It’s been a dry, scorching summer season. Good time of yr for a dip in Lake Washington.
Downside is, a few of Seattle’s prime swimming seashores have been routinely closed.
Madison Park, Magnuson, Pritchard Island — all posted with keep out of the water warnings by Public Health — Seattle & King County.
The seemingly wrongdoer, say county officers, is poop. Extra particularly, excessive concentrations of micro organism from waterfowl droppings.
This isn’t a brand new phenomenon round right here. Seattle Parks & Recreation is conscious of the difficulty and is taking steps to decrease the numbers of Canada geese particularly. That’s the excellent news. Merely put, the town can’t enable its finest watering holes to change into summerlong poisonous stews.
Public Well being interprets water high quality check outcomes and makes the choice about when to briefly shut a seaside.
The testing is performed weekly in the course of the swim season. Some seashores have persistently higher water high quality than others, and there are a lot of completely different variables. Every seaside in every year could be completely different.
As of final week, Madison Park and Pritchard Island Seaside have been closed for 3 weeks, open for 9. Magnuson has been closed for 2 weeks, open for 10. Earlier this week, all three have been closed for swimming.
What a seaside bummer.
Again in 2003, this newspaper ran a narrative with the headline: “Goose inhabitants drops 75 % in Seattle parks.”
This was the end result after federal wildlife brokers destroyed greater than 5,600 geese in Seattle when a federal decide dominated that the federal government may kill the birds in moveable gasoline chambers arrange on the again of vehicles. Yikes.
Lately, Seattle Parks and different entities round Lake Washington — that is removed from a Seattle-only downside — take part in a federal Division of Agriculture program that sends brokers out to rely geese and douse their eggs in corn oil, which prevents their hatching.
As well as, lifeguards and upkeep crews work to scrub up and get rid of goose poop on seashores, shorelines, and docks in order that it doesn’t enter the water and contaminate it.
All good efforts.
Canada geese are good birds and shortly get smart to scarecrows, flags, and so forth.
As famous by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife: “As a result of geese study that actual bodily hazard isn’t related to harassment and scare units, the birds will shortly study to disregard them, regardless of how efficient these units could also be initially.”
The division recommends noisemakers, canines, lasers, and “taste-aversion merchandise and different chemical repellents.”
All the above, please. Give Seattle swimmers again their seashores.
