Much Of West Side’s Pollution Ends Up Flowing Into Puget Sound

When oil, cow manure, human sewage and other pollutants flow into Western Washington’s creeks and rivers, chances are the filth will find its way into Puget Sound.

An Associated Press analysis of six years’ worth of Department of Ecology enforcement records shows that in nearly half the incidents in which the state fined polluters - 365 of 761 cases - the pollutant was released directly into Puget Sound or into rivers and creeks that flow to it.

“The majority of the population of the state of Washington lives around Puget Sound. So the residue of everything we do eventually flows into the sound,” said Kathy Fletcher, director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound.

“The Ecology enforcement records provide just one more way to measure this reality.”

The records show that the most common Puget Sound pollutant was petroleum in one form or another, from crude oil to hydraulic fluid. Other frequent pollutants included wastewater, manure, sewage and dangerous chemical wastes.

The most frequent sound polluter targeted by Ecology enforcement from 1990 through 1995 was Scott Paper Co. of Everett, fined 11 times for polluting the sound or waters feeding it with chemicals and other pollutants.

No. 2 was Intalco Aluminum Corp. of Ferndale, fined nine times for polluting the sound or connected waterways with chlorine and other substances.

Third-ranked Texaco Refining and Marketing of Anacortes was fined seven times for fouling the sound or connected waters with oil, sewage and other pollutants, the records showed.