PORTAGE BAY SHELLFISH PROTECTION DISTRICT
ADVISORY COMMITTEE SUMMARY

ZIp File of 2002 Summaries

AGENDA

MEETING ATTENDANCE

DOCUMENTS DISTRIBUTED

• Agenda
• 7/24/02 IFA Portage Bay Meeting Summary
• Portage Bay Fecal Coliform Tracking Notes
• Portage Bay Quarterly Summary for Department of Health

MEETING CONTENTS

1Public Comment Period

No comments from the public.

2.Review Previous Meeting Summary and Meeting Agenda

7/24/02 Meeting Summary
Meeting attendees reviewed the meeting summary but did not suggest revisions. Since a quorum was not present, the committee could not finalize the summary and agreed to finalize the summary at the next meeting.

Meeting Agenda
Attendees reviewed the agenda but did not suggest any revisions.

3. Discuss High Fecal Coliform Counts in August

Advisory committee (AC) members discussed Portage Bay’s high fecal coliform (FC) counts seen during DOH sampling in August and the steps that have been taken to track down the source of the high count. One AC member expressed concern regarding the lack of communication to this committee and other key people when these high numbers were observed.

Ami Stillings is currently working to develop a ‘networking tree’ to identify the representatives of the applicable entities who will be contacted when high FC incidents occur in the future. These representatives will then have the responsibility of contacting other appropriate people from their organization or taking the appropriate actions to identify and resolve any problems associated with the high fecal levels.

Ami distributed a summary of the action items that were discussed in an earlier meeting that involved agency representatives, tribal interests, the Portage Bay Shellfish District and wastewater facilities. Meeting attendees identified the following potential sources that may have contributed to the high FC counts:

• Wastewater treatment plants
• Campgrounds/social events
• Lynden Fair
• CAO violations
• Canadian tributaries (members wondered if these tributaries also had high FC counts)

The following is a brief summary of some of the actions that occurred to address these potential sources:

Wastewater Treatment Plants
Mark Henderson checked with Lynden, Everson, Ferndale, and Lummi Nation about any problems in their plants around 8/13/02. Each supplied him with their DMR (discharge monitoring reports), which he looked over and found no problems. Mark also looked into Everson’s water usage and sewer flow ratios but did not find any unusual occurrences and will do the same for Lynden and Ferndale. One member mentioned that if these high FC counts were part of an ongoing problem, an annual investigation would probably not reveal anything.

Campgrounds/Social Events
Kasey Ignac reported that the KOA and Berthusen campgrounds are not connected to the City of Lynden’s sewer lines and it is unknown whether the campgrounds were at their maximum capacity or not at the time of the high FC count.

Mark was tasked with looking into other social events that occurred during the week of the high counts, but has not yet completed the task. It seems unlikely that there were any other major events that could have caused the FC count, as the Lynden Fair was the big social draw.

Lynden Fair
Mark was also tasked with looking into the port-a-potty usage at the fair including:

• finding out who supplied them
• how many were set up
• how often they were pumped out

A local raspberry farmer supplied and pumped the 18-20 port-a-potties for the fair attendees, staff, and carnival workers. Mark mentioned that he spoke with both the fair manager and the owner of the port-a-potties and received inconsistent stories. The fair manager said that the port-a-potties were pumped daily at a Bellingham pump-out station, while the owner reported pumping the port-a-potties only once or twice into one of his own septic tanks..

Kasey was tasked with investigating metered water use on the fairgrounds. She reported that the fair owns their own water rights therefore the metered water use would not necessarily be truly representative of the amount of water actually used by the fairgrounds..

One member was tasked with determining the number of animals at the fair, the amount of bedding that was used, and how the bedding was disposed of. The member reported that over 1,100 cubic yards of manure was produced during the fair. These numbers were used in a mass balance calculation to determine the total nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the manure. The member noted that DOE staff investigated used bedding but did not report concerns. All of the bedding was transported off-site to a farmer, who utilized it on his property.

Mark mentioned that in an earlier meeting with DOE, there was discussion about conducting a dye-study on the drainages surrounding the fair and associated funding. Mark will likely take on this task with $5000 of DOE grant money. The specifics of the study will be determined in an upcoming meeting between the City of Lynden, the shellfish committee, and Mark.

CAO Violations
Mark contacted Jim Thompson of Whatcom County Planning and Development Services regarding reported CAO violations and/or any livestock complaints during the week of the fair. There were no reported problems and no documented complaints.

Canadian Tributaries
One AC member reminded meeting attendees of the differing of government-enforced environmental standards between Canada and the States. One member suggested contacting the Whatcom County Health Department about conducting a survey for Canadian residents using RVs that would focus on when and where these tourists pump out their holding tanks.

Mark investigated the possibility that the source of August’s high FC numbers might have come from illegal dumping of both commercial and residential trailers. He looked into the maximum capacity for both types of trailers and found that residential trailers average about a 5 gallon holding tank and commercial trailers average 70 gallons.

Meeting attendees agreed to update the committee with any new information and address this topic at a subsequent meeting.

4. Council Presentation Update

Ami informed the AC members of a presentation that was given to Whatcom County’s Natural Resources Committee (NRC) in September. The purpose of the meeting was to update them on issues associated with marine resources in Whatcom County including a brief presentation on the activities of both the Drayton Harbor and Portage Bay Shellfish Districts. on behalf of the Drayton Harbor and Portage Bay Advisory Committees, and the Marine Resources Committee earlier this month. Each committee presented the status of projects they are involved with and informed the NRC of the resources they can provide to the community. Ami noted that the overall goal of the presentations was to show all of the great work that is being done and to help the Council to see how their decisions affect various aspects of the community and the environment. Ami also mentioned that these types of presentations are expected to become more regular in the future.

5. New Business

There was no new business.

6. Next Meeting’s Agenda

• TMDL Quarterly Agency Updates