Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Going up the production stream to protect the Salish Sea

The world today is awash in a sea of chemicals. Many of which on are defined as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBTs). PBTs substances are a class of compounds that have high resistance to degradation from abiotic and biotic factors, high mobility in the environment and high toxicity. These PBTs can migrate from products into the water, air, or soil where they can remain for decades damaging the environment and hurting public health and wildlife. While regulatory agencies have done an excellent job addressing smoke stack and water pipe emission, today much of the pollution that enters our environment comes from the small but steady releases of toxic chemicals contained in everyday products such as brake pads, paint pigments, automobile leaks, furniture coatings, roofing materials, and flame retardants. These chemicals grind off of our brakes, run off our roofs, and seep from our boats. Eventually, they wash into local streams and rivers and eventually migrate downstream to Puget Sound. Research shows PBTs are damaging both the environment and the wildlife of Salish Sea including the iconic Killer Whales. Ecology like many other states and federal agencies have established effective programs to clean up and manage toxic chemicals. But cleanup after the fact is the most expensive way to deal with toxics. Ultimately, the smartest, cheapest, and healthiest approach to reducing toxic chemical threats is to prevent the use of toxic chemicals in the first place and prevent their being washed into our waterways or released into our environment. Ecology’s is authorized by state laws such as the Children’s Safe Product Act, Toxics in Packaging, Better Brakes, and the Copper Boat Paint to focus our efforts up the production stream in order to reduce and/or eliminate the use of toxic chemicals. Innovative approaches to product design using green chemistry throughout the product lifecycle is needed to reduce these sources of toxic threats. RTT is working with various industry and business sectors including the automotive industry, product packaging, and boat paint manufacturers and marinas to reduce the PBTs entering the Salish Sea. This presentation will focus on the threat PBTs pose to Washington in general and the Salish Sea in particular, as well as, the challenge to prevent their washing into the Sea. The presentation will also discuss Ecology’s process for identifying and addressing priority PBTs including information on green chemistry solutions to these challenges. Finally, it will outline some of the innovative partnerships with government agencies, non-profits, universities, and industry Ecology is developing to address the problem.