One Boatyard's Approach to Stormwater

Seaview Boatyard

Two years ago, Seaview Boatyard owner, Phil Riise, made a strategic decision to help his four boatyards comply with the federal Clean Water Act; protect the environment by minimizing stormwater pollution; and make good business sense. Riise installed StormwaterRx’s Aquip stormwater filtration system at three of his four yards. Assessing whether he could manage the cost of the system during a recession and keep his business profitable, Riise and his team looked at how many boats they service in a year and how long it would take to pay back the investment. By asking his customers to pay a $35 increase to the existing environmental fee, the cost of the system installation would be paid off in five years. This fee is usually 5% or less of the total bill. Although initially wary of installing an advanced filtration system for fear it would be cost-prohibitive, Riise said committing to the system was a smart business move as boat owners are usually very pleased with his environmental consciousness. In fact, he says one of the reasons customers choose his yard is because they value efforts to protect marine life in Puget Sound.

Prior to the installation of a stormwater filtration system, Riise’s yards relied on Best Management Practices (BMPs) like tarps and vacuum sanders to reduce heavy metals, including copper, from his stormwater discharge into Puget Sound. He found that the BMPs were not enough. “The only way to get there was to put in the system,” said Riise.  This helped him meet requirements of the Boatyard Stormwater General Permit issued by the WA Department of Ecology (under US EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) that regulates the stormwater runoff from boatyards and protects the water quality of the Sound. When the system was installed at Seaview East in Ballard, Riise decided to go one step further and “raise the bar” on his existing BMPs. “We focused on what we could do to enhance BMPs to reduce the load on the filtration system.”

Top Three BMPs used at Seaview East:

• Upgrade the pressure wash pad which collects and directs the water into a holding tank separate from the stormwater discharge;
• Perform most bottom paint preparation work as a “wet prep” on the pressure wash pad where all wastewater is collected and removed;
• Install a membrane bioswale that pre-filters 60% of the stormwater runoff from the yard before it gets to the StormwaterRx Aquip system.

Riise said in the two years of sampling the outgoing stormwater from the yard since the system and BMPs were put in place at Seaview East, the average level of copper has dropped 65% to 99% and is now in the high 20s (parts per billion or ppb). In contrast, some of the worst offending boatyards in Puget Sound have copper discharges averaging from 1000-7000 ppb, which is deadly to salmon and other aquatic life because of the high levels discharged close to shore where salmon migrate.

When a boat is hauled out for general maintenance, the bottom is typically sanded and repainted with an anti-fouling paint. Most bottom paint has high levels of copper (as high as 75%) to discourage the growth of marine organisms that would otherwise attach to the bottom of the hull, affecting durability and performance. If a boatyard does not contain the sanding and pressure washing processes, the copper and other pollutants can enter the nearest waterway at levels that can kill salmon or disrupt crucial survival behaviors like feeding, predator avoidance and migration (2007 Update of Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Copper, by the US EPA).

Phil Riise’s three boatyards are part of the nine out of 93 boatyards in the Puget Sound region that have installed advanced stormwater filtration systems to help comply with the water protection requirements under the Clean Water Act.

As the citizen voice in Puget Sound water quality, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance (Soundkeeper) has worked with boatyards since 2003 to reduce the high levels of copper in Puget Sound by helping test new technologies and sponsoring compliance workshops. Soundkeeper congratulates Riise and the other boatyard owners who have taken progressive measures to reduce stormwater pollution while remaining profitable and doing their part to protect the health of Puget Sound.

Learn more about Soundkeeper’s work to strengthen the Boatyard Stormwater General Permit; and about PSA’s enforcement actions on the Boatyard Stormwater General Permit.

See the King 5 News article on Puget Soundkeeper Alliance’s work to remove copper from stormwater running off our highways.