Oregon Public Broadcasting

Residents of the Northwest consider water quality their top environmental concern, according to a new survey released today by EarthFix.

Results of the survey suggest residents of the region may want to focus more on their own role in polluting major waterways if they want them to be more pristine.

David Hibbitts & Midghall (DHM Research) of Portland conducted a survey of 1,200 people in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Among the questions they posed was this open-ended one: What environmental issue concerns you the most? John Horvick, a senior associate with DHM Research, says the answer for most Northwesterners was clear:

"They mentioned water quality more than anything else and when we gave them a list to choose they still rated water quality as their top concern," he said.

People in the survey who pointed to water quality as a top priority cited concerns about purity of water and access to clean water for drinking and recreation, according to DHM Research. Washington respondents were most concerned about water quality, with 27 percent naming it their top priority, compared to 19 percent among Oregon participants and 22 percent from Idaho.

The survey, conducted from Nov. 14-19, also asked people in the Northwest what they consider the major sources of pollution in their states’ major waterways — Washington’s Puget Sound, Idaho’s Boise River, and Oregon’s Willamette River. Forty-eight percent said it was very likely to come from industrial and commercial sites. That’s nearly twice as many people as the 27 percent who said it was very likely to come from residential sites.

"That very visible industrial site captures people’s imagination,” Horvick explains, "and they see large discharges in a way that they don’t necessarily see residential properties or runoff from roads or sewers."

But every time it rains in this region chemicals are rinsed off of homes, yards and streets and into Puget Sound. The majority of those chemicals aren’t coming from single-point sources like large industrial facilities says Ted Sturdevant, Director of Washington’s Department of Ecology.

"Most of these chemicals come from scattered, spread-out hard-to-trace sources," he says. "So it’s not a single guilty culprit or one or two industrial sources. It’s about chemicals that are for the most part used by all of us in our daily lives."

When it comes to water pollution, there are actually about three and a half million guilty culprits. But people that live in the Puget Sound region are starting to take responsibility for the water quality problems here.

In a neighborhood in West Seattle, David Hymel stands in front of a handful of local residents. Hymel runs Rain Dog Design, which specializes in installing rain gardens.

"We’re here today to plant and mulch and finish off ten rain gardens for this neighborhood," Hymel explains to the surrounding crowd, many of them dressed in overalls and work boots - ready to get to work.

Rain gardens aren’t so different from normal gardens –- except that they’re specifically designed to collect the water that runs off of rooftops and driveways.

These gardens soak up some of the rainwater that would otherwise go down storm drains. The water that flows into rain gardens carries with it pollutants that get absorbed into the ground instead of washed into Puget Sound, the Willamette River, or other major waterways.

There are more than 700 rain gardens in the Puget Sound region. Hymel says the key is connecting with individual homeowners, and then — neighborhood by neighborhood –- the idea starts to spread.

Karrie Kohlhaas is one of those homeowners. She’s among the people listening to Hymel.

"I don’t think it would have worked if someone had showed up and said we’re putting rain gardens in on your block. People resist that kind of thing."

But as more people see the connection between their daily lives and the stuff that gets into the water, Kohlhaas says rain gardens start to make sense.

"It’s like anything that’s unfamiliar, you learn a little more about it and you get a little more acquainted with it, you talk to people about it and it starts to normalize as an idea and now a lot of us have become rain garden evangelists."

Building rain gardens isn’t the only way people can reduce stormwater pollution. Using less fertilizer and pesticides on lawns and gardens is a good idea, as is cleaning up after your pet. Environmental groups also advise taking your car to the car wash instead of cleaning it in your driveway.

For more on this story and other environmental news, visit EarthFix.