Modern Use
The Duwamish Waterway empties into Elliott Bay in Seattle, divided by the man-made Harbor Island into two channels, the East and West Waterways.
Due to 20th century industrial contamination, the lower 5 miles (8.0 km) of the Duwamish was declared a Superfund site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The contaminants include PCBs, PAHs, mercury, and phthalates. The cleanup of the river has been controversial: the original plan was to dredge the river and dump the resulting sludge in Tacoma's Commencement Bay, 26 miles (42 km) to the southwest. Local opposition to this plan forced the sludge to be shipped to Klickitat County in south central Washington.
Along with the contaminants already mentioned above the Duwamish River faces other types of pollution as well. One other major form of pollution is fecal coliform caused by sewage overflow. Even if these overflows were to be cleaned up the overall quality of the water would not improve much. Contamination would still occur from farms, surface runoff, wildlife, or failing septic tanks. Also, the Duwamish River's most common pollutant is petroleum.
Read more about this topic: Duwamish River
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)