Mercury in retrograde: Tracking down a toxic threat

Mercury is magic. The silvery element is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.

Mercury is also poison. It's a potent neurotoxin that can inflict damage on many parts of the human body. What’s worse, mercury can build up through the food chain, bioaccumulating until animals at the top – like orcas, raptors and humans – get a concentrated dose.

It’s no wonder, then, that cleaning up mercury contamination and getting mercury out of the environment has been a priority at Ecology for decades. Back in 2003, our first chemical action plan – a comprehensive plan to prioritize ways to reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals – was on mercury.

This week, the fight against mercury is getting a global perspective as the illustriously titled “Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury” takes place in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Minamata Convention may sound like the title of a spy thriller, but it’s really a global treaty to protect human health from the toxic effects of mercury. The United States is a signatory to the convention.

In Washington, our Legislature passed the Mercury Education and Reduction Act, or MERA, in 2003. MERA bans the sale of some mercury-containing products (such as thermometers and sphygmomanometers), and requires labeling light bulbs that contain mercury. Washington is also a member of the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse, a nine-state collaborative working together on mercury issues.

To recap, we’ve got highly toxic metals, global treaties, interstate cabals, mysterious acronyms, and whatever the heck a sphygmomanometer is – when does Jason Bourne swing into action?

Unfortunately, the super spy is fictional and thus unavailable, so it’s up to all of us to get rid of mercury. The good news is that we’re making progress!

What we’re doing

Along with MERA, Washington has long been leading the way in reducing mercury:

•  In 2006, Ecology and the Washington State Dental Association signed an agreement to advance the use of amalgam separators in dentists’ offices (mercury amalgam, used in tooth fillings, is a major source of mercury entering the environment). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted similar rules earlier this year.
• Since 2006, Ecology has offered a “bounty” to auto recyclers to remove mercury switches from wrecked cars. So far, the program has collected more than 263,000 mercury switches, keeping more than 580 pounds of mercury out of the environment.
• In 2011, the Washington Legislature passed a law phasing out the state's last coal-fired power plant by 2025. Burning coal is another major source of mercury emissions.
• At the Georgia-Pacific West site in Bellingham, Ecology oversaw the removal of 3,550 tons of mercury contaminated soil in 2013-14. Another 900 tons of soil is being removed this this year.
•  In 2015, Washington launched LightRecycle, a program to collect and recycle fluorescent lights and other types of lights that contain mercury. So far, LightRecycle has collected more than 2 million lights.
  
  
• In 2015, Ecology conducted an enforcement exercise, looking for mercury-containing instruments from online retailers. This exercise led to more than 1,100 products being removed from sale (including sphygmomanometers!). Ecology’s toxics reduction staff also work with hospitals and medical offices to replace mercury-containing instruments.

Is it working?

With all of this work going on, it might seem like mercury levels in the environment would be plummeting across Washington. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of mercury released in the last hundred years and it doesn’t disappear overnight.

A 2014 Ecology study of mercury levels in fish around Washington found that levels were steady or slightly rising in most of the water bodies we tested.

There’s better news from our ongoing monitoring of mercury levels coming from wastewater treatment plants (which end up with trace levels of mercury from a variety of sources, making them a good proxy of our efforts to remove mercury). Mercury levels in this metric are down 66 percent since 1995.

So, we’re clearly making progress at reducing mercury at the source – be that source a power plant or a tooth filling. Eventually, we expect this progress to work its way through the system, leaving Washington with a cleaner, healthier environment.

Consider it a case study for those folks meeting this week in Geneva at the Minamata Convention: Commitment and hard work can make a big difference on mercury.

By Andrew Wineke, Hazardous Waste and Toxics Reduction program

Dust storm requires report to EPA

Blowing dust in 2015 prompted officials to
close state highways due to poor visibility.
Photo courtesy of NBC KNDU/KNDO

Much of Eastern Washington is prone to blowing dust, which is a significant air pollution problem. Dust can cause health and driving risks when high levels of particles are suspended in the air. We monitor and track dust pollution in Washington to ensure the state meets federal air standards intended to protect peoples’ health.

On Aug. 14, 2015, high winds overwhelmed agricultural erosion controls and caused a severe dust storm resulting in high levels of particle pollution being recorded on our air quality monitor in Kennewick.

We’ve developed a report requesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exclude the data collected during this event from calculations used to determine whether the region meets National Air Quality Standards because it was an exceptional event.

