Contact: Wendy Steffensen, North Sound Baykeeper, RE Sources
waters@re-sources.org, 733-8307 

North Sound Baykeeper Calls for Protective Cleanup on Bellingham Bay

RE Sources’ North Sound Baykeeper position:

• A full dredge removal of mercury in the Whatcom Waterway, ASB/ lagoon, and adjacent areas, wherever it occurs above the Minimum Cleanup Level (0.59 parts per million), until the contamination is fully removed.
• Upland disposal of mercury-contaminated sediments to a certified and protective upland landfill, designed and sited specifically for waste disposal.
• Return the ASB/ lagoon to aquatic habitat to function as land that once existed as part of the larger Whatcom Creek Estuary.

The North Sound Baykeeper recognizes that there are areas where mercury removal is more important to the health of the environment than other areas.
Mercury removal is most highly recommended in the following places:

• Inner Whatcom Waterway and Log Pond: here levels of mercury are as much as 20 (Inner Waterway) to 254 (Log Pond) times the clean up level. Additionally these two areas can be fairly easily contained using barrier methods in a cleanup action.
• ASB/ lagoon: Here the levels of mercury are 34 times the cleanup level. At present the ASB and its contaminants are contained. Removing the contaminants from the ASB and opening it up as aquatic habitat will restore valuable lost habitat.
• The SW outside corner of the ASB/ lagoon because it is contaminated and erosional.
  
  Additional sampling and mercury removal is also a very high priority at:
  *
• Head of the Whatcom Waterway: here there is little data to characterize the contamination present; this area is crucial to habitat restoration and must be cleaned up.
• Starr Rock: here the levels of mercury are above the cleanup level, but characterization data are not readily available. Starr Rock has a very uneven topography; thus mercury at Starr Rock is vulnerable to disturbance and dispersal.