Northwest Dive Club

Was having the same conversation with my wife. I think the difference here is the Feds can control the Gov. agencies, they can't do much about small business or individuals.
Washing your car is better done at a car wash or over grass, not on the street or driveway that drains into the water system. I always thought it was the 'gunk'. Maybe it's that and chlorine. That info ought to be available. Time to do some next level digging. I can't believe some agency came up with this just for the fun of it. There must be some supporting science. That is what we do pay them for, not petty harassment, though sometimes it seems that way.
Not terribly long ago people did routinely dump used engine oil down the curb drain.
The Sound is not in good shape. If this is some step, of many, that is useful/necessary I'm for bucking up and doing it.

Addendum: a very brief search pulled up this: http://www.fws.gov/nc-es/edout/albefitfish1.html

(Snip from the above link. More there if you care to read it)
Why Worry About Chlorine?
Chlorine is poisonous to fish at very low levels. Imagine adding only one pint of vanilla ice cream to a tanker truck of root beer to make a root beer. float! No one would be able to see or taste any of the ice cream. If this same amount of chlorine (1 pint) was added to the tanker (20,000 gallons), the water would be poisonous to fish. Because chlorine is so deadly to fish and other aquatic animals, it is essential that this form of hazardous waste be
removed from our treated sewage before it is poured back into our streams and rivers. Fortunately, water containing chlorine and many other forms of hazardous waste can be made safe by aerating it (stirring it vigorously) and exposing itto sunlight. If chlorine isn t removed, chlorine can remain in our deep, slow flowing, shaded rivers and streams long enough to travel downstream and kill fish and other animals as it goes.

fmerkel wrote: If this same amount of chlorine (1 pint) was added to the tanker (20,000 gallons), the water would be poisonous to fish. Because chlorine is so deadly to fish and other aquatic animals, it is essential that this form of hazardous waste be
removed from our treated sewage before it is poured back into our streams and rivers. Fortunately, water containing chlorine and many other forms of hazardous waste can be made safe by aerating it (stirring it vigorously) and exposing itto sunlight. If chlorine isn t removed, chlorine can remain in our deep, slow flowing, shaded rivers and streams long enough to travel downstream and kill fish and other animals as it goes.

It still seems like a knee-jerk reaction.

Doing some quick math the example of in the quote you posted would result in roughly 5.5 PPM of chlorine in the water. The water in Seattle has been tested at a maximum of 1.7 PPM (http://www.seattle.gov/util/MyServices/ ... /index.htm). Also wouldn't the water be aerated by the shower head?

No, I get that. IMO it's a pretty useless application of a law. But, this is a Gov agency. Somehow they made a law. Now....no matter how insignificant or stupid the particular application of that law ends up being, it is applied to all situations under all circumstances. This is the part about the "law" that is so incredibly troublesome---it seems to have no common sense or anyone with brains attached. The bigger the agency, the bigger the problem.
The 'justice' comes when it's taken to court. This merely compounds the stupidity about 1,000x.

I'm just looking for the rationale. I don't think these are either completely stupid or malevolent people. I've personally worked with Kathy Whitman on the funding for Cove 2. She is an absolute gem and a credit to our entire community. She is THE reason a LOT of $$ has ended up being available for construction and maintenance of the Cove 2 boundary line. Sometimes though, good intentions can go astray. Freaking laws end up being made for the lowest, stupidest, most shifty denominator. I don't know why but it seems like when a law is made there are a hoard of people that immediately come forward trying to find a way around it.

I will emphasize, this is not Parks doing or fault. They did not create this problem. If the dive community want to deal with this, we need to look for some other kind of angle or leverage.

write your congressmen...

... you folks looking for government to make sense crack me up ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

dwashbur wrote:I suppose that means the showers at Redondo are doomed, as well?

As of Saturday, July 26th, the showers at Redondo were working.

Scuba Scott wrote:Just don't mention any marina and water use by boat owners.

The issue has actually come up recently.

As other's have mentioned in the thread SPU is very confident in our protected watersheds and only chlorinates to the minimal allowable level. If aerated there shouldn't be any residual chlorine.

It looks like they are turning it back on....
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/201 ... s-back-on/

There goes our good viz.

From:http://www.seattle.gov/util/Environment ... /index.htm

Quality water
The City of Seattle is required by law to maintain a clean drinking water supply.

To that end the City restricts public access and management is guided by a Habitat Conservation Plan. The Cedar River Watershed is an unfiltered surface water supply which produces some of the best water in the world.


Cedar River water is:

-Screened to remove debris

-Chlorinated to remove microbial contaminants, such as bacteria and viruses [Note: Removing contaminants might also kill good stuff in Puget Sound.]

-Fluoridated for dental health protection

-Ozonated for odor and taste improvements and Giardia control

-Ultraviolet disinfected to disable microbial contaminants such as chlorine resistant Cryptosporidium
Supplemented with lime for pH adjusted corrosion control to minimize lead leaching in older plumbing systems.

Cedar River water meets or exceeds all federal standards for drinking water. Daily, more than 50 samples are tested before and after treatment at Seattle Public Utilities water quality lab for a variety of waterborne disease indicators, minerals, chemicals and contaminants.

Chlorine can be filtered: http://www.plumbingsupply.com/chlorine- ... water.html

How can I remove or reduce chlorine from my water?

Great-tasting water, with no odor, can be achieved using granular activated carbon, carbon block filtration, and/or membrane filtration (reverse osmosis filtration). These filters control and remove chlorine and odors from your drinking water supply and are typically installed at your point-of-use (POU). Your POU would be your faucet, therefore the filter system would be installed either above or below the counter. There are also the larger point-of-entry (POE) filtrations systems, meaning the whole house is filtered.

.

Anyone with a fish tank knows that chlorine is fairly rapidly offgassed with a little aeration. Would be nice if they actually tested the shower effluent before declaring it contains free chlorine (the toxic form) and that its a "problem". I'm guessing that by the time it hits the wooden deck a goodly mass of it's gone - given that its a shower afterall. Its a cheap test too.

I asked that same question to a few folks with no answer as of yet...

Showers are back on. They installed a fancy water filtration system on it.

I want my cholera back

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/ ... -tap-water