BELLINGHAM – Despite attempts to control pollution from runoff, the quality of water in Lake Whatcom is worsening, according to a new annual report.
“Is the lake heading in a direction we don’t want it to go? The answer is yes,” said Robin Matthews, the 500-page report’s lead author.
Matthews is director of the Institute for Watershed Studies at Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment.
The lake is the drinking water source for about half the residents of Whatcom County, including the city of Bellingham.
“You can’t have the algae continue to increase and just throw more chemicals at it,” Matthews said, referring to the cost of treating the water supply in order to make it drinkable.
The report was bad news for the local politicians, Bellingham Mayor Tim Douglas admitted.
“This is reconfirmation that the lake is going in the wrong direction in certain ways,” Douglas said. “We don’t want to look back 20 years from now and say, ‘Why didn’t we do something?’”
Douglas said the city has spent millions of dollars acquiring land in the lake watershed to prevent development, while working in the city-controlled portion of the watershed to minimize runoff pollution.
But he said the city and county need to redouble efforts to reduce or eliminate use of phosphorous fertilizers in the watershed, while developing better stormwater controls.
The Whatcom County Council recently extended a moratorium on creation of new subdivisions in the watershed.
County Executive Pete Kremen said the county was working to develop systems to control runoff pollution from already developed areas.
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