The timeline is now in question of when Sound Transit first learned its newest light rail line might be to blame for killing thousands of fish in Lake Washingto
The timeline is now in question of when Sound Transit first learned its newest light rail line might be to blame for killing thousands of fish in Lake Washington.
The transit agency said it only learned of the dead fish in August. Alex Quibell, an electrician who worked on the Crosslake Connection, said photos of their carcasses were shown to members of the Sound Transit team in December but the warnings went nowhere.
The priority, according to Quibell, was opening the tracks in time for the World Cup.
The photos of the dead fish were sent in by recreational divers Shahein Moussavi and Travis Eiler, the president and vice president of the nonprofit conservation and education group GUE Seattle, the local affiliate of Global Underwater Explorers.
Last year, they set out to explore the sunken ruins of the 1990 bridge collapse when they made the disturbing discovery. The divers said beneath the I-90 floating bridge where the light rail tracks run was a deadly problem hiding in the dark.
“We scootered past a large pile of dead fish,” Moussavi said. “We thought maybe it was some science experiment or just an anomaly."
Eiler saw separate piles while diving with his son.
“Approximately four feet in diameter, like a little cone about two feet high, and the odd thing to me was nothing was eating them,” Eiler said.
Moussavi and Eiler later shared the photos with another diver who works for the Washington State Department of Transportation, hoping to raise awareness.
“We sent them to the diver that we met. We didn't hear back,” Mousavi said. “That was December this last year."
However, those photos did circulate. Quibell, a Kiewit contractor who worked on the light rail project, said he saw them late last year, as did an inspector, and the images were shared with Sound Transit supervisors.
“We knew before I left the project at the end of December,” Quibell said. “We knew about it, it was brought up to Sound Transit, and it was just dead silence."
Lake Washington can turn especially cold in the winter and the divers took the season off but returned to the water in July, only to see that the problem had grown.
“As we saw more of them spread out throughout the site we realized that fish were dying because of these lines hanging off the bridge,” Eiler said. “We ran past a dozen piles of fish and that's when we were like, 'OK we've got to reach out to somebody else.'"
Moussavi contacted Washington Conservation Action, which helped connect the divers with Long Live the Kings, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and state agencies. Sound Transit said it began its own investigation on Aug. 3, sending dive teams, biologists and engineers to the site.
Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine made the first public announcement about the dead fish last week. Constantine said the investigation found a potential connection between the fish deaths and the agency’s cathodic-protection system. The system uses low-level electrical current run through anode strings to keep the bridge structures from corroding.
Sound Transit said 32 anode strings were resting on the lake bed where they were not supposed to be. The agency has since lifted them off the bottom.
Quibell, who worked on the cathodic-protection system, said the risks were known much earlier than August.
“We brought this up, there are fish dying, there are piles of dead fish on the ground,” Quibell said. “I believe Sound Transit knew about it. I don't know that Dow Constantine himself knew about it, but there was definitely a huge push to get this project running so, at least appearance wise, Sound Transit has this big success of putting light rail across a floating bridge before the World Cup."
Sound Transit did not directly address Quibell’s allegation but said in a statement that procedures require workers on all job sites to report any safety or environmental compliance concerns.
“To our knowledge this procedure was adhered to, and we do not have any record of construction contractors or consultants presenting Sound Transit staff with evidence of fish mortality prior to the notification from WSDOT on Aug. 3,” Sound Transit said. “Safety, quality, and environmental compliance are our top priorities on all job sites and are never sacrificed in order to open a project on a set timeline. In fact, this very project was delayed by three years after we determined that the contractor's workmanship was not up to Sound Transit's quality and safety standards and directed them to rebuild.”
Sound Transit has since hired divers to re-inspect the 32 anode strings to see if there are any recent signs of fish mortality. Engineers are also working to determine the root cause of the fish deaths so a permanent solution can be implemented.
Moussavi said his photos showed what appeared to be Chinook salmon, which in the Lake Washington watershed are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Sound Transit has said most of the dead fish appeared to be nonnative or invasive perch and bass, but salmon were also identified.
“Protected species obviously need protection. We don't want to be killing them willy-nilly,” Moussavi said, adding, "we haven't seen any new piles of dead fish."
Eiler had his own take on the experience.
“When we submitted our first photos I was a little disheartened that nothing happened,” Eiler said. “But since we resubmitted photos in July, August, the ball really got rolling and I am happy so far with the response and I hope it continues."
