Thirsty island in the Sound: Saltwater has intruded into remote residents' lives

MARROWSTONE ISLAND, Jefferson County — Dueling yard signs line the dozen or so paved roads on this remote little island southeast of Port Townsend, a less-than-subtle hint at a division within that is upsetting life in paradise.

"Conserve Water First" one sign says in blue letters.

"Want Water to Conserve," says the red-lettered retort.

Saltwater from Puget Sound has infiltrated the aquifer below Marrowstone Island, contaminating an undetermined number of wells and prompting the Jefferson County PUD No. 1 to propose building a $4.4 million water system that would serve the island's 850 residents.

The proposal is testing the civility and sanctity of a community where everyone knows your name but not necessarily your business, and lifestyles range from taking outdoor showers to commune with nature to having an indoor swimming pool for exercise.

Residents who used to attend community potlucks together at the garden club now find themselves torn between helping neighbors who desperately need water and defending the community against new development. The debate has fractured friendships to the point where one resident didn't attend the funeral of another because they had different opinions on the proposed public water system.

"There needs to be reconciliation on the island," says Wayne Chimenti, a tall-ship captain who chooses to live simply in a cabin with his wife, Nicole, and 14-year-old daughter. An opponent of the proposed system, he vows to mend those divisions once the issue is resolved, saying "community is the foundation for stability."

"If we can't make community work on a little, isolated island like this one, then that's really sad."

Property owners have until Tuesday to object to the PUD. If close to half oppose the new system — an unlikely scenario, say PUD officials — the proposal likely will die. If they vote to build, construction would begin soon and the first faucet could be tapped by summer 2005.

The bane of Puget Sound island living, saltwater intrusion has also bedeviled Whidbey, Camano and the San Juan islands, with wells closest to the beach tending to be worse off. Residents there have suffered many of the ills Marrowstone is enduring today.

Ralph Rush, 82, a semi-retired shellfish farmer who heads the group favoring the new water system on Marrowstone, abandoned his own tainted well about eight years ago.

Rush draws water from the well of his neighbor, who happens to be his son. To supplement his supply during the summer, he hauls water in a 55-gallon rain barrel he fills in the nearby town of Port Hadlock, which gets public water.

"We have learned to take very short showers every other day or every third day," Rush says. "We take our clothes into Port Townsend or Port Hadlock to wash them. We don't flush our toilets every time we use them.

"It's almost like living in a Third World country."

Development held up

The water problem has served as an inhibitor to growth. An estimated 350 buildable vacant lots on the island cannot be developed without first undergoing expensive and extensive testing of groundwater. Several property owners sit on their land, waiting for public water to come in and the development restrictions to come off.

Opponents say public water will lead to the development of those lots, while supporters say they doubt the system would fuel growth much beyond the rate of 10 to 15 new houses a year, which has been constant since 1970.

Six-mile-long Marrowstone has one town, Nordland, which has one business, the Nordland General Store. Fort Flagler, a former military outpost and now a state park, occupies the northern tip, with the rest of the island a mix of forest, pasture and beach.

While many residents are retired, some heading for warmer climes each winter, others are younger and live on the island year round. An islander's closest neighbor, though, is just as likely to be a family of blue herons.

On Marrowstone, settled in the 1870s by fishermen and land speculators, the primary mode of transport on and off the island once was a seven-car ferry.

A two-lane bridge, built some 50 years ago, connects Marrowstone and neighboring Indian Island, site of a naval ammunition depot, to the mainland.

A rustic wood-plank sign welcomes Marrowstone visitors with the message: "Help us conserve our limited water." It's also a reminder to residents, who have been dealing with seawater intrusion for several decades.

The water shortage has inspired many to engineer rain-catchment systems into the designs of their homes — experiments in gutters and downspouts, filters and chlorinators, pipes and cisterns. The water is then pumped through homes for showers, baths, toilets and laundry.

Some catchment systems are elaborate and expensive, with tanks secreted beneath porches, patios or, in one house, a built-in bench in the master bedroom. Others are cheaper and less sophisticated, using pillowcases to filter leaves that collect in downspouts.

But even rainwater is precious here. The island lies on the leeward side of the Olympics, creating a rain shadow with only 18 inches of annual precipitation. Some catchment cisterns and tanks went dry last summer, when rainfall was less than 13 inches.

Public-water opponents say rainwater catchment is an effective and environmentally sound alternative to well water. But others say the systems are difficult to maintain and impractical.

"I didn't retire to have to bother with all that," says Paul Heinzinger, who lives on the tract his parents bought for practically nothing in 1936. "And I don't think a lot of people here did."

Hookup optional

If public water gets the go-ahead next week, each lot owner would have an option to hook up to the system, which would be fed by a new tank at Fort Flagler. The park currently is serviced by PUD water through a pipeline connected to the mainland via Indian Island.

Residents who connect would pay a one-time assessment of about $6,850, payable over 20 years. Those who don't connect would pay about $1,500, also over time, as the PUD reasons they would benefit through improved fire protection.

Bob Van Etten, 80, a retiree, opposes a public water system but would hook up to it.

After his well fell victim to seawater intrusion 21 years ago, he built on the deck below his house a 5,300-gallon aluminum cistern that looks like a big backyard swimming pool.

Van Etten has made do on the cistern alone, using water that he chlorinates for drinking and the rest for non-potable purposes. He uses well water for gardening, even though his plants react poorly to it.

"The water for my garden is very salty," he says. "And as we get older, these catchment systems become harder to handle."

Moe Rogers, an 83-year-old retired Los Angeles fireman who invested about $13,000 in a rain-catchment system for his waterfront homestead, built his house with a fire-sprinkler system fed by two reserve tanks behind his barn. Rogers says that while his ingenuity serves him well, it doesn't solve the problems of his neighbors.

The island is covered in salal, a dense native shrub that last summer got so dry Rogers thought it might combust. As part of the proposed water system, six to eight fire hydrants would be scattered about the island.

Currently, tanker trucks from Port Hadlock have to return there to refill if they run out of water while fighting a blaze.

While there has not been a big fire on the island in recent memory, Rogers fears one small blaze combined with a Santa Ana-like wind — and Marrowstone can get strong gusts — could devastate the island.

"The opponents seem to be saying, 'I've made it on the island, so now nobody else can come.' To me, that's not the American way," he says.

Once the water system is hooked up, users would be billed based on consumption. A private golf course on the island, owned by Seattleite Wally Barclay, would be the largest consumer, using 3 million to 4 million gallons a year.

Public-water opponents don't like Barclay's idea to turn his property into a public course once he connects to public water — although he would need to get his property rezoned first, which in itself would be a huge fight.

Barclay says a public golf course would be a nice recreational asset.. But he doubts the nine-hole course would draw a lot of golfers and disrupt the serenity of the island.

The debate over public water not only has pitted neighbor against neighbor but also, in a few cases, spouse against spouse.

Bob and Sandy Barrett, who five years ago moved into a house they built on a waterfront bluff, equipped their home with one of the island's most sophisticated rain-catchment systems.

Sandy Barrett opposes a public-water system because she thinks it will change the character of the island. Her husband has similar concerns but worries about those islanders with bad wells who need water.

A retired Navy captain, he meets some of those neighbors in his volunteer job as driver of the island's sole medical-aid car.

"I'm torn between thwarting those needs and seeing their needs as legitimate," he says. Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com