July 31, 2001

Environmental Watch: Roth Hill adds to marketing team

BELLEVUE -- Samantha Mulligan and Cari Sulcer have joined Roth Hill Engineering Partners, Inc., bolstering the firm's business development, marketing and communications activities.

Mulligan will be a communications specialist, leading internal and external communications efforts and business development. Mulligan, formerly with Ash Associates of London, has 12 years of experience in advertising, public relations and copywriting.

Sulcer joins Roth Hill as a communications assistant, assisting in business development, communications, government affairs and proposal writing. She was previously an assistant account executive with online marketing company Avenue A.

Roth Hill, based in Bellevue, has 50 employees providing civil engineering, design, planning and construction management services to public and private sector clients.

North Cascades Institute named "great place"

SEDRO-WOOLEY -- The North Cascades Institute has received a $20,000 grant from Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) as part of the retailer's "Great Places" campaign.

The institute provides natural history education through field seminars, school programs, teacher workshops, internships and graduate education.

"We are honored that REI supports our work," said Saul Weisberg, executive director of the North Cascades Institute. "The Great Places grant is earmarked for our North Cascades Discovery Program that takes children and adults into wild places to find challenge and inspiration."

This summer's Discovery program will take participants on a canoe trip around Ross Lake.

The institute says that since 1986, more than 50,000 people have participated in its programs. In 2003, the institute will open the North Cascades Learning Center in partnership with Seattle City Light and North Cascades National Park.

Water quality grants offered

OLYMPIA -- The state Department of Ecology is seeking public comment as it prepares to distribute $107 million in grants and low-interest loans to help improve the health of lakes, streams, rivers, aquifers and marine waters statewide.

As proposed, 82 percent of last year's recipients would receive financial assistance this year as well.

"There is widespread demand for projects to keep pollution out of our streams and lakes," said Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons. "The money will do a lot of good."

The funding comes from the Centennial Clean Water Fund, Washington State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund and the federal Clean Water Act Section 319 Nonpoint-source Fund. The loans and grants are typically used by communities to upgrade wastewater treatment, reduce stormwater runoff and to improve habitat for salmon, steelhead and bull trout.

Ecology will hold meetings in Tacoma and Spokane to discuss the proposals. The Tacoma meeting is today, July 31, at 9 a.m. in the Pierce County Library Administrative Service Center, 3005 112th St. East, at 9 a.m.

The Spokane meeting will be held Wednesday, August 1, at 10 a.m. at the Spokane Public Library, 906 West Main Ave. More information is available at www.wa.gov/ecology/wq/links/funding/.

Man plans swim to the Columbia

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Christopher Swain models himself after the earliest "Riverkeepers," who patrolled Britain's waterways in the 19th century by walking the river banks and watching out for pollutants.

The big difference is that Swain, as the official Riverkeeper for the Columbia River, won't be walking. He'll be swimming the entire 1,243 miles of the river, from the headwaters in British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.

"What better way to keep an eye on the river than by swimming and tasting every mile of water?" says Swain, who will start his swim next June and spend nearly six months completing it. "This is Riverkeeping at its purest. It's my job in the end to see that as much awareness and benefit comes to the river as possible."

Swain was appointed to his "Riverkeeping" position, which involves assessing the state of the river and promoting efforts to improve it, last month by Columbia Riverkeeper, a not-for-profit organization that belongs to the national Waterkeeper Alliance founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He'll be swimming through the Hanford Reach and north Portland, two of the river's most polluted stretches.

"I'll be swimming through everything from human waste to Tritium 131," Swain says. "I'm not a fish; I won't be in the river forever, but we are a little concerned about bio-accumulation."

Swain will have samples of his hair, blood and skin tested for contaminants before and after the swim.

"I'll be sure to dose up on vitamin C," he says.

Painting the town green

VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) -- Lacking water for their lawns after one of the driest winters on record, some area residents are turning to paint.

Several companies offer to banish the brown, parched look by selling a water-soluble pigment that is often used on heavily traveled areas of golf courses. The product supplied by Evergrow Canada Inc. is also sometimes applied to areas along highways.

"Any golfer would recognize it," said Robert Righetti of Righetti Gardening.

"Now it just seems feasible to use it on the lawns because people aren't spending money on the water," Righetti said. "First we prep the lawn by cutting it shorter, and then just spray it.

"It's like Victoria goes green overnight."

The paint costs less than 50 cents a square yard, can be applied quickly, dries in minutes on a hot day, won't wash off if it rains and lasts up to six months, Righetti said.

"It's not a dye and it doesn't contain any hazardous chemicals or heavy metals or other ingredients harmful to turf," he said.

Toxic plant invades Oregon

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- One of the world's most toxic plants has been discovered in Oregon.

The state Department of Agriculture has confirmed three growths in Oregon of giant hogweed, a plant native of the mountains of southern Russia that contains noxious sap from its scaly and purple stalk.

A chemical in the plant causes human skin to become sensitive to the sun and can cause sunburns so intense they blister and leave purple-and-black scars.

Giant hogweed can grow 15-feet high and unfurls leaves five feet wide and flower clusters two feet long.

"It's just pretty nasty looking, and it's painful," said Karen Peterson, a noxious weed specialist with the King County Noxious Weed Control Program in Seattle.

Washington state officials have been battling the weed for at least 50 years. But the plant hadn't been found in Oregon until last week, when the state Department of Agriculture confirmed three growths in Portland: at Reed College and at two houses.

No one knows for sure how giant hogweed got to Oregon.

Its unique size and appearance made it a popular ornamental plant with gardeners, who carried it from its native habitat in the rugged Caucasus Mountains to England, Canada and, most likely, Washington and other U.S. states.

It is illegal to sell hogweed in both Oregon and Washington.

Russian hogweed resembles its smaller relative cow parsnip, which is native to Oregon, and is a wild cousin of carrots. Cow parsnip usually grows two to four feet tall. And cow parsnip has a fuzzy green stalk, while giant hogweed has a blistered, purple stalk with white bristles.