After frequent rains in September, water quality results for fecal bacteria were high at multiple sites across the lower Nooksack River, including our Tenmile watershed. Most alarming, these conditions also resulted in higher counts in the marine waters of Portage Bay, which will only make it more difficult to achieve our long-range goal of removing the conditional closure for fall harvest.
And all this comes in spite of heightened awareness before the fall rains to prevent this historical trend; cautions were raised, and continue, by multiple partners in the Whatcom Clean Water Program, including Whatcom County, Whatcom Conservation District, Dept of Ecology & Dept of Agriculture.
Here is a quick reference for the data behind this story and further activities in response:
- We have increased our own sample schedule in two ways: each month we are repeating the usual 10 sites, 2 weeks after the scheduled date; and at our own discretion, we also collect some ‘source ID’ samples at sites around particular hot spots or during rain events.
- Find the updated Tenmile data report for September here (pdf download.)
- Find the September report for the Nooksack River here (pdf download.)
- The Laurel Watershed Improvement District sent a letter to its members (pdf copy here), which includes a helpful list of ways farmers can avoid contributing to the problem.
- The Whatcom Clean Water Program has distributed a 3-page reference of ‘fall tips’ for many different stakeholders, including: all types of farm operations; septic system owners; pet owners; watercraft operators; and interactions with wildlife. Download the reference here.
You can contact us here if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for doing your part to keep our waters clean!
Here is a preview of the many events relevant to our watershed that will be occurring this fall. If you know of others that we missed, let us know so we can include them!
Oct 15: 
Nov 13: 
Here are Five Tips in our mailbox about that – how many do you know about already? (We might even throw in some of our own, at the end.)
Tip #3: Try to do laundry throughout the week and avoid ‘laundry catch up days’. Washing 5 loads of laundry in one day could send more than 200 gallons of water through your septic system! When too much water goes through your system in a short period of time the solids in the wastewater don’t have enough time to settle in the tank. The solids make their way into the drainfield and can eventually cause you expensive problems.
Tip #5: Septic systems problems can be expensive and messy. You can avoid troubling repairs and backups by only flushing toilet paper and poo down your loo! Anything else you are tempted to flush should be disposed of in the trash.
What you see here only scratches the surface, so for the whole lineup and to learn more, check out the whole schedule at the 
Run with the Chums at the ‘BP Highlands’ in the Terrell Creek watershed south of Birch Bay. Included are a kids run, event t-shirts & refreshments. For information and registration see 
And especially important for us on both days, the tour includes 
Here is a preview of the many events relevant to our watershed that will be occurring in September. And on each Monday of the month, we will be offering details of those coming soon. Finally, if you know of others that we missed, let us know so we can include them!
Sep 11: 
Sep 14-22: 
But we have problems with the 90th Percentile, below; this measure is sensitive to occasional spikes in results (90% of samples must be less than 200) and thus is harder to meet. You can see we have 4 sites failing this standard. The black ‘dot’ in each bar indicates direction of the 12-month trend: T2 & T3 are gradually getting better. DC1 & TM15 are getting worse, and if this trend continues, these high values could ‘drag’ the value of T1 back into the 
So where are these sample site locations? These two maps give you an idea. It is important to also note the next site upstream, because if the upstream lab results are lower (and they are), then we assume something entering the stream in between the two sites is likely causing the problem. First, DC1 is on Deer Creek, west of Northwest Drive; second, TM15 is on Tenmile Creek at Northwest. Each site has a mix of land use upstream, both dense residential with septic systems and larger Ag parcels; there is also greenbelt habitat for wildlife, including beavers.
So what could be causing this troublesome trend? One idea is that wildly variable weather recently, with alternating periods of wet & dry, create more chances for rainfall ‘flushes’ of the landscape. Another speculates about wildlife concentrations & migrations. There is always suspicion of failing septic systems, but there is no inspection data to support this. What do you think?
but this and all other available prior reports are also catalogued on 
n May 11 some of our members set up our new information display at the Lau
tenmilecleanwater.org 