Collaborating across borders

The rainy season is just around the corner, and this is often when we see fecal bacteria levels rise in our local waterways. These bacteria indicate the likely presence of harmful bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can make people and animals sick.

It may not be an obvious connection, but what happens upstream in a watershed also affects any shellfish beds at the bottom of the watershed, like in the case of the Portage Bay shellfish beds in Whatcom County. It's unsafe to eat shellfish when fecal bacteria levels are high. These high levels have seasonally closed the Portage Bay shellfish beds to harvesting. Fecal bacteria can pollute water if sewer and septic systems are not working properly. They can also come from pet waste, livestock manure, stormwater runoff, and even wildlife.

To keep shellfish beds open for harvest, we need to reduce bacteria pollution in the entire watershed. Finding and reducing sources of fecal bacteria can be difficult under normal circumstances, and the border with Canada poses another set of unique challenges. The Portage Bay shellfish beds lie near the mouth of the Nooksack River. The Nooksack watershed is large, with water flowing in from as far east as Mount Baker and as far north as Abbotsford in Canada. There are three sub-basins that influence the lower Nooksack and originate in Canada: Bertrand Creek, Fishtrap Creek, and Fishtrap's tributary Pepin Brook (Double Ditch).

Tom Buroker, director of our Northwest Region Office, has worked on water issues along the border for eight years. "As we go into another rainy season, I'm really optimistic about the progress this transboundary workgroup continues to make. We are very fortunate to have a great partnership with our partners in British Columbia as we work to keep shellfish beds open," said Buroker. "We all know that pollution doesn't care about international borders, so working together is critical for cleaner water."

A start to transboundary collaboration

Our cross-border work took a major step forward in August 2018, when state, provincial, and local agencies formed the Nooksack River Transboundary Technical Collaboration Group (TCG). The group was tasked with a three-year work plan to reduce fecal bacteria concentrations in the Nooksack River watershed.

British Columbia and Washington TCG partners set short-term and long-term border benchmarks in 2019 for fecal bacteria with four border monitoring locations.

The TCG's efforts led to mixed results. Some short-term benchmarks were met in certain sub-basin drainages but not in others. There were also variable results during wet and dry seasons. (See TCG report and graph to the right.) However, overall water quality improved and shellfish beds were able to stay open for more months of the year.

This transboundary collaboration was a formal international effort that ended in July 2021. Lea Shields, workgroup member and National Estuary Program Shellfish Strategic Initiative Environmental Planner for the Washington State Department of Health, speaks about the project's timelines: "The 2018 TCG was intended to be a three-year, stand-alone project with a defined end date [of 2021]. The onset of the COVID pandemic severely impacted the work over the final year of the project, and the high fecal coliform counts in subsequent rainy seasons following the end of the TCG showed there was still work to be done. The current transboundary group feels like more of an ongoing, iterative process of staying in touch with our cross-border partners and trying to work towards sharing information and resources to solve this shared issue."

The continuing need for coordination

After the TCG's work concluded, the Whatcom Clean Water Program (WCWP), a partnership of local, state, and federal agencies and organizations working to improve water quality in Whatcom County, continued to sample the transboundary creeks.

Over the next two winters, they found instances of extremely high bacteria levels at the international border. Some samples were 50 - 200 times higher than the water quality benchmark. These kinds of spikes usually prompt efforts to find specific sources of pollution. In June 2023, WCWP and Whatcom farmers asked us to help revive cross-border efforts to reduce bacterial pollution.

Renewing transboundary cooperation

We helped to reconvene the partner agencies in a new water quality transboundary group. It focuses on monitoring the three transboundary sub-basins, sharing data, developing outreach tools and activities, and communicating regulatory actions.

The transboundary group consists of staff with technical expertise in environmental management, compliance, and enforcement. The group connects regularly to improve understanding about water management of both countries, and communicates as needed to improve transboundary water quality.

"The transboundary group has led to strong collaborative relationships and problem solving through shared data, harmonized lab techniques, and coordinated monitoring. Two tiers of transboundary collaboration have emerged: a strategic group guiding direction and planning, and a technical team of experts focused on monitoring and data analysis," explains Kym Keogh, Director of Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment for the British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Parks.

The current transboundary group includes:

• British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Parks
• Langley Environmental Partners Society
• Lummi Nation
• Nooksack Tribe
• Washington State Department of Agriculture
• Washington State Department of Ecology
• Washington State Department of Health
• Whatcom Conservation District
• Whatcom County

Better coordination leads to cleaner water

A simple way to gauge progress is to look at the numbers.

When fecal bacteria levels reach 1,000 cfu/100mL (colony forming units per milliliters) on the United States side of the border, WCWP staff use British Columbia's Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) online form to report the water quality issue. B.C. compliance staff acknowledge receipt of this form within two business days and then report on any findings and follow-up activities to the group.

Ecology's water quality lead for the project, James Kardouni, noted that over time, fewer alerts have been submitted to British Columbia's system, which means there are fewer instances of high bacteria levels.

Cynthia May, Water Quality Data Coordinator for Whatcom Conservation District shares, "Pepin Brook's water quality is showing remarkable improvement. Compared to two years ago, average bacteria levels this past winter were 75 times lower, a promising sign that transboundary efforts are helping the watershed recover."

We can't predict what the numbers will be for this rainy season, but the proactive efforts on both sides of the border means that we all have reason to be optimistic about cleaner water in Portage Bay. The shellfish beds aren't the only winners - clean water benefits people and ecosystems on both sides of the border. We're very appreciative of the help from our Canadian partners, and we're excited to keep building on these early successes.