The quality and quantity of water in Island County’s aquifers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and shorelines supports many resources. Yet, a wide array of activities potentially threaten to degrade these waters and their underlying sediments, in some cases irreversibly. Therefore it is important to understand the countywide extent to which this may be true, as well as the actual (as opposed to potential) sources of degradation.
The County has committed to and maintained, since the late 1990s, an extensive program for ground water monitoring and management, with data available from over 6000 wells. In contrast, no comprehensive monitoring of surface waters has been conducted on a regular and sustained basis. Only 19 of the County’s 125 watersheds have previously had any of their surface waters sampled. Even that sampling has been funded by short-term grants, yielding fragmented data of limited usefulness in identifying and correcting specific sources of pollution. Recognizing this need, in its newly-adopted Existing and Ongoing
Agriculture Ordinance, Island County states that:
“Commencing in 2006, the Director shall implement an interdepartmental monitoring program and shall report on monitoring to the Board of Commissioners as part of the annual Comprehensive Plan review process”