Search Results

Inside a cramped Seattle laboratory, the researchers look like fishermen who got sent to a construction job. Wearing orange waders and yellow boots, they thread their way between shelves of tubs filled with what look like giant mason jars. Overhead, a rainbow of colored tubes bubble gases into tanks, changing the water chemistry to reflect different points in time—past, present and future—as increasing amounts of fossil fuel pollution make the...

Via Todd Litman of the  Victoria Transport Policy Institute, two interesting studies on how drivers have reacted to the rising cost of taking to the roads. First up,  a study (pdf link) that used 2.1 million odometer readings in California to explore the relationship between fuel prices and driving.   From the abstract: The primary empirical result is a medium-term estimate of the utilization elasticity of driving—the elasticity of vehicle-miles-traveled...

Editor’s Note: David Brook is a long-time innovator and leader in the car-sharing industry. He contributed this guest post from Portland, where he consults and blogs on personal mobility. Many city dwellers are familiar with Zipcar and other carsharing companies cropping up in major cities and college campuses across America. The business model is based on a company leasing vehicles, placing them throughout an urban area, providing insurance, and requiring...

New rules approved by Washington’s lawmakers will cut the amount of salmon-harming copper,   toxic coal pollutants, and algae-stoking fertilizers that foul local waterways. Oregon legislators are halfway to approving a ban on copper brake pads—a ban that Washington approved last year. It’s exciting news for Puget Sound, the Columbia and Willamette rivers, and countless other waterways threatened by the region’s fire hose of stormwater filth. But in truth, the...

For more than a decade, all of the eco-friendly stormwater projects that Seattle touched turned to green. The city rebuilt block after neighborhood block to incorporate rain gardens and other natural strategies that can clean up and reduce polluted runoff. The projects worked great: they showcased native plants and sucked up the extra rainwater like green urban sponges. Seattle Public Utilities won awards for its work and was viewed a...

Spring has been reluctant to arrive in the Northwest this year, but the weather is finally changing. With the appearance of some sun, I’ve been itching to get outside. Since writing about my first bike ride in ten years, I’ve bought a bike, and spoken with friends and coworkers more about cycling in Seattle. Already, I’ve got seven days of bike commuting to the office under my belt. It hasn’t...

Researchers have pointed the finger at stormwater runoff as the top source of pollution that’s getting into Puget Sound and other Northwest waterways. And because runoff comes from just about everywhere—roofs, roadways, parking lots, farms, and lawns—the solution has to be just as widespread. Enter 12,000 Rain Gardens. This week Washington State University and Stewardship Partners, a nonprofit working on land preservation, announced a campaign to promote the installing of...

I have a confession to make: I don’t own a bike. (Don’t tell any of my bike-loving coworkers.) Truth is, I hadn’t ridden a bike in over a decade—until last weekend. Six months ago I sold my broken-down, paperweight of a car and have been mooching rides for trips too far outside my neighborhood ever since. With the promise of better weather around the corner, I decided it was finally time...

Editor’s note: This blog is also available as a printer friendly pdf, and a similar version was published this week in Trim Tab, the publication of the Cascadia Green Building Council.  A woman drowns when the basement of her Seattle home suddenly fills with a torrent of filthy water. An overflow of 15 million gallons of sewage and stormwater fouls the shoreline of picturesque Port Angeles, putting the waterfront off limits...

Business interests, greens, government reps, and Washington residents didn’t exactly all sing Kumbaya together at this week’s stormwater forum in Olympia, but the diverse crowd did find some common ground. As John Dodge of the Olympian described it in a great article Thursday, “…everyone attending the forum—including environmentalists and those with business ties—agreed that stormwater runoff is the biggest threat to Puget Sound’s health and will require a lot more money...