NORDLAND — The water in Mystery Bay is healthy, say Jefferson County environmental health officials.
But so many boats are moored in the shellfish-rich waterway that its future health may be in danger, they say.
County and state officials recently said that they had received reports of dumping human waste from their boats into the bay at Marrowstone Island.
Now, they say recent tests show no fecal coliform contamination in the bay, which includes one of the oldest oyster farms in Jefferson County, now known as Marrowstone Island Shellfish Co.
Mystery Bay State Park also fronts the shoreline north of the shellfish farm.
“The water quality in Mystery Bay is good,” said Neil Harrington, county Environmental Health water quality specialist who oversees water quality testing stations around the county.
However, the more than 70 boats in the bay pose a threat to the water quality, should any of them sink and leak fuel, oil or human waste.
One old former commercial fishing vessel broke loose from its anchor during a windstorm last winter.
It was found listing on a sandbar, leaking a small amount of fuel and oil near homes overlooking the northwestern shore of Marrowstone Island.
Last year, county environmental health officials removed an abandoned derelict boat that sank and leaked a fuel sheen that could be seen off Fisherman’s Cove at the tip of the Toandos Peninsula, near the Coyle community and Dabob Bay.
County Environmental Health Director Andrew Shogren told the county Board of Health on Thursday that the county is working with the state Department of Health.
That department had issued a notice that Mystery Bay had been downgraded to “threatened” status.
The state said that the water was threatened by potential pollution because of boats, and recommended that state Department of Natural Resources, which governs moorage in the state’s tidelands, come up with a solution to over-moorage in the bay.
The matter spurred a letter from the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, asking the county to deal with the problem.
