barefoot and in swimming suits which must have involved a lot of direct contact with the sprayed areas. I wonder what exactly that spraying was in pursuit of and whether it was worth the risk, particularly to some of our most sensitive and vulnerable individuals?

I’ve stood in the mud on the shore at Bloedel, with other people, reading and admiring, one new thing at Bloedel, the new sign put up sometime during the summer of 2009 by Whatcom County Public Works extolling the merits and benefits of lake-friendly landscaping strategies that are being ignored by Bellingham’s own parks department at Bloedel. I’ve heard the comment/question that what we see at Bloedel is the situation all around Lake Whatcom so why worry about Bloedel? My response has been that when I walk down the street here in Silver Beach and recognize pesticide use I am not going to, in any way, confront that property owner on his/her practice on their own property. I’ll simply and silently wish they’d figure it out. However, with Bloedel and as a taxpayer and watershed resident I feel an ownership to this problem and a duty to act on my observations.

Dogs are not the problem at Bloedel. Running the dogs out was parks’ solution last year when the mud got bad. Of course, it didn’t work. In my opinion the best place to have a thoughtfully valid conversation about conditions at Bloedel is to be actually at Bloedel, on scene. In general it is far too easy to arrive at erroneous conclusions about out-of-sight situations. The situation at Bloedel is not an exception to this rule of thumb.

My prescription for Bloedel is for the Bellingham city councilors and the mayor to tour Bloedel and view for themselves what I’ve been seeing. I’m hoping that they will direct their parks department, which after all is under their direction, to institute healthy changes in how parks manages Bloedel. These changes would involve the kind of common sense suggestions as per that same above-mentioned new Whatcom County Public Works sign/display.

My hope is that, with certain changes, in three or five or 10 years (it’ll take some time as bad as it is now), Bloedel Donovan Park will become the healthy and wholesome place it could be and that our park users and our source of drinking water, Lake Whatcom, deserve.

To the Editor:

When Texaco hired me to work as an oil geologist in foreign countries, the first thing they asked was, “Where do you want your salary deposited?” “In a New York City bank,” I replied.

For more than a quarter of a century I did my U.S. income tax myself and argued with the IRS when told I had not paid enough. Those were the days when the IRS employees who got an income taxpayer to pay more got a percentage of the increase. Texaco never raised a hand to help me.

The last foreign assignment before retiring was for the Texaco-Canada consortium. That was very different. For the first time in my life I got a Christmas bonus. But there was a codicil. It would have to be a lot less work. A company of Texaco’s choice* would calculate my income tax. I was delighted. I had more money. Half I gave to my family and half I kept for myself. I knew I would soon retire so I bought things for my hobbies during retirement. I got my income tax done at no cost.

When the first income tax time came after retiring in Bellingham, Washington, I did it myself. Then one day on returning home from a hike, my wife greeted me by saying, “We owe $18,000 in income tax!”

I immediately suspected that the IRS was taxing me for an item that I had been told was not taxable in the USA. I kept cool and telephoned the problem hotline to the IRS. I explained the non-taxable item but got no comment from the woman who answered the telephone.

The next day I received a notice that I owed more income tax than before. I telephoned the problem hotline again and explained the problems again, and said that I would get the best tax lawyer I could find and take the matter to court. Too often individuals don’t have the funds to win a case in court. The next day I got a notice that my taxes owed were even more so I telephoned the company in Canada that had advised me that the item was not taxable. The company said they were right and said they would support me in the lawsuit. I telephoned the problem hotline at the IRS and this time I said, “The company in Canada said they would support my case in court.” This time the woman on the hotline said, “I’ll stop the computer.” In the end, I won.