Shilsholed

Went out with Andy and Serge tonight for the 1st of the 5 Ballard Cup series on Andy’s Thunderbird “Rev”. We got bullied by some bigger boats but it was fun… perfect weather.

The sea lions seemed thrilled – cheered us on the whole time.

Jim Hall told me that there was more Puget Sound Keeper info in Latitude 48 this month. If you’re interested it’s pages 14-15

Temps in the 40’s, pretty windy (25?), gray skies, occasional rain.

Looks like they either had a very, very short J-24 race or called it due to weather. It’s the J-24 North American Nationals this week with the top 4 boats going to Buenos Aires, Argentina for the World Championships.

Andy and I were on his Thunderbird, a light, 70’s racer. Plans were to go head-to-head with Casey on his Thunderbird and tune against each other to prep for the five week Ballard Cup series starting on Monday. The idea being that whoever is in the lead doesn’t tweak anything until the other boat passes, the trailing boat always trying to tune their boat to pass the other.

That was the plan… Casey didn’t have crew, making the two boats pretty badly matched. The weather was pretty crazy and cold. I’m not sure Andy learned much about tuning. I learned more about his boat though – so it was good for me. Casey did a pretty kick ass job single handing.

Didn’t hit the showers until 10:30pm… long, but fun.

-ben
K-dock

We left Saturday morning, early, to take Bryan’s 83′ foot two masted stay-sail schooner up to Port Angeles where he was going to pull out. Pretty uneventful motor out of the Sound in very light winds.

While exiting Admiratly Inlet we were passed by some sort of nuclear sub. Huge waste of money these things, but very cool looking…

About 18 miles from Port Angeles the wind started to pick up. It was dead on our nose but we decided to sail for bit since it was still early. Stella doesn’t really go up wind. She sails about 50-60 degrees to windward at best and is a brute to tack.

The wind continued to build along with the seas. Most of us were getting or feeling sick and we were taking continuos waves over the boat. After one tack and about 3 hours we’d made about 4 miles to windward. It was great sailing but we weren’t going to get to Port Angeles tacking up wind in 30 mph winds and 8 foot, short frequency, breaking waves.

We started up the engine and nothing really happened. The engine was running, but we weren’t going anywhere. For some reason the feathering prop that had got us out of the Sound was no longer doing anything.

We tacked again, heading out towards Victoria as the seas and wind continued to build. People were getting tired. 2-3 hours later, after tacking again we were back at about the same place, 13 miles south of Port Angeles.

We decided to give up on Port Angeles and run south. We surfed for an hour or so, some thrilling sailing, until the wind died off right outside Port Townsend.

We started up the engine again, but still no speed.

We more or less drifted with the current south towards Seattle. Making it back to Shilshole around 8am.

Long 24 hours but some great sailing on Stella. She’s really something when the rails in the water.

While I was biking to work the other day I saw what looked to be a genormous boat headed for the Ballard Locks. I pulled into the locks to watch. All photos up here.

The Northern Victor is not a pretty boat, it looks like it had some bizzarre addition put on it…

The crew looked as if they’d been out for a while:

I found this history of the boat:

The Northern Victor is the largest of Icicle’s processing vessels at 8902 gross tons. She was built in 1945 as the cargo vessel “Marengo” in Wisconsin for the U.S. war effort. Released from the U.S. Reserve Fleet, she was converted in 1972 to the oil well drilling ship “Ocean Cyclone” in Beaumont, Texas, adding a drilling tower and other drilling related equipment, a new engine room, 40 feet in length and 20 feet in beam to bring her to present dimensions of 380 feet long and 70 feet wide. After a successful career drilling for oil in the Middle East and South America, the vessel was retired in Brazil in 1986. Previous owners took the vessel to South Africa for removal of drilling related equipment in 1988. The Northern Victor was returned to the United States and converted to a fish processing vessel in Panama City, Florida, in 1989 and 1990. Since July 1990 the Northern Victor has operated in Alaska and produced various seafood products as the second largest processing vessel in the United States fishing industry. Icicle acquired the Northern Victor in late 1999 and subsequently completed major processing equipment additions and improvements that have made her the most versatile processing vessel in the U.S. industry. With quarters for 222 crewmembers she processes Alaskan Pollock at her primary operating base in the Aleutians Islands near Dutch Harbor. An onboard rendering plant produces a high quality fish meal and fish oil from the normal processing waste by-products and insures a maximum recovery from the purchased fish.

It was an impressive site to see such a large boat in the locks. Very good tug work.

All photos up here.

Andy and I went out again the other so he could test some (ok tons) of work he’d done on his motor boat. He races (sailboats) and went around Blakely Rock way closer than I’ve had the nerve to. Every year, during the Blakely Rock Race at least one sailboat goes a ground. Supposedly this is a pretty cool dive site as well.

I spent twenty minutes watching this cormorant on J/K dock try to each a (rock?) fish that was clearly too big. Even the gulls ignored it after the cormorant gave up. Poor fish was alive during most of this. Click photos for larger view.

