Vested Interest
by Laurie Ballew
“Oo. A spout.”
“Oh! There’s another. And another!”
“They’re coming this way!”
Robyn du Pre´, environmental advocate and former BayKeeper, will never forget that summer day 20 years ago when she and her family were waiting for the wind to pick up and carry their sailboat across Rosario Strait out of Bellingham Bay. Two pods of orcas — one heading south and the other north — converged where their boat was stalled.
With awe she watched the orca fins slapping, slippery backs surfacing and one full breach off the stern. Du Pre´ said she will always have that memory of the bay.
Today, this aquatic environment is threatened by the effects of past and present industry. Since 1996, the Bellingham Bay Demonstration Pilot Project, a mix of 15 agencies, tribes and businesses, has been deciding how to clean up Bellingham Bay through a process never tried before in Washington state. Usually, large projects, such as urban aquatic cleanups, involve multiple lawsuits among competing interests. The members of the Pilot Project, however, are attempting to be cooperative and work for consensus.
Du Pre´ was the only person to attend every Pilot meeting during the five years she was BayKeeper — an environmental advocate and educator. She applauds the intent of the project but is also quick to critique it. She said she worked tirelessly on the aspects of the Pilot she believed were flawed.
Regardless of the project’s merits or faults, however, behind it are dedicated individuals whose reasons for participating in the Pilot go beyond a paycheck. Bellingham Bay has influenced their lives, and now they are working to preserve the bay for future generations. We have profiled representatives of local groups involved in the cleanup and a representative from the Department of Ecology, which, along with the Port of Bellingham, manages the project.
Barry Wenger: Department of Ecology
Even though Barry Wenger studied biological oceanography at the University of Washington for more than four years, he decided not to graduate. The jobs available in his field were either in the oil, mining or defense industries or they required a doctorate, three years experience and were based in Louisiana and Texas.
Wenger dropped everything and decided to travel in Mexico. He was surprised and appalled by what he saw. A Ford plant operated in the jungle. Hepatitis was rampant because the drinking water was not properly treated.
“There was this juxtaposition of high technology for the Ford plant and absolutely no technology for public health,” Wenger said. “This was all before environmental planning was even a term.”
Wenger is approaching his 18th year working for Ecology and is now the agency’s senior environmental planner working on 70 different projects. Because Ecology enforces the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA), which ensures federal funding for major clean-ups, Wenger plays a critical role in the Pilot.
When he returned to Seattle from Mexico, Wenger heard Ian McHarg speak about his new book “Design with Nature.” Wenger realized what McHarg spoke about — planning in ways that compliment nature rather than being at odds with nature — was exactly what he wanted to do.
He applied to Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment and graduated in 1974. Wenger was disturbed by what he learned at Huxley, too. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” had recently been published. Toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) discharged from industrialized countries had been found in the Arctic.
“I’d go up to school and come back with three different headaches,” Wenger said.
He remembers saying, “If we’re in this bad of shape in 1972, I don’t want to have kids. We’re in dire straits.”
Wenger knew he had a decision to make: “Am I going to bail out and hide in the South Pacific or try to do something about it?”
His fierce dedication to the natural environment is evident in his attitude towards his projects.
“You can’t be in this work and not be an optimist,” Wenger said.
In 2002, Wenger was researching the declining populations of surf smelt and Pacific sand lance, which are forage fish for salmon, at Cherry Point. He and his colleague Joni Cameron noticed an abundance of creosote-coated logs washed up in the intertidal zone where Pacific sand lance spawn. After researching the toxicity of creosote, Wenger decided it was imperative to remove the logs, and thus, he helped start the Marine Creosote Piling Remediation Project.
Creosote, a petroleum waste product, contains more than 160 chemicals and is used to treat wood such as railroad ties, telephone poles and pilings. The soup of chemicals often contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. PAHs can cause skin lesions and cancer in animals, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
An 8-ounce glass of creosote would contaminate 15 Bellingham Herald buildings full of water, Wenger said. One 20-foot log, 16 inches in diameter, contains approximately 16 gallons of creosote. Only half a part per billion of creosote is lethal to herring fish eggs and larvae, according to Bellingham’s Department of Public Works.
Wenger spent a year lobbying Ecology in Olympia for funding but was denied three times. Creosote logs, because they are considered a product to be sold rather than a waste material, are excluded from MTCA and the Solid Waste Disposals Act. But Wenger did not give up.
“I was not taking ‘No’ for an answer,” Wenger said.
When he finally received a $45,000 grant, numerous volunteer groups helped remove 100 tons of logs from the Bellingham area.
Wenger keeps himself in check by asking: “Bottom line: are you doing something good for the environment today or are you just shuffling paper?”
