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PORT TOWNSEND — Fern Svendsen and Russ McMillan pull up their waders, pick up several buckets and duck around trees and bushes to reach the shore of Kah Tai Lagoon.
The state Department of Ecology researchers make their way across the carpet of bent-over bullrushes along the shore — they’re looking for telltale signs of stormwater runoff entering the lake.
Mud and water ooze through the dry reed-like bullrushes as the pair stops to do their work. They’re here to take sediment samples to be analyzed for heavy metals by Ecology’s laboratory in Manchester.
Port Townsend City Manager David Timmons’ discovery last year of a decades-old Kah Tai Lagoon survey prompted the researchers’ site visit last week.
The 1986 study, conducted by Shoreline Community College students, indicated the presence of high levels of toxic chemicals.
The full report appears in today’s Jefferson County edition of the Peninsula Daily News, on sale throughout the county. Or hit “Subscribe” at left to order your copy via U.S. mail.