‘My river’: Locals take it upon themselves to clean up the Snohomish

EVERETT — For over 20 years, Bill Jaquette has rowed on the Snohomish River multiple times a week, about 9 miles every trip.

The 81-year-old Everett Rowing Association member knows the channels well, from the birds stalking the shores to the garbage plaguing his morning voyages.

Derelict boats parked permanently on land and water.

A large steel box anchored in Ebey Slough.

Neon green soda bottles mingled with the river’s flow.

“It’s one of my annoyances,” Jaquette said about the pollution.

Locals like him are often stewards of the river they frequent, picking up garbage that ends up in the water.

Snohomish County funds a slew of cleanup efforts: a pollution reporting hotline, the Streamside Landowner Program and the Watershed Stewards, among others.

But when it comes to trash, county staff and residents agree everyone is responsible for keeping the river they treasure clean.

‘Rowing on the Snohomish’

For Jaquette, his morning rowing sessions are special for the exercise but largely for the location: the river that stretches from near Monroe at the confluence of the Skykomish and Snoqualmie rivers out to Everett, where it meets Puget Sound.

He even wrote a book, “Rowing on the Snohomish,” about how he cherishes the river — with views of Mt. Rainier and visits from curious harbor seals.

At the sight of derelict boats, it saddens him some people view the river as a place “where their responsibilities can be ignored.” He has encountered a number of people over the past two decades who began repairing their vessels, only to leave them to rot or drift away.

He once paddled through an oil slick on the Snohomish, too — likely from a derelict — and promptly reported it to the state Department of Ecology.

Jaquette and other Everett Rowing Association members have reported abandoned boats to the county, with environmental stewardship as one of the organization’s core values. Not to mention rowers occasionally have to dodge abandoned vessels and wreckage on their routes.

In addition to boats, rowers have witnessed everything from mattresses to gas cans in the river.

“If it’s something we can remove from the river, we do,” said Hannah Sellars, executive director of the Everett Rowing Association.

Members of the rowing association said the county’s derelict vessel removal program has helped address the issue on the Snohomish. The association even named a boat after Everett couple Phil and Kelly Johnson, who donated $50,000 to the program in 2021 — a major honor in the sport of rowing.

“Our community is benefitting from their efforts,” Sellars said.

County staff this month estimated there are 20 derelict boats remain in the Snohomish Estuary. But the number is constantly fluctuating as some people remove their boats, while new ones appear, said Elisa Dawson, senior planner for the county’s Marine Resources Committee. Eight of the vessels are estimated to be in Steamboat Slough — a frequent channel for rowing association members.

The state of the vessels vary. Some are largely intact, save for stained and faded siding, like Thunderchief and Celia Jean parked next to each other in Union Slough. Others along the Snohomish River’s channels are more of a collection of glass and wood than a boat.

Since the derelict vessel removal program started in 2018, county staff have helped remove 27 vessels from the Snohomish estuary.

Hired contractors use cranes or other vehicles to move the boat. The workers then recycle any materials they can from the debris or deliver it to a landfill.

Dawson said her committee’s staff “really encourage” people who monitor the river regularly to report new boats.

They pose a threat to water quality, especially if they’re leaking fuel or shedding marine debris. They also harm the surrounding landscape.

“Some of these vessels are sunk or grounded,” she said, “so they’re sitting on important land. That in itself is an impact to habitat.”

The state Department of Natural Resources Derelict Vessel Removal Program reimburses the county’s Marine Resources Committee for the removals. This year, committee staff removed seven boats from the Snohomish River Estuary for a cost of $237,880.

Dawson said every other year, DNR establishes a maximum amount they will reimburse through the program. The amount the county requests for reimbursement fluctuates every year based on the complexity of a boat’s removal.

“You can remove one vessel and it might cost half a million dollars,” Dawson said, “or you might be able to remove 10 vessels, but it would only cost $100,000 because of the size and the complexity of the vessel.”

‘My river’

Farther south, Snohomish resident Doug Ewing has recruited locals to join him in picking up trash from the river.

This fall, Ewing worked with others to remove 18 tires from the river. A group of teenagers found the tires and stacked them on an island over the course of the summer. Then in September, some of Ewing’s neighbors loaded the tires on to their boat and brought them to Ewing, so he could load them in his truck for disposal.

He normally removes about four to five tires from the Snohomish every year, but this year, he has helped take out over 20 — motivated by the knowledge that a chemical from tires kills coho salmon.

The chemical 6PPD-quinone — a combination of the preservative that helps tires last longer and ozone from the atmosphere — can kill coho after only a few hours of exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since fall 2022, he and about a dozen volunteers from the local sustainability group Green Snohomish have also gathered to collect beer cans, McDonald’s wrappers and other eyesores along portions of the river in Everett and Snohomish.

Volunteers heap the trash they find in a succinct pile during the two-hour Saturday cleanups. A county environmental cleanup worker loads up the garbage at the start of the next week.

“It can make you feel good,” Ewing said. “It can make you feel bad because you go (back) there and there’s new garbage.”

Ewing still treks to the river for solo trips almost every day at his usual spot at Thomas’ Eddy across from Bob Heirman Wildlife Park. He lives just up the road, so he’s drawn to the Snohomish., in part, due to proximity.

He is also stubborn, determined to protect the waters he endearingly calls “my river.”

Since The Daily Herald first reported on his cleanup efforts last spring, he filled 11 more pickup truck beds with trash from the Snohomish, totaling 70 loads over the past decade.

The river has harbored its share of pollution over time, from the Everett tire fire in 1984 to contamination from former mills along the waterfront.

“The river itself has been an industrial and agricultural corridor,” said Everett Public Library history specialist, Lisa Labovitch.

Human interaction of any kind with the river inevitably leads to pollution, she said.

Ewing recognizes there will always be garbage waiting for him at the river’s edge and in its waters. And he accepts that, for a natural treasure.

“Well,” he said, “I can do what I can do.”

Ta’Leah Van Sistine: 425-339-3460; taleah.vansistine@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @TaLeahRoseV.