Is the US Naval Vessel Pililaau responsible for the rise in fecal coliform levels at Fiddlehead Marina?

author : Drew Hendricks topic : Port Militarization Resistance | Port of Olympia

by Drew Hendricks

On May 11, 2005 the US Naval Vessel Pililaau prepared to leave the Port of Olympia's marine terminal. Before 7:30 pm, the ship had already discharged a very large quantity of water from above its Port side waterline, out into Budd Inlet. A jet of white foam could be seen extending well into the navigation channel as the water was stirred with the discharge from the ship's bowels. Near the guest moorage south of the ship, a large quantity of floating, greenish brown material spread out on the water in a sheet hundreds of feet across. The constellation of floating debris drifted gently southward towards Fiddlehead Marina.

A faint smell of poo filled the air, as it often does in downtown Olympia.

Coast Guard vessels which normally patrol Budd Inlet during military operations in the Port of Olympia had left the scene by the afternoon of May 11th, and were not observed at the time the discharge was seen. The ship left the next day, May 12th, sometime after 10am.

On May 19, a LOTT Wastewater Alliance engineer tested a sample of the water from Fiddlehead Marina, and found that the fecal coliform levels there had risen sharply from the previous month's figures, to 280 organisms per 100mL of seawater. The other four test sites in Budd Inlet did not show such a huge bloom of fecal bacteria over the same time period.

At an OMJP forum on the militarization of the Port of Olympia held Thursday, June 23,rd Port Commissioner Robert VanSchoorl dismissed the idea that the Pililaau would have dumped either bilge water or sewage overboard in Budd Inlet, which he said would be illegal and ecologically unsound. He said it would be "stupid" for the ship's operator, Patriot Group Limited, to do so while the Coast Guard was patrolling the waters around the ship. He also said that a storm water drain in the area of Fiddlehead Marina served as a drain for some sewage, laying the blame for the observed spike in fecal coliform on sources other than the Port's operations. No one at the forum told Commissioner VonSchoorl that the incident had been videotaped by Green Party Facilitator Drew Hendricks.