Old docks are polluting this Whatcom lake. Residents took matters into their own hands
Derek Buse already knew there was a Styrofoam pollution problem in Lake Samish. But he didn’t know just how bad it was until earlier this year, when he set out to help clean it up himself.
Buse is president of the Lake Samish Association, which teamed up with county and state agencies in May to remove chunks of Styrofoam from the body of water. Styrofoam is a brand of plastic foam commonly used as a building material for floating docks. As the docks deteriorate with age, the plastic foam breaks off into the lake. There, it can harm birds and fish, and eventually make its way into the ocean.
Lake Samish sits 6.5 miles southeast of Bellingham. At almost 810 acres with 8.5 miles of shoreline, the lake is more than five times the size of Lake Padden. The association was founded in 1992 and has over 150 members.
Over the course of two weeks in early May, four association volunteers removed 40 yards of Styrofoam from more than 20 locations throughout the lake. Buse said the waste filled four garbage trucks. To transport the plastic, the volunteers used a motorboat and a makeshift trailer fashioned out of two stand-up paddleboards and plywood tied together.
The Whatcom County Health and Public Works departments assisted with funding and provided garbage trucks to dispose of the plastic once it was pulled out of the lake. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife allowed the association to use a public dock for the project.
“There were dump truck loads of Styrofoam,” Buse said. “It was a little eye-opening for me.”
The dangers of Styrofoam pollution
Plastic, including Styrofoam, doesn’t decompose — instead, it breaks into increasingly smaller pieces over the years. In Lake Samish, these tiny beads of Styrofoam can be mistaken for food by birds and fish, said Bob Warinner, assistant regional habitat program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Not only does this deprive animals of nutrition from actual food, he said, but the plastic can become lodged in their digestive systems and lead to death.
Eventually, this Styrofoam can make its way into the ocean through rivers and streams. As larger animals consume smaller ones that have ingested the plastic, it contaminates every level of the food chain, Warinner said. Local residents, however, do not need to worry about consuming Styrofoam when eating fish caught in Lake Samish, Warinner said, as long as they don’t ingest the fish’s gut.
Most of the toxins associated with Styrofoam, he said, are produced when the material is manufactured. Since the plastic doesn’t decompose, Warinner is not highly concerned that it could break down and release chemicals into the water.
An annual cleanup? Maybe yes
Newly constructed docks in Washington state are not allowed to be built with unencapsulated, or exposed, Styrofoam, Warinner said. However, there are still those who skirt the regulations. “Sometimes people make docks illegally,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it used to be, but there is probably still some Styrofoam being used in improper ways.”
Buse, the Lake Samish Association president, echoed Warinner’s concerns. It’s almost impossible, he said, to control what materials other residents use to build their personal docks and how well they take care of their property.
At a cursory glance, Styrofoam pollution in Lake Samish might not seem like a large issue, Buse said — the pieces of plastic are often small and hidden in grasses along the shore. However, now that he’s seen the extent of Styrofoam pollution in Lake Samish, he expects this cleanup to become a yearly event.
“It’s a bigger issue than I originally thought,” Buse said. “I think that for associations like the Lake Samish Association, it’s an agenda item annually now.”
This story was originally published June 17, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