His projects happen because he keeps one hand in policy and grinds the other in the dirt. And Wenger knows the dirt well. He played rugby, football and soccer in college. He plans to meet his boys at a local bar to watch some rugby footage next week. He uses times like those to wind down from the hours he spends working to deal with the pollution in the bay.
Chip Hilarides: Georgia-Pacific
“Chip, you’re so calm.”
During tension-filled discussions about environmental cleanups, Chip Hilarides often hears this from people. He simply responds, “I’ve been in a nuclear submarine at test-depth with the reactor scrammed and a fire in a major electrical switchboard. Now that’s stressful.”
Chip Hilarides, who spent 10 years as a nuclear-trained submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, is now the senior environmental planner at Georgia-Pacific West. He oversees more than 20 cleanup projects at G-P’s plants. Hilarides is important because he represents G-P, which dumped mercury in the bay beginning in the 1970s.
“I wanted to go to graduate school and find something I could really have a passion for,” he said. “The field of environmental engineering caught my interest.”
While still in the Navy and teaching full time for the Navy Reserve Officer Training Core at Notre Dame, Hilarides completed his doctorate in environmental engineering.
“I had always been an avid nature, get-out-in-the-environment-and-do-things kind of guy, so it clicked for me,” Hilarides said. “It interested me because, one, it gave me an opportunity to get out and do something good for the world, and also, in order to understand the issues, you’ve got to have a broad disciplinary base. There’s chemistry, biology, engineering. It’s a fascinating field.”
Barry Wenger from Ecology said since G-P hired Hilarides, working with the corporation has gotten easier.
“Chip is the first true environmental manager that G-P employed here,” Wenger said. “And it was an excellent move on G-P’s part since Chip has the background and knowledge to fluently converse with our scientists and engineers and then translate that information back to his management in their terms. Understanding builds trust. Even if you agree to disagree, at least you are not guessing what the other party is thinking.”
Between 1999 and 2001, Hilarides oversaw the decommissioning and demolition of G-P’s chlorine plant, a facility used to pulp and bleach paper. The process included removing and recycling chemicals and knocking down and recycling or disposing of major tanks and equipment.
Another of his projects was the capping of G-P’s log pond, an aquatic area that contained contaminated sediments from past discharges and log rafting activities. From 2000 to 2001, G-P completed a capping and habitat restoration project in the log pond that involved taking clean sediments and placing them over the contaminated sediments.
The most frustrating part of his job, Hilarides said, is how long it takes to begin a cleanup.
“When I see a problem and a solution, I try to bring them together as quickly as I can,” he said.
Hilarides spent the equivalent of three years underwater. Even though he’s now up for air, he’s hip-deep with the rest of the team, trying to reach consensus — or at least a compromise — on how to deal with the mercury G-P dumped in the bay.
Mike Stoner: Port of Bellingham
Mike Stoner was a graduate student in soil science when Mount St. Helens erupted. While some saw crisis, others saw opportunity.
“We slapped together a really quick contract to go up and take baseline information. We were flown into the pyroclastic flows that were still piping hot and took soil, surface water and groundwater samples,” Stoner said. “Those were the good ol’ days. I loved that.”
During his days in the field, Stoner said he would not have foreseen himself in a management position.
“I didn’t even know what a port was when I was in grad school,” Stoner said.
Now, Stoner is director of environmental programs for the Port of Bellingham. He plays an important role in the Pilot Project because the Port is trying to clean up the past and revive the area’s economy.
The Port promotes economic development by leasing out property for commercial and industrial development. It operates the area’s marinas, shipping and cruise terminals and the Bellingham International Airport, creates public parks and manages environmental cleanups.
Stoner oversees about 15 cleanup efforts. The excitement in his job comes from seeing his projects come to fruition.
“It’s really gratifying to see these projects actually happen,” Stoner said. “It takes years. The public process for moving an idea to construction requires an absolute maze of regulatory requirements. You’ve got to meet federal, state and local requirements, each of which have a series of public and agency meetings. So, when you finally get to a place where you’ve got approval, it’s oddly thrilling.”
After leafing through his day planner, Stoner realized he had attended approximately 400 meetings about Bellingham Bay.
He also gives public workshops on the Pilot’s progress. His favorite was his visit to a fifth-grade classroom. The teacher had set up several aquariums with a layer of white sand on bottom and blue sand on top. With turkey basters and plastic scoops, the students had to “dredge” the blue sand from the white sand.
“It made me a true believer in gender differences,” Stoner said. “All the girls did a really good job separating the two. The boys ended up stirring it all up. When it comes time for dredging, I think I’d choose fifth grade girls to do the job.”
Stoner is the father of three: a daughter who goes to Sehome High School, and a son, who, before enrolling at Western, spent a year at a wooden boat-building school in Port Townsend. His oldest son is now second mate of a tall ship in California.
