Padilla Bay Tributaries Bacteria TMDL

Thank you for finishing this. Very high bacteria levels, especially in Noname and Joe Leary have been known for many years from sampling by the Conservation District - Padilla Bay Stream team and Storm teams. The only signifcant effort to reduce th...↓at bacteria pollution has been via the County authority to proactively require working septic systems. Bayview homeowners have spent millions of dollars for those upgrades but still the bacterial pollution continues. Everything else has been pollyanish newsletters about all the good work happening with no actual improvement actions or improvements in bacteria pollution levels described.

There have been times when citizens have filed formal ERTS with Ecology and informal reports, with pictures, to the County about livestock in wet conditions where obvious manure runoff into Noname and Joe Leary is happening. Ecology and the County do not proactively look for that. Any response to the reports has been short lived and the same reports need to be done by citizens again and again. Right now it is November and much rain is on the way for our rainy season. There are hundreds of cattle in fields where Noname and Joe Leary flow through and there is no confidence that either the County of Ecology will be aware of that and/or take any action.

The TMDL really needs much more specific, parcel-unique actions prescribed - with specific time-lines and serious repercussions if not taken. Expecting the County or the Conservation District - neither of which have any regulatory capacity about this - to get anything done is not hopeful - especially since the problems have been known for so many years by these organizations.

You also will note that the east side of March's Point drains into Padilla Bay as well, although is not part of this study. The same sort of cattle grazing in large numbers in muddy draining fields during wet season happens there too. Kind of hard to be protective of Padilla Bay when all of the bacterial sources are not regulated and improved.

Thanks again for completing the TMDL and may some good things come of it ..