An exceptional event is an unusual or naturally-occurring event that can affect air quality, but cannot be reasonably controlled. If high winds cause air quality monitor readings to go over the federal limit and EPA agrees the reading was beyond our control and meets other required criteria, the cause of the high reading may be considered an exceptional event.

Review the report and submit comments

The report demonstrates that the high wind event was exceptional event and concludes that the high winds were:

• Caused by nature.
• Caused high levels of particle pollution.
• Overwhelmed the dust control measures in place throughout the area.

See the report on our Outdoor Dust webpage. Submit comments online or by mail to Caroline (Ying) Sun, Department of Ecology, Air Quality Program, P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504.

More dust management

In the months ahead, we’ll be focusing more efforts to reduce dust in areas near Kennewick and Wallula because it is prone to blowing dust. The area is also called out in a federal rule and we’re required to develop a plan for managing dust.

Be on the lookout for our new plan that outlines strategies to reduce sources of dust that affect your health. Through this effort, we will also continue to partner with the agriculture community to encourage farming practices that prevent soil erosion and windblown dust.

La Tormenta de Polvo Requiere un Reporte a la Agencia de Protección Ambiental

La mayoría de Washington Oriental tiene la tendencia de soplar polvo, y esto es un problema significante para la contaminación del aire. El polvo puede causar peligros para la salud y para manejar cuando altos niveles de partículas están suspendidas en el aire. Nosotros monitoreamos y seguimos la contaminación de polvo en el estado de Washington para asegurar que el estado cumple con los estándares federales de aire para proteger la salud de la gente.

En 14 de Agosto, 2015, vientos fuertes abrumaron controles de erosión agrícola y causó fuertes tormentas de polvo, resultando en altos niveles de contaminación por partículas que fueron registrados en nuestros monitores de calidad del aire.

Nosotros hemos desarrollado un reporte solicitando que la Agencia de Protección Ambiental (EPA en inglés) de los Estados Unidos excluya los datos recolectados durante este evento de los cálculos que son usados para determinar si la región cumple con las Normas Nacionales de Calidad del Aire porque fue un evento excepcional.

Un evento excepcional es un evento inusual o natural que puede afectar la calidad del aire, pero no puede ser controlado razonablemente. Si los vientos fuertes hacen que las lecturas del monitor de calidad del aire superen el límite federal, y la EPA acepta que las lecturas están fuera de nuestro control, y cumple con otros criterios requeridos, la causa de la lectura alta puede ser considerada un evento excepcional.

Revisar El Reporte y Enviar Comentarios

El reporte demuestra que el evento de viento fuerte fue un evento excepcional y concluye que los vientos fueron:

· Causados por la naturaleza.

· Causados por altos niveles de contaminación por partículas.

· Abrumaron las medidas de control de polvo que están establecidas en toda la zona.

Ve el reporte en nuestra página de polvo al aire libre. Se puede enviar comentarios en línea o por correo a Caroline (Ying) Sun, Departamento de Ecología, programa de calidad del aire, P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504.

Más Gestión del Polvo

En los próximos meses, centraremos más esfuerzos para reducir el polvo en áreas cerca de Kennewick y Wallula porque estas áreas son propensas a soplar el polvo. Esta área ha sido identificada en una regla federal, y tenemos que desarrollar un plan para controlar el polvo.

Pone atención a nuestro nuevo plan que describe las estrategias para reducir fuentes de polvo que pueden afectar tu salud. A través de este esfuerzo, también continuaremos asociándonos con la comunidad agrícola para alentar las prácticas agrícolas que previenen la erosión del suelo y el polvo arrastrado por el viento.

Eyes Under Puget Sound: Critter of the Month – The Orange Sea Pen

Ptilosarcus gurneyi (with a striped 

nudibranch) off Whidbey Island, WA; 

photo by Jan Kocian.

Fall is right around the corner, and this month’s critter is a preview of the brilliant colors to come. The Orange Sea Pen, also called the Fleshy Sea Pen or Gurney’s Sea Pen, resembles a colorful autumn tree waving in the “breeze” of moving water currents.

Family tree
Like its slender cousin Stylatula elongata, the Orange Sea Pen is actually a colony of tiny animals called polyps 

working together to form a single organism. It starts out as one primary polyp that grows and expands to form the base (the bulbous part that anchors the animal in the sediment) and the rachis (the central stalk).  As it grows, it adds more polyps, assigned to different jobs depending on their location in the colony. 