My friend Andy on K-Dock put his boat back in the drink. Even though I’ve done this a hundred times I’m still amazed this works… All photos up here.

Bob from the PSA was kind enough to respond to my rant. After reading his response it’s clear that the sited marina’s are many, many times over limits.  This kind of thing definitely needs to be taken care of.

I still feel that threatening litigation and accepting a settlement to avoid that litigation that doesn’t go directly to fixing the boat yard is pretty lame.  If the yards can’t afford it I don’t think it’s reasonable to say “well, then fold”.  It shouldn’t just be the boat yards responsibility for this. Seattle is a boat town, it plays a large part in the economy and, just because taking care of boats (covered in copper paint and sacrificial leads) is bad for the environment doesn’t mean it should be the sole responsibility of the boat yards to fix. Kind of like suing the city because the oil you’re dumping down the storm drain is making it to the sound.

I don’t think anyone thought that Three Sheets NW headline “Lawsuit threat pushes boatyards the the brink” was taken as PSA killed the economy (no-one’s that daft), but, it is a huge expense at the worst possible time.

Anyway – here’s Bob’s response for anyone interested (colors and fonts are his):

Hi Ben:

Thank you for your email of January 30th, 2010. I share your concern for the survival of our boatyards because I am a boater, too. I trust you will give me the courtesy of sharing my point of view rather than accepting as fact those views expressed in a recent article in Three Sheets Northwest.

• The Three Sheets Northwest article headline, ” Lawsuit threat pushes boatyards to brink,” gives readers the false impression that Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is responsible for the poor economic condition of the boatyard industry. All of us, businesses, non-profits and families are hurting during this awful recession. Puget Soundkeeper Alliance has a long histroyof collaborative work with local businesses, including many boatyards, marinas and members of the Northwest Marine Trade Association.
• Puget Soundkeeper Alliance states in our Notice of Intent to Sue letter that we are willing to discuss effective remedies for the violations addressed in the letter and settlement terms. We suggest that the parties initiate discussions within 10 days so that negotiations may be completed before the end of the 60-day notice period. There is no demand for settlement fees. Each case is unique and the issues in any settlement are unique to that case. Coming into compliance with the law to protect water quality is always one element.
• Puget Soundkeeper Alliance never has accepted penalty payments from defendants. All penalty payments are made directly by defendants to third party mitigation projects conducted by other non-profit organizations to mitigate the damage caused in that watershed. The size of the penalty payment is negotiated between the defendant and Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and is based on the severity of the violations, the duration fo the violations and the unique circumstances of the case.

I would like the opportunity to share some of the steps we have taken with the boatyard industry prior to our recent enforcement actions together with some information on the toxic impact of copper on salmon. I would also like to refer you to our website: http://pugetsoundkeeper.org

• 1995 (revised 1998) Co-wrote the Resource Manual for Pollution Prevention in Marinas. Although this is targeted for a Marina audience the publication deals with many boatyard issues.
• 2005, Participated in the stakeholder process to help Ecology write a Boatyard General Stormwater Permit that protected water quality while employing reasonable and achievable solutions.
• 2007, Wrote and produced a Do It Yourself Boat Repair manual to help boatyards educate their do-it-yourself clients. A common complaint from boatyards was that Do-It-Yourselfers were lax about pollution prevention. 2000 copies were eagerly put into circulation by boatyards.
• February 2007, Co-sponsored a Boatyard Compliance Workshop with Washington Department of Ecology and Northwest Marine Trade Association to help boatyards learn about what to do to come into compliance with their stormwater permits.
• 2007, Partnered with NMTA and three boatyards to implement the Boatyard Stormwater Treatment Technology Pilot Project. Tested three treatment technologies to identify solutions to the boatyard stormwater problem. Six facilities are currently installing the technology identified as most cost effective.
• September 2009, Boatyard warning letter sent to all boatyards in Washington. Recognizing our history of working with this industry, PSA broke with our normal policy of carefully guarding our legal preparations in order to alert boatyards about the seriousness of the issue and the possibility of future legal action. Copies of this letter were sent to NMTA to alert them to the seriousness of this issue.

Science around the toxic effects of copper on salmon

The science is clear, copper is incredibly toxic to salmon. Since 1995, Federal Water Quality standards which are based on scientifically-documented effects to aquatic life, limit dissolved copper to 3.1 parts per billion (ppb) (saltwater) and 5.1-49.5 ppb (freshwater, based on hardness calculation).[1]* In concentrations as low as 3 parts per billion (ppb) dissolved copper has been shown to significantly reduce a salmon’s ability to smell[2]. For salmon, their sense of smell is probably most important. It helps them locate prey, avoid predators and home in on their natal streams. Copper has also been shown to reduce a salmon’s ability to fight disease. In the struggle for survival, successive sub-lethal effects could jeopardize the survival of entire populations.

