Nerditorial: A Review of "Lake Whatcom and the Chamber of Phosphorus"

In 2008, Steve Hood wrote the spell-binding literary sensation Lake Whatcom and the Developer's Stone. Now, after just over four years, Mr Hood brings us the galvanizing sequel... Lake Whatcom and the Chamber of Phosphorus.

When last we left our hero... Lake Whatcom... it was enrolled in the prestigious Lakewarts School of Impaired Bodies of Water...

The Four Houses of Lakewart's are Ecolyn-dor (the believers in protecting bodies of impaired water by way of environmental protection), Tea-therin (the libertarian believers in protecting bodies of impaired water by way of protecting private property rights)... and two other houses of no interest to anyone reading the series.

The Sorting Hat determined that Lake Whatcom was to join House Ecolyn-dor... but House Tea-therin would have none of that. The Best Available Sorcery used by the Sorting Hat was called into question by Tea-therin... accusing it of employing Muggle-craft (a.k.a. Science) to determine the fate of Lake Whatcom rather than pure Sorcery (a.k.a. Magical Thinking)...

Bring me Harry Po... I mean... Lake Whatcooommm....

...and...

...uh...

...well...

Actually, like the first volume of the Lake Whatcom TMDL report, the second volume is as dry as a popcorn fart... after it was run through a Ronco Fart Dehydrator.

The draft copy of the Second Volume of the Department of Ecology's report on the Lake Whatcom TMDL was recently made available to the public. [LINK] 

This is not the official report. It is a draft, pending a 90 day public comment review. After the public comment period is over, Ecology will ignore be informed by the public comments and release its official version of Volume Two of this report.

But, barring some incredible revelation or some other remarkable and unforeseeable circumstance... the substance of this report will remain largely unchanged from its current state after the public comment period is complete.

Among the most challenging things to find in the draft are many sentences with bonefide verbs in them. The report talks about... talking about... addressing Lake Whatcom, but remains relatively light on concrete issues... preferring to remain in the abstract as much as possible.

However, a few actual meaningful and relatable words can be found by those willing to sift through this brier patch of bureaucratic Esperanto.

Suck it, developers!

Phosphorus occurs naturally, but development increases phosphorus entering the lake in stormwater. ... Based on current development, 87% percent of the developed area would need to function like a forest to meet water quality standards. (page xvii)

Ecology has determined that development in the watershed is the cause of excess phosphorus loading in the watershed. This is no different in principle from the 2008 report... however... in 2008, the percentage of development needing rollback was set to 85.5% of developed acres in the watershed. Now the rollback threshold is 87% of developed acres in the watershed. Because development in the watershed has continued over five years since Volume One was published... and after five years of doing closer to squat than jack... more development needs to be "rolled back" to get the lake into a position where it can recover from its impaired state.

Downzones? We don't need no stinking downzones!!! (or... Suck it harder, environmentalists!!)

This does not mean that 87% of the developed area must be converted to forest.
It means that the runoff from that land must be managed so that, to the lake, it is the same as if the runoff came from a forest. (page vii)

Just because Ecology has established that development is contributing to the impairment of the lake is no reason to think the Ecology is actually expecting development to stop, or even be slowed down, in the watershed. Heaven forfend that Ecology would even mention the concept of downzoning land in the watershed, or curtailing development inside the watershed of an impaired body of water. Perish the thought.

We only have five years to prep before giving our ass its head-ectomy.

The strategy requires five years focused on setting an implementation timeline, budgets, and short-term milestones...

Wait, what?

We have five years to get ready before we actually do... you know... anything that might actually reduce the amount of phosphorus loading in Lake Whatcom.

Well, you didn't think we were going to start now did you? 

Lake Whatcom has only been officially impaired since 1998. We've only had FIFTEEN YEARS to figure this out. 

Who are we, Job?!?!?!?

Clearly we need an even twenty years to figure out how to treat this severe case of land use intrarectalcranialitis  and the Department of Ecology is more than willing to let us go on another five years floating between the Denial and Bargaining stages of grief before we actually get to the same quadrant of the galaxy as Acceptance.

We only have fifty years to get our watershed in order (unless we need more time than that.)

The fixed timeline plan will have a 50-year implementation schedule...(page 36)

Wait, what?!?

That's right. Fifty measly years. Sure, we could have been given a century. Or a thousand years. Or forever. But no, those hard noses from Ecology are pulling out the tough love.

So, we are on notice that we only have five decades to figure out how to get control of the phosphorus loading in Lake Whatcom. And if we don't get it done by then... well... the Department of Ecology is going to be so mad at us, you guys. And then give us more time. Those of us who are still alive, anyway.

We will punk the lake.

...the runoff from that land must be managed so that, to the lake, it is the same as if the runoff came from a forest. (page vii)

We only have to trick the lake into believing that there is 87% less development around it. The TMDL report is silent on the matter of whether or not the Lake may have the option of marrying Demi Moore, so academic rigor compels us to assume that it does.

What is recommended is to get 87% of the development in the watershed to function as if it were not developed at all. If an acre of developed land has the functional effect of an acre of forest (at least in terms of stormwater management) then it is not an effective developed acre for the purposes of the TMDL. Or something.

I believe this plan involves distracting the lake by telling it that its shoe is untied (which is absurd, of course, because Lake Whatcom uses the Turtle Knot to tie its shoes, and that knot is one of the most secure way of tying shoe laces) and then when the lake looks up, it will see only a sign that says "mixed forest" instead of developed land. Thusly, Lake Whatcom will take on less phosphorus. But I've only skimmed most of the pages of this TMDL report, so there might be more to it than that.

We have to come up with two plans next year.

By October 2014, each jurisdiction will prepare two initial plans that frame the balance between the budget and timeline options. One plan requires a fixed timeline and an estimate of the budget necessary. The other plan requires estimating the timeline necessary to complete the implementation on a fixed budget. (page 36)

This is one of the few things about this TMDL report that doesn't suck total ass.

This part may not be clever, but it will do until clever gets here.

So, the City of Bellingham and Whatcom County have to answer two questions here.

First question, how much money do you think you need to raise to solve this problem in 50 years?

Second question, how much time do you think you need to solve this problem with the budget you have now?

Once they answer those questions, the stakeholders will be in a better position to figure out when they can actually expect to see a reduction in phosphorus loading in Lake Whatcom.

[Spoiler Alert: The answer to Question One is... a buttload (in U.S. dollars) or a crapload (in Euros). The answer to Question Two is... until the year 2525. If man is still alive.]

But the important thing is we still get to develop in the watershed like we have for the past 15 years...  for five more years. (We're gonna party like its 1998...) And then, we can continue developing in some other way for another... 45 years. And then... well, who knows? Most of us will be dead by then.

So, to the future generations who will inherit Lake Whatcom in 2063, I say... on behalf of all of the stakeholders living today... 

...you're welcome.

And don't forget to tip your water delivery guy. Those five gallon containers of drinking water are heavy.

'Nerd Out.