Budd Inlet cleanup plan gains support

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published April 03, 2008

• Comments (0)

A community-based plan to clean up and protect Budd Inlet is taking shape among four local governments.

Elected officials for the LOTT Alliance, the city of Olympia, the Port of Olympia and Thurston County are expected to sign an agreement this month to begin work on a Budd Inlet recovery plan.

Washington State University Extension Service will serve as a politically neutral project coordinator-facilitator and request $50,000 late this month or in early May from the state Department of Ecology to begin the work, WSU Extension project manager Cliff Moore said.

"We're trying to bring the local jurisdictions together and create kind of a model for cleanup of a Puget Sound inlet," Moore said.

The idea surfaced early in 2007, when Ecology director Jay Manning suggested that Budd Inlet — which has all the challenges of old industrial pollution, stormwater runoff and pressure from population growth and development — would be an ideal site for a demonstration project for Puget Sound cleanup.

"Ecology will lend its support to the collaboration," said Sally Toteff, acting director of Ecology's southwest regional office. "This likely includes funding to help jump-start the planning efforts for a Budd Inlet work plan."

It's not clear how the Budd Inlet work would mesh with the Puget Sound Partnership, the new state agency formed to restore Puget Sound health by 2020.

"To our knowledge, we are the first consortium of Puget Sound local communities and agencies to step forward with an agreement to work together," Olympia City Manager Steve Hall said. "I think it puts us out ahead of the work of the Puget Sound Partnership in lower Budd Inlet."

The first task of the partners would be to gather all known data about pollution problems and Budd Inlet recovery projects under way.

A community forum to gather public comment on Budd Inlet health problems and project priorities would follow, perhaps in June, Moore said.

The local governments then would develop a list of projects and framework for an overall recovery plan in the first six-month phase of work, Moore said.

Budd Inlet problems include:

• Dioxin levels in marine sediment that have stymied a Port of Olympia dredging project and threaten the overall health of lower Budd Inlet. Cascade Pole, a former wood pole preservative plant at the tip of the port peninsula, appears to be the main culprit, Ecology studies say.

• Nitrogen loads from stormwater runoff, human waste, animal waste and other sources in the Deschutes River watershed that lead to algal blooms and depleted oxygen levels harmful to marine life in Budd Inlet.

• A legacy of old, industrial pollution that seeps into the inlet from the Port peninsula, downtown Olympia and West Bay Drive.