A close-up of a preserved Orange Sea Pen showing the gastrozooids
(feeding polyps), siphonozooids (pumping polyps), and rachis (central stalk).

On the sea pen’s long feathery leaves are rows of autozooids: feeding polyps that wave their eight tentacles in the water to catch drifting plankton. These polyps pull double duty, also responsible for producing eggs and sperm that get released into the water column. The siphonozooids, or pumping polyps, are found in the orange regions on the sides of the rachis. Their function is to take in or expel water, allowing the colony to inflate or deflate.

P. gurneyi with two of its main sea slug predators:
the Striped Nudibranch (top) and the Diamondback
Tritonia (bottom). In the bottom photograph, the sea
pen is in its retracted state. Photos by Jan Kocian.

Make like a tree and leave

The Orange Sea Pen is surprisingly mobile, inflating its siphonozooids with water and drifting like a leaf on the wind when it wants to relocate. It can also deflate, partially retracting into its fleshy base when predators come calling. The amount of retraction has been shown to be specific to the approaching predator, which suggests that the pen can actually sense who is creeping up on it! Unfortunately, even a retracted pen can have some soft tissue exposed, and the sea pen’s predators are determined – and hungry.

Orange Sea Pens make up one of the largest sources of food on the open sea floor and are important to a wide variety of benthic predators, including sea stars like the Leather Star, the Common Sun Star, and at least three different nudibranch (sea slug) species.

In the limelight

Luckily for the Orange Sea Pen, making a run for it and hunkering down aren’t its only defenses. When the pen is physically disturbed, it can bioluminesce, producing a greenish-blue light that runs up and down its stalk and startles predators. It can also produce a mild toxin called ptilosarcone, although the function of this substance has not been well studied.

Young Orange Sea Pens, beating the odds. Photo by Jan Kocian.

 Young sea pens are especially vulnerable to predation. They are incredibly slow-growing, taking over a year to reach about an inch tall. Orange Sea Pens increase their chances of survival with sheer numbers - a single pen can produce about a million eggs during its 10-year lifetime.

Branching out

The Orange Sea Pen may not be the only species of sea pen in Puget Sound, but it is certainly the most iconic. Its cheery form brightens up dreary sandy or muddy sea floors in shallow subtidal waters from the Gulf of Alaska to California, often occurring in dense beds with many pens per square meter.

Because of the Orange Sea Pen’s tendency to occur in patches and in shallow water, we don’t encounter them very often in our benthic grab samples, but when we do, they are a fun and welcome sight. The adults are so easily identified that we can count, weigh, and measure them in the field and release them alive back into their environment!  

By: Dany Burgess & Angela Eagleston, Environmental Assessment Program

Critter of the Month

Our benthic taxonomists, Dany and Angela, are scientists who identify and count the benthic (sediment-dwelling) organisms in our samples as part of our Marine Sediment Monitoring Program. We are tracking the numbers and types of species we see in order to understand the health of Puget Sound and to detect any changes over time. 

Dany and Angela share their discoveries by bringing us a Benthic Critter of the Month. These posts will give you a peek into the life of Puget Sound’s least-known inhabitants. We’ll share details on identification, habitat, life history, and the role each critter plays in the sediment community. Can't get enough benthos? See photos from our Eyes Under Puget Sound collection on Flickr. 

Turning on the pumps

Whatcom County’s Bertrand Creek will be a little wetter this fall. Last week, the Bertrand Watershed Improvement District turned on pumps that will put more water into the creek during the late summer/early fall low-flow season.

The Bertrand Creek Augmentation project is a pilot project funded by a grant from the Washington Department of Ecology to the Bertrand Watershed Improvement District. This portion of the grant is estimated at about $65,000. 



Large aluminum ramp, installed and functional at Bertrand Creek

Bertrand Creek winds through northern Whatcom County, west of Lynden, before eventually draining into the Nooksack River. The Bertrand drainage is an area Ecology and others have long focused on due to its low flows in the summer. Many farmers in the area hold legal water rights to use water from the creek for irrigation. Over the years, many farmers have switched to drawing irrigation water from groundwater sources, reducing the impact on the creek, but late-summer flows have remained lower than optimal. Increasing flows in Bertrand Creek is important because it provides cool, clean water for fish, including the endangered Chinook salmon and endangered bull trout.



