A wonderful mix of people from Jefferson County piled in to vans and cars and headed south to visit to the WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center in October. The group of over 30 included WSU Beach Watchers and Master Gardeners, WSU staff, County & City staff, Marine Resources Committee members, Shore Stewards and staff from the Jefferson Conservation District.
We went to Puyallup to learn about Low Impact Development (LID). LID is a word used to describe a new way to manage stormwater using landscaping, engineering methods, and new products that mimic nature to treat and control runoff. Stormwater runoff is the main source of pollutants in Puget Sound.
The city of Puyallup, in partnership with WSU, was awarded a $1 million grant to retrofit the WSU Puyallup campus with LID structures and then monitor their performance. The structures include porous pavements, rain gardens, and rain water harvesting systems. Scientists plan to study the effectiveness of the structures and answer questions such as what how to best maintain previous pavement, which pollutants plants take up, and which soils work best to filter stormwater.
Before touring the LID developments, Dr. John Stark, Director of the Puyallup campus and the keynote speaker at our WSU Watershed Day last year, took us to the Salmon Lab on campus. Dr. Stark told us that pesticides, even in the very, very small concentrations found in stormwater, can harm fish. Furthermore, some chemicals, when combined with others can become even more potent. Research in the Salmon Lab has revealed that fish can lose their sense of smell after exposure to very low concentrations of common herbicides. They need their sense of smell, not only to find their way to their home stream, but also to avoid predation. When attacked by a predator, fish emit a pheromone that warns other fish. Fish in the area smell the pheromone and drop to the bottom of the stream to avoid being eaten. Dr. Stark and his team have proven that fish exposed to certain common chemicals do not react to the pheromones, making them easy targets for predators. Yikes!
Okay, so now that we knew why treating stormwater is important, the next step was a tour of the LID projects from WSU's own Curtis Hinmann. Sixteen raingardens all in a row - that is what we saw. Each identical in size and each bristling with monitoring equipment. They are all slightly different with different soils and plants in each. 
There are huge tubs of various soils being tested separately and a giant vat that will allow scientists to “dose” the different plots with concoctions.
Then there is the parking lot with several types of concrete and asphalt along with monitoring equipment to test each parking stall. Curtis tells us that nobody has tested LID products in real time with real cars in the real world. Ground breaking stuff!
So bottom line what did we learn?
+ Use natural products around our gardens and homes
+ If using chemicals, read and follow the directions (it's the law!)
+ Make sure nothing but rain goes down the storm drains.
And we learned that we should stay tuned to find out what WSU researchers learn over the coming years. Many thanks to John and Curtis for the tour. Keep up the great work!
Want to learn more? http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/stormwater/