Don’t worry. It isn’t quite rainy season yet but now-a-days winter storms aren’t the only reason pollutants are getting into Lake Whatcom, it can also be blamed on a simple thing like the way the City of Bellingham builds residential streets. With this in mind, it’s time to get serious about protecting and improving the water quality in Lake Whatcom.
Although the City of Bellingham has already created a few ‘lake-friendly’ sidewalks and roads in the Silver Beach neighborhood, most noticeably Northshore Drive, the Silver Beach neighborhood could soon be adopting a new name for these projects called ‘Green Streets’. Implementing this new name and strategy towards previous efforts to protect the city’s drinking water could come into effect near the end of the year, after a vote from the City Council, according to David Jefferson, the Silver Beach neighborhood association director.
 |
| Northshore Drive, one of the first streets in Silver Beach to get the lake-friendly makeover. |
There’s no better time to strike up an implementation strategy in order to live smarter in the watershed, because the city’s drinking water is still failing to meet safe standards, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology. The proposed Green Street project, brought up in the 2010 Silver Beach neighborhood plan, wouldn’t be destroying any current residential streets but re-approaching the way runoff will be treated.
In the neighborhood plan, released in June, the method and reason for the Green Street project is outlined. The approach proposed would ensure that the residential streets in the neighborhood remain residential but runoff in the future will be treated using basic natural methods with the need for intensive filtering vaults. The Green Street techniques would address the safety of the streets.
Lake Whatcom is a vital part of the community, providing 80,000 Bellingham citizens with not only recreational activities but also a drinking water source. The lake is being threatened in multiple ways, including decreases in quality and degraded fish habitat. Taking a stand for a better quality of life in the watershed isn’t out of reach.
According to the City of Bellingham Senior Planner, Kurt Nabbefeld, more and more neighborhoods are pulling for ‘Green Streets’. It seems that soon enough the Silver Beach neighborhood won’t be the only one redesigning itself as ‘green’ and the rest of the city will be looking to it as an example.
Living in the watershed doesn’t need to come at a price anymore, so learn more about protecting your drinking water and visit the Lake Whatcom Management Program website and check up on the news in the surrounding Lake Whatcom Reservoir.
