Tox-Ick.org Awarded $15,515 Grant from King County to Expand Outreach to Businesses in the Duwamish River Basin

Tox-Ick.org is pleased to announce that it has new funding to grow its program teaching individuals how to clean up and protect Puget Sound through simple lifestyle choices.  The funding from King County will allow us to schedule 8 site visits at major businesses located in the Duwamish River Basin.

Lurking beneath the beautiful surface of Puget Sound is a big problem, a problem we call the Tox-Ick Monster. It is the polluted runoff that comes from our cars, our streets, our rooftops and yards and parking lots.  It might not sound like much, but cumulatively, it adds up to be the single biggest source of pollution entering Puget Sound each year – 14 million pounds of pollutants.  The pollution is killing off our salmon and our killer whales, and it threatens the future of Puget Sound. The good news is that every individual has the power to make choices that will prevent the pollution and help restore Puget Sound to the robust fishery that we imagine it can be.

Since being launched a year ago, the Don’t Feed the Tox-Ick Monster campaign has given more than 10 presentations to more than 500 community members at churches, community centers, Rotary Clubs, and school PTA’s, and awarded $5,000 in pollution prevention prizes. This generous new contribution will allow us to expand our outreach even further to some of the major businesses that drive our local economy.

Tox-Ick.org is a program of Sustainable West Seattle.  Tox-Ick.org educational resources are available to other community groups that want to become Ambassadors for Puget Sound. To learn more, visit Tox-Ick.org

Lisa Stiffler writes a great article about Tox-Ick and polluted runoff!

http://daily.sightline.org/2012/11/12/belly-up-fish-and-other-stormwater-mayhem/

Happy 40th Anniversary to the Clean Water Act….

http://earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/drained-how-we-got-into-such-a-mess-with-stormwate/

direct link to the video:

Catch our own DiverLaura on OPB tomorrow at 11am!

“Clean Water:  The Next Act – Where do we go from here?”

Join us for a live online community chat for the anniversary of the Clean Water Act, Wednesday, October 17 11am-Noon.

Our team of journalists will share some of the highlights from our Clean Water: The Next Act series of reports. And we’ll bring other folks into the conversation to learn how communities around the Pacific Northwest are addressing pollution in local waterways.

http://earthfix.opb.org/water/article/clean-water-the-next-act-where-do-we-go-from-here/

Have you ever wondered how all the water running along the streets during a rain storm looks to the fish?

Time-lapse that our team shot off Alki Beach – Seattle, WA

This site is one of the storm water outfalls that our team is surveying for a project baseline (www.projectbaseline.org). We are looking at both the heavy plastics and debris on the bottom (which makes an underwater garbage patch) and the beach plastics that are far more prevalent after a heavy rain storm. Our hope is to enlist non-divers and divers in the surveys, grow public outreach, and using multi-media, share the necessity of encouraging storm water management ‘best practices’ that are imperative due to the impervious concrete jungle we have created.

https://vimeo.com/51456008 (no audio)

or if you like it with a bit more bass, try:

https://vimeo.com/51491938 (bassnectar version)

If you are curious about the number of outfalls, more info can be found here:

http://pugetsound.org/policy/stormwater/outfalls

Yesterday Sustainable West Seattle announced their 2012 Sustainable Hero Award at their Annual Picnic.  I was very honored to be selected as the hero for our work educating our community about how to reduce polluted runoff with our Don’t Feed the Tox-Ick Monster campaign.

In winning the award, I reflected on all the amazing volunteers who have helped advance our outreach efforts.  Among them, Steve Richmond, Kimberly Leeper, Laura James, Norma Tompkins, Liz Dunigan, James Day, Bryan Fiedorczyk, and Katie Humphries all helped craft our message and get the word out before hundreds of audience members.  To date, we’ve given our presentation at 8 venues before more than 300 audience members.  In addition to that, we’ve had 6,700 page views on our website, more than a third of which have been unique visitors.  Furthermore, the generous press coverage we’ve had through local news sources like the West Seattle Blog, the West Seattle Herald , and CBS Radio has amplified our message to thousands more.