“This is a great accomplishment between the State, farmers, tribes, State Fish and Wildlife, and the county,” said Kasey Cykler, water master for Ecology. “The work to get the permits done and make the project happen is a testament to the effort and collaboration of all those involved.”

The system aerates the water and disperses
the flow so it won't damage the creek

To increase the flow in the creek, water from local wells is pumped down a special ramp, aerating it and also dispersing the flow so it doesn’t scour the stream. Two ramps were built by a local contractor at a cost of about $1500 each. The ramps are made from aluminum, making them lightweight and easy to move. The devices will move about 1.1 cubic feet/second of water to supplement the creek. Water quality is regularly tested before the additional flow goes into the creek to ensure it meets quality standards and fish needs. 



The project was made simpler by using already available resources. The wells supplying the water are existing irrigation wells that are finished irrigating for the season, and pumps and water lines were loaned by area farmers. This “reuse” concept also reduced project costs.

Ecology awarded the watershed improvement district a temporary water right permit for the project, which runs until Nov. 15, but if enough rain falls, the pumps could be turned off sooner. Besides the immediate benefit for fish, data from the project will help determine whether this type of project could be used in future years and in other places.

For more information on the Bertrand Creek Augmentation project, contact Ecology’s Kasey Cykler at kasey.cykler@ecy.wa.gov.

By Ty Keltner, Bellingham Field Office

Fecal Matters: Health Risks After Heavy Rainfall

BEACH Program Update

This summer in Washington we experienced record breaking temperatures and days without rain. Hot and dry weather makes for perfect beach days, but the rainy season is upon us. After a heavy rainfall, bacteria levels in the water could potentially rise. When the sun returns and beachgoers flock back to the beach, be aware of the potential health risks associated with large rains.

Water from heavy rainfall runs off the land and into nearby lakes, rivers, and saltwater beaches. This runoff can carry pollutants like fecal bacteria. Waste from pets and wildlife can easily be washed downstream. Heavy rains can also cause sewage systems to overflow and discharge untreated sewage into nearby water bodies. 

Protect yourself and your family from getting sick by reducing contact with fresh or marine water after a heavy rain. Avoid water recreation for 24 hours after heavy rainfall, especially in areas where you see pipes or streams that drain directly to the beach. 

Contact with fecal contaminated waters can result in gastroenteritis, skin rashes, upper respiratory infections, and other illnesses. Children and the elderly may be more vulnerable to waterborne illnesses. 

Stay updated about water quality at your beaches by keeping up with us on our blog Fecal Matters, on Facebook, or join our listserv.

Boots on the Ground: WCC responds to Hurricane Harvey

By Alex Wunder and Paris Jackson, WCC AmeriCorps Disaster Response Team public information officers and edited by Laura Schlabach, WCC outreach coordinator.

Below is a first-hand account from two of our Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) AmeriCorps members, currently serving a 30-day deployment to Texas to assist communities after Hurricane Harvey hit in late August. They are serving alongside numerous other programs including Texas Conservation Corps at American YouthWorks, Conservation Corps Minnesota and Iowa, AmeriCorps' Corporation for National and Community Service and American Red Cross.

Although Hurricane Harvey was named a tropical storm Aug. 17, the category 4 hurricane eventually made landfall near Rockport, Texas, late on Aug. 25. The federal government declared a national disaster and WCC AmeriCorps members were already mobilizing to assist communities in southeast Texas wracked by the largest storm on record in the continental United States.

 

Arriving safely in Austin Aug. 29

 

On Aug. 26, 24 WCC staff and AmeriCorps members loaded into four trucks and headed for the Lone Star State, awaiting more specific directions on assignments. After two different changes to our final destination, we arrived in Austin on Aug. 29 ready to implement our Incident Command System or ICS. ICS is a standardized approach for coordinating a large-scale response to an emergency or disaster. The system provides a structure that allows multiple responding teams and agencies to function effectively together. It was first used by the U.S. Forest Service as a way to organize the response to wildfires.




WCC AmeriCorps members finally reach Austin Aug. 29. Photo by Rob Crawford.

Step one: Assign roles and responsibilities

After dividing up tasks and roles for the response, we started collaborating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to organize and find donations and volunteers. WCC supervisor Kelly Gilchrist was picked to lead the donations task force and began setting up systems and procedures for his team. Having standard operating procedures helps integrate new task force members quickly and efficiently.

