February 29th
an extra day for a good cause!
Join us! along this beautiful stretch of Tenmile Creek as we plant native trees & shrubs to create a buffer along a newly restored section of the creek. Meet at 9am-12pm – look for the NSEA signs on E. Hemmi Road, just east of Hannegan.
This beautiful spot is adjacent to agricultural lands and home to salmon, birds and an incredible view of Mt. Baker. We are returning to this site for the third time since last spring, and we are happy to again co-sponsor with our partners Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (NSEA) and Whatcom Conservation District (WCD). NSEA provides tools & gloves – all you have to do is wear sturdy shoes & weather-appropriate clothing. Snacks courtesy of The Bagelry & the Community Food Co-Op. Coffee provided thanks to NSEA’s official coffee sponsor, Tony’s Coffee.
Our work in support of this project began with Earth Day 2019, was repeated last fall, and continues to be a fine example of restoration potential in this multi-use area of our county. Last summer the county redirected the creek into an original section of its channel, while installing a new, larger road culvert under E. Hemmi to alleviate local flooding.
Join us – we will be there with our display table – mud-boots, work gloves & all!
What can we learn from outside the Tenmile Creek watershed that will help us understand things closer to home? A ‘bird’s eye’ view, so to speak. Well there are no great revelations here, but it’s all informative nevertheless.
This map shows routinely-monitored sample points in the shellfish beds, which lie just south of the Nooksack River estuary, where fresh water flows into Bellingham Bay. Colored dots summarize fecal bacteria sample results for the fall period (Oct-Dec) for the last 5 years. 
Program begins at 7pm, and will feature Aneka Sweeney, 
The speaker program begins at 7pm, and will feature 
One week ago on Oct 26th, as 
All together these folks learned more about this important part of their home county, enjoyed a fine mountain view from the Nooksack lowlands, and planted roughly 1,000 trees to help buffer the creek from pollutants, and cool its waters for salmon. It was a good high-five day!
The result had our creek running fast, deep and muddy. Lab results for the day confirmed a pattern repeated across the county: many sites reporting excessive levels of fecal bacteria well above water quality standards. (See our other recent post about September results, 
“Upstream, east of the bridge, Barrett Lake lies 
Especially bright is the crimson foliage
6:30-8pm, at 
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 
tenmilecleanwater.org 