This would help restore the health of our streams

Editor, The Times:

Thanks for the Feb. 6 editorial calling for action to implement Low Impact Development (LID) building practices [“Build green infrastructure,” Opinion].

Halting the onslaught of stormwater runoff is the most important action we can take to restore the health of our streams, lakes and Puget Sound. Those of us who monitor streams can attest to the damage done by stormwater runoff from the heavily built environment we have created.

Large volumes of runoff into streams destroy salmon spawning and hatching habitat by scouring out gravel beds or burying them in silt, which smothers embryonic eggs as well as the aquatic flies and other insects that live in the gravels and form the base of the stream food chain.

Toxins carried by runoff from roads, parking lots and yards make the water, itself, poisonous to all the creatures that live in it.

Another major benefit from widespread implementation of LID would be to curtail property damage from flooding — millions of dollars worth over the last decade in my small town alone.

— Mark Phillips, Lake Forest Park

Eliminate pollution at the source

The “Build green infrastructure” editorial confuses stormwater management with pollution control. The containment of stormwater on-site via Low Impact Development (LID) methods reduces the amount of water that flows into the stormwater systems.

However, this water does not pollute the environment. The pollution comes from the roadways where years of improvement by the auto industry to eliminate oil, brake lining and tire residue has greatly reduced this pollution. Reducing the water running over the roads and into the stormwater systems dilutes the concentration of pollutants in the stormwater, but does not eliminate the pollutants.

While LID methods are a worthy goal for stormwater management, they do almost nothing to eliminate pollutants. The elimination of pollutants should be addressed at their source: i.e., continued elimination by the auto industry and others.

— George Toskey, Sammamish