Copper can also kill salmon outright. Under various conditions (fresh water/ saltwater, adult/juvenile/smolt stage, various water chemistry conditions) copper can kill Chinook salmon at relatively low levels, between 10.2 ppb and 128.4 ppb, with an average lethality of 25.02 ppb (mean acute value). Levels for rainbow trout/steelhead and coho salmon are similar (mean acute values of 22.19 and 22.93), while sockeye salmon and cutthroat trout can tolerate somewhat higher levels[3].

*Since 2007, US EPA has used the Biotic Ligand Model (BLM) (based on pH, hardness and dissolved organic carbon) for establishing water quality criteria for copper in freshwater. Although the new BLM criteria range from 1.6 to 259.6 parts per billion, conditions in the Puget Sound region (slightly acidic, low hardness) favor the low end of this scale (1.6 to 18 ppb).

Boatyard copper discharges

Rather than having to meet water quality criteria for copper, boatyards are required to use adaptive management in their stormwater permits. First they sample their stormwater. When they find it to exceed artificially high benchmarks of 229 ppb for saltwater and 38 ppb for freshwater, they are required to implement level 1, 2 or 3 responses (based on the number of times they exceed the benchmarks). Level 3 is the most serious. A level 3 response is essentially an engineering study and developing a plan to install a treatment system for stormwater.

The exceedances at these 5 boatyards are not minor. The levels that are being discharged are often thousands of times over the levels shown to harm salmon (or hundreds of times over levels shown to kill salmon). For example, one boatyard on this list documented copper discharges at 7830, 5650, 2000, 1148 ppb and failed 13/13 tests for copper. They also failed 7/7 tests for lead, with a high reading of 1340 ppb. Lead is a serious neurotoxin which is regulated by a limit of 55.6 ppb, not a benchmark, making each exceedance a violation. They also did not implement required level 1, 2 and 3 responses and missed required samples on other occasions which are the very structures on which the adaptive management scheme is based.

Boatyards can comply with permits

One high volume boatyard with a history of high discharges installed a stormwater treatment system to bring them into compliance. This brought their discharges down from a range of 189-5500 ppb to 12.5-65 ppb. In addition, after installing the treatment, lead and zinc discharges were reduced to levels below what the measuring equipment could capture.

Cited References:

[1] National Recommended Water Quality Criteria, US EPA, 2005

[2] Sublethal Effects of Copper on Coho Salmon: Impacts on Nonoverlapping Receptor Pathways in the Peripheral Olfactory Nervous System, David H. Baldwin, Jason F. Sandahl, Jana S. Labenia, and Nathaneil L. Scholz, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2003

[3] 2007 Update of Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Copper, US EPA, 2007

Additional Reference:

Safety assessment of selected inorganic elements to fry of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), S.J. Hamilton, KJ Buhl, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Fisheries Contaminant Research Center, Yankton, South Dakota 57078, 1990

Again, I share your concern for protecting this valuable boatyard industry and the pastime of recreational boating. I believe that this can be done in a manner that protects water quality and valuable but sensitive natural resources like salmon.

Regards,

Bob Beckman

Puget Soundkeeper® & Executive Director

Puget Soundkeeper® Alliance

5309 Shilshole Ave. NW, Suite 215

Seattle, WA  98107

206-297-7002

206-297-0409 FAX

Three Sheets NW recently wrote an article on PSA’s demand for settlement fees to avoid litigation against local boat yards over environmental violations.

Quoting the Three Sheets NW article:

None of the suits has gone to litigation, Beckman said. All have been settled out of court, with the PSA collecting about $1.2 million in settlements ranging from $500 to $100,000. Beckman said all of those funds have been given to third-party organizations to fund environmental remediation projects.

“We don’t keep any of the settlement money,” he said. “That has been our board policy from the beginning of our enforcement work.”

The settlement amounts being discussed with the five boatyards are rumored to be in the $50,000 range. Beckman wouldn’t comment on specific amounts, but said the settlements will be less than $100,000.

“Some of these folks are claiming economic distress, and we’ll take that into account,” he said. “We’re not trying to drive anybody out of business.”

It should seem obvious that, if indeed PSA wanted to work with boatyards that they’d issue a “clean up to avoid litigation” threat instead of a “settle out of court or face litigation” extortion demand. Which would be better, $50K spent by the yards cleaning up or $50K given to the PSA? I think that answer is obvious.

As a boat owner, live-aboard and environmentalist I find the PSA’s move appalling; embarrassing to all environmentalists and nothing short of extortion. It’s counter productive, antagonistic and does nothing to solve the actual problem.

I (Ben Wiseley on http://westsail28.com slip K-18) know many people in the marine industry. They’ve got it very, very, very hard these days. This kind of thing will harm a lot of people; both boat owners and the people who work on boats. If you think what the PSA is doing is wrong, let them know. The head of extortion over there is:

Bob Beckman, Puget Soundkeeper & Executive Director can be reached at 206-297-7002 or bob@pugetsoundkeeper.org

I’ll be contacting people I know in the government as well as the legal industry to see what, if anything I can do to either stop this action or strike back at the PSA until they do the right thing for the environment as well as the community.

Shame on you PSA.

Lividly,

Ben Wiseley