WCC supervisor Aurelio Elliott is leading the volunteer task force. He and his team started researching and selected volunteer reception centers, enabling them to find and activate volunteers in different areas of Texas.

Our members not involved in the volunteer or donations task force are serving directly in or with the incident command or operations staff preparing for up to 200 members from various disaster response team programs across the country to arrive throughout the next two weeks. They are making progress putting housing, food and training in place to create a smooth arrival for incoming service members. Arranging upcoming operating bases in Houston and Corpus Christi will soon be a priority so crews can get started on providing direct assistance to affected populations.



WCC AmeriCorps members serving in Austin settle into to their incident command post at local hotel. Photo by Rob Crawford.

Step Two: Find a home base

 

 
Amidst all this planning we have been trying to locate a permanent place to house our incident command post and task forces. During the first two days, we operated out of a meeting room in the basement of a local hotel. Not long after, WCC AmeriCorps member Hunter Bowen located an office space that we could utilize with a mortgage company for whom previously worked. Once we arrived, we quickly hung maps and infographics on the walls to assist with research and project flow.

We spent about two days in the new space before FEMA asked us to move to their joint field office. We packed up and arrived at an empty golf supply warehouse that had been refilled with hundreds of people all working to help communities in Texas. We nicknamed our new space the “Ice Box” because it was a big air conditioned room, resulting in everyone wearing jackets despite being 90-plus degrees outside.

Once we had established a presence there, our incident commander Luke Wigle determined the original office that Hunter had found for us was the most effective incident command post location for us in the end, a little farther away from the hustle and bustle of FEMA's joint field office. We packed up and finally set up a stable incident command post that we can operate out of for the foreseeable future. We are still keeping things flexible and easily mobile in the event that we have to transition our command post once more.
 


Elizabeth Weimholt (left) and Jessie Cadigan (right) created a website, www.volunteertx.org, to promote

volunteer and donation opportunities in Texas

What do all these moving parts mean for the team's logistics chief?

I spoke with WCC AmeriCorps member Stephen Fuller, serving as logistics chief, about the challenges presented by moving 24 people and their command post four times in four days. The difficulty is in figuring out organized, efficient ways to move 24 people while still maintaining full task force operations from a technology standpoint. Some of the things I have to constantly keep in mind include internet quality and ability to connect, amount of electrical outlets and a need for power strips to power computers, and even quiet spaces being available to take conference calls," Stephen said.

 

Ready to meet current and future challenges

Disaster response is one of the most fluid and fast-paced aspects of the WCC. Change is constant, which requires everyone involved to be flexible and ready for whatever situations arise. Fortunately, our team is one of the best and everyone has been handling the challenges and curveballs well. The multiple incident command post locations and setting up for future teams has been a great challenge that all of us are rising to meet head on.





Elizabeth Weimholt created recycling program for WCC disaster response team serving in Texas. WCC AmeriCorps member Keith Kaneshiro pictured on the right.

 

Join the WCC

 

Do you want to help the environment, meet great people and make a difference in your community? WCC is now recruiting for the 2017-18 AmeriCorps year! Learn more and apply online today to become a WCC member.

 

See photos of the types of projects WCC members support during their service in our WCC projects Flickr set and WCC featured projects story map.

 

 

 


    
         
 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Over Puget Sound: Sunny, warm and colorful

Late summer brings warm air temperatures, abundant sunshine and drier conditions throughout Puget Sound. Stream flows in the region’s northern rivers are lower than our rivers in south Puget Sound.

Click here to see this month's report

Yet, the combination of abundant spring rain and weak upwelling from the Pacific Ocean means Puget Sound waters are still fresher than at any time in the past 17 years.

While the abundance of jellyfish is lower this year, our warm water temperatures, especially in central Puget Sound, are accompanied by large rafts of drifting macroalgae. What else did we see on our Eyes Over Puget Sound overflight? Diverse blooms in colors of green, orange and red-brown in many our inlets.

We are also checking to see how if our benthic invertebrate community is changing. We are monitoring and measuring samples of these critters that live in the sediments of Puget Sound at our long-term monitoring stations. We’re gathering information so we have baselines to see if any long-term change is occurring among this sensitive part of the Puget Sound ecosystem.

This year, we’re getting great hands-on assistance from our Washington Conservation Corps intern, Nicole Marks. To see more about the project, check out the great poster Nicole has created.