If you know of a venue at a church, synagogue, school, Rotary Club, or other place of gathering and would like to schedule a presentation, send us a note at cate@tox-ick.org.  We’ve got a Spanish version of the presentation too.  Working together we can transform the region’s awareness so that all citizens of Puget Sound are empowered to make choices that protect our valued waters, and the amazing wildlife that call her home.

Thanks for caring!
Cate White

The Tox-Ick.org program recently submitted the following letter to King County Executive, Dow Constantine.

Dear Mr. Executive,

The undersigned Board Members of Sustainable West Seattle, a local 501(c)(3) with over 1,000 participants, write to you today in support of King County’s Barton CSO Control Project.

Sustainable West Seattle has made it a priority to educate community members about solutions to polluted runoff with its Tox-Ick.org program. We have been very excited to see King County take progressive action to reduce the roadside runoff that overwhelms our sewage infrastructure and causes combined sewer overflows. As you are well aware, these overflows threaten Puget Sound and the health of the people and wildlife that depend on clean water.

We believe that the proposed green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) project is the right approach to resolve the complex problem of CSO pollution in the region. In addition to slowing the flow and reducing the volume of water entering our storm drains, bioretention swales have the added benefits of attenuating pollution through microbial action, calming traffic, and beautifying our communities. As urban density continues to increase, the benefit of well-designed green spaces will become evermore important. Furthermore, studies suggest that green spaces in urban settings increase the likelihood of people walking and biking in their neighborhoods. In sum, we believe GSI is the best solution for our community because of the multiple benefits it offers to the health of our waterways and our communities.

We are concerned by some information coming out of the West Seattle Community, specifically through the West Seattle Raingardens website.  A very thoughtful rebuttal to the concerns raised on this website can be found here:http://daily.sightline.org/2012/04/04/rain-garden-backlash-is-all-wet/

We understand that change can be scary and that unfortunate mistakes were made recently in Ballard that have caused some of the alarm to the GSI project in the Barton Basin. But we sincerely hope that these issues won’t derail plans for GSI in our community. Bioretention swales are a well tested and proven technology that have the potential for long-term cost-savings. They’ve been successful reducing runoff in neighborhoods across Puget Sound, including the SEA Streets project in North Seattle and the High Point Neighborhood here in West Seattle. GSI is so effective that it is becoming a solution of choice in cities across the nation, including Portland, New York, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. In light of the vast success of this technology regionally and nationally, we believe GSI is the right choice for our neighborhood to improve the health of Puget Sound and our local communities.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best Regards,
Cate White, Director Tox-Ick.org and Former SWS Board Member
Chas Redmond, SWS Board Member
Patrick Dunn, SWS Board Member
Melissa Metcalfe, SWS Board Member
Wolf Lichtenstein, Former SWS Board Member
Gene Homicki, Former SWS Board Member

A big THANK YOU to the KIRO 7 Cox Conserves Hero Program, which awarded $10,000 to Sustainable West Seattle for its Don’t Feed the Tox-Ick Monster Campaign Wednesday night.  The Hero Program is coordinated by Cox Enterprises, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News, and the Trust for Public Land.

Laura James wins Cox Conserves Hero Award

Diver and volunteer extraordinaire, Laura James, was nominated by the Cox Conserves Heroes program for her amazing work scuba diving to get batteries out of Puget Sound (see short video of the Great Battery Round-up).  The grand prize for the award was a generous gift of $10,000 to Laura’s nonprofit of choice.  We are very grateful that Laura selected SWS to help us continue our fight against the Tox-Ick Monster.  Funds will be used to create resources to help other groups around the region adopt the Don’t Feed the Tox-Ick Monster campaign in their communities.

Together, many of us taking small steps like picking up dog poop, and larger steps like organizing education events in our local communities, we really can help restore Puget Sound.  Collectively, communities around Puget Sound can be the biggest force shaping the health of our waterways, and the fate of our cherished salmon and killer whales.  We hope you too will choose to be a hero.  If you want to get involved, contact cate@tox-ick.org

The Tox-Ick Monster and diver extraordinaire, Laura James, made an appearance at the Rotary Club of West Seattle on July 17th.  More than 60 new audience members learned about polluted runoff, and the simple steps they can engage in to stop it.

If you know of an organization that would like to hear the Don’t Feed the Tox-Ick Monster presentation, drop cate@tox-ick.org a note.  We may be able to schedule a presentation in your community.