randy_byers | Thoughts while swimming to work

So we've had ourselves a Pineapple Express raining on us for the past 24 hours. 2.74 inches of rain so far, according to the Seattle Times, with another two to three inches on the way.

As I waded through pools and puddles and rivers of water on the way to work, I was reminded of the urban hike I took with Andy and Carrie a couple weeks ago. We looked at a number of creeks that feed Lake Washington, including Thornton Creek, which is being daylighted in various areas. So this morning I thought how this area probably had dozens of creeks and streams in the old days, many of them now running through culverts under the streets. But culverts are not a very efficient way of getting all this water from the hills into the lakes. Most of the water ends up staying on the streets and other paved areas, and pavement is pretty random in the way it distributes water. It creates a complete mess, basically. There is water fricking everywhere, rather than mostly confined to streambeds.

The other thing I was thinking about as I waded to work was the article I had just read in the paper on Saturday about a recent study that shows that "Stormwater from roads, parking lots and elsewhere carries between 6.3 million and 8 million gallons of petroleum into the [Puget] Sound every year, according to a report issued Friday by the state Department of Ecology. The 1989 Valdez accident in Alaska dumped 11 million gallons." Oil isn't the only thing being washed into the Sound, and it's a huge environmental problem. Nobody knows what to do about it, as far as I can tell, although I've heard it suggested that we should run stormwater through a treatment process.