Right now, there is a very big project going on in Budd Inlet in Olympia, at the southern end of Puget Sound.
Four hundred derelict pilings and 7,000 square feet of abandoned docks and piers will be removed. They are the last reminders of a lower Budd Inlet shoreline once lined with lumber and plywood mills. The piling and dock removal project stretches across 1.2 miles of shoreline.
This huge project is one of several going on around the Sound this year, funded by the state’s Jobs Now Act. A good use of funds, it is putting private sector employers to work to clean up the Sound by removing unnecessary old wood pilings and docks, which have creosote on them.
When we were working on the Stillwaters Fish Passage project, one step was to remove all the creosote-covered logs from the beach at Arness Park to improve the water and sediment quality nearby.
Creosote is a wood preservative used for more than 100 years to treat telephone poles, railroad ties, piers, docks and pilings. It does a great job of preserving wood, but it also contains more than 300 chemicals, many of them harmful to fish and wildlife, and humans. For instance, studies show that herring eggs exposed to creosote have high mortality rates. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in creosote have been shown to stunt the growth and alter the immune systems of juvenile salmon. Herring and other affected species are important parts of the food web for salmon, orca whales, and birds.
When the PAHs are exposed to sunlight, the chemicals in creosote become more toxic and are more likely to leach from the wood. And creosote-treated wood will leach toxins for its entire lifetime.
In 2007, the Puget Sound Initiative designated creosote removal as a high priority for cleaning up the Sound. Over the last seven years, more than 15,000 tons of creosote pilings and beach debris have been removed. Of course, much more needs to be removed.
One study done in Sooke, B.C., and Port Townsend determined that the PAH was not prohibiting the use of pilings as habitat (haven’t we all seen the mussels and barnacles living on them?) but it did show that the PAH was accumulating in the sediment around the base of the pilings. It was not an alarming amount, however.
Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources is very clear that creosote-treated wood should be removed from contact with the Sound, whenever it is possible, in order to provide healthy, uncontaminated habitat for many species, including marine creatures, fish, birds, and humans. We don’t know the long-term cumulative effects on wildlife yet, but we know it is not good.
The removal of creosote from the marine environment is essential to prevent long-term impacts from those toxins persisting in the environment of Puget Sound and in our food web.
Stillwaters is starting a new Sustainability Discussion Group, “I Go to Nature — Readings from Favorite Authors.” If you are interested, call 297-1226.
— Contact Naomi Maasberg at naomi@stillwatersenvironmentalcenter.org