Living near the water seems to have shaped the lives of Stoner and his family. This might be a reason people are so willing to dedicate their time and effort to the cleanup: for people who live near Bellingham Bay, the bay becomes a part of them.
Dick McKinley: City of Bellingham
Whether teaching his son’s fifth-grade class about the scientific method using banana boats and marbles or explaining how sewer treatment plants work to the befuddled citizen, teaching is part of what Dick McKinley, public works director for the City of Bellingham, does.
“One of the key parts of my job is explaining complex subjects in simple terms,” he said.
His son’s teacher wants him to talk about the Lake Whatcom watershed next, and after that, international trade and finance in 20 minutes, McKinley said.
McKinley loves kids. With four of his own, he said children are ultimately who he works for.
“Most of the people I work for haven’t been born yet,” McKinley said.
While his colleagues may be in charge of making sure the recycling gets picked up or the traffic lights work or the city’s drinking water is clean, McKinley said his job is cleaning up the past and planning for the future.
The city’s primary role in the Pilot, according to McKinley, is to clean up Bellingham’s old landfills. In the early 1900s, McKinley said it was common practice to dump garbage directly into the bay. When fishermen complained, whoever was in charge of dumping waited for an out-going tide. When fishermen still complained, the garbage was taken farther out into Rosario Strait. In the 1940s, instead of dumping into the bay, the city used garbage as fill to make more land.
Three old landfills are designated as MTCA sites because of leaching chemicals. Next fall, the city will begin to clean up the Holly Street landfill. The project will involve habitat restoration and a boardwalk.
Stewardship is ingrained in McKinley. He learned it in Boy Scouts and continues to teach it as he coaches baseball and football for the Boys and Girls Club.
“It would be absolutely horrible to know contaminants are there and not do anything about it,” McKinley said. “Stewardship is taking what you have and making it better.”
Harlan James: Lummi Dept. of Natural Resources policy representativeWhen Harlan James talks about being on the water, his voice takes on a soft, reverent tone.
“It’s beautiful. It’s a place you strive to be. There’s a feeling out there that’s not in here. You feel lifted,” James said. “In here, sensitive issues attack you.
They just go away out there.”
James fished for a living for about 15 years and is now the policy representative for Lummi Department of Natural Resources. The Lummis have significant leverage within the Pilot because of their fishing rights in the bay.
According to the 1974 Boldt decision and the Rafeedie decision in 1994, Washington tribes are co-managers with the Department of Fish and Wildlife of the fish in their traditional fishing grounds and are entitled to half of all harvestable stocks.
James used to fish for chinook, coho, humpback salmon and steelhead until his job was no longer profitable. He said the saturation of the market with farmed Atlantic salmon decreased the demand for wild salmon. In the 1980s, a catch of 80 King salmon might bring in $4,500 at $4.50 per pound. Today, he said he could sell King salmon for only 50 cents a pound.
The populations of wild salmon have plummeted, as have the prices. In the past 20 years, wild fish stocks originating from the Puget Sound and Washington Coast have dramatically declined, largely because of habitat degradation, James said.
James said the most challenging part of the Pilot is the reading. The environmental impact statement alone is 3 inches thick.
“There’s all the different languages,” James said. “There’s the policy language, the technical language and the lawyer language. Put those in the same room and try to come up with a consensus in one language we can all understand.”
Go out on the water, however, and the issue seems simple. When James was fishing in the 1980s, the flounder he caught near the cement plant off Squalicum Beach were puckered with crater-like sores.
“I usually take flounders home and eat them,” James said. “They make great fish and chips. But something’s eating them away. You don’t keep those; you throw them away.”
Fish puckered with sores are just one of the signs that the bay’s environment is in trouble. Cleanup is vital to the health of the bay’s ecosystem, and people such as James are working toward that goal.
Robyn du Pre´: Environmental Advocate
Even though du Pre´ was never officially a part of the Pilot, she worked closely with the team when she was the BayKeeper. She remembers how easy it was to judge those who represented agendas that conflicted with her own.
“We tended to pigeon-hole one another and create caricatures of each other,” du Pre´ said.
She realizes, however, that nobody, including herself, wants to be pigeon-holed and reduced to an agenda rather than treated as a real person.
“In a small town like Bellingham, there’s a pretty good chance of running into one other at a PTA meeting, or maybe our kids will go to high school prom together,” du Pre´ said.
She recently ran into G-P’s former environmental manager at the SeaTac airport terminal.
“He saw someone he recognized; he hailed me, he hung out with me,” du Pre´ said.
They demonstrated that two people who often had conflicting goals could climb out of those roles. When people get so involved and invested in a project, it is easy to forget real people exist behind the process.
Junior Laurie Ballew studies English and environmental studies at Western. She has previously been published in The Planet Magazine.
