Now that the Nooksack River's south fork is gnawing away at a streamside trash dump and junkyard, sending refuse downstream, a variety of governmental agencies are scrambling to stop the erosion and eventually clean up the site.
Robert McKay said he's been operating his business, Foothills Recycling, at 4399 Valley Highway since 1990. It sits on a chunk of land inside a big horseshoe bend in the river.
McKay said he accepts cars and other scrap metal for recycling, and defended his acceptance of household trash as a public service.
"People that didn't have money to throw their stuff away, I'd take it in so they wouldn't throw it on the roads," McKay said.
Whatcom County Health Department records show that county officials have been worried about the operation since 1993, but because the land is a Nooksack tribal allotment, held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the county cannot enforce its regulations there. McKay is a member of the Nooksack Tribe.
In 2001, publicity about the mostly unregulated dump touched off a flurry of governmental concern. The Whatcom County Council sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at that time, asking for an assessment of whether the operation posed any danger to public health.
"We are becoming increasingly concerned that wastes or hazardous chemicals from this dumpsite will end up in the Nooksack River," the council's 2001 letter said. "Additionally, the dumpsite sits partially within the river's flood plain, causing an added risk of flooding and erosion."
But nothing changed, and erosion fears were realized earlier this winter as heavy rains sent the river churning against McKay's property. He said he lost about 30 of several hundred acres of his holdings along the river. Some of that was part of the dump, which he said covers about four acres. The refuse that went into the river was demolition debris, he said.
McKay said he has used earthmoving equipment to pile up demolition waste along the riverbank to prevent further erosion.
As he sees it, none of this would have happened if Whatcom County had installed rock barriers along the river to protect his land. McKay said he has been trying to get such barriers since the 1970s.
McKay said he started the dump and recycling business in 1990 after county officials told him his land wasn't valuable enough to justify the cost of flood protection measures - but that might change if he opened a business there.
The dump was not what county officials had in mind. In 1993, a county health department official sent a letter to the Indian Health Service, saying the site was not appropriate for a dump and "could pose a significant risk to health and the environment."
Two years later, according to documents in county files, an Indian Health Service official visited the site and found that environmental safeguards outlined in an operating plan submitted to the tribe were not being maintained.
Tribal officials have maintained that they too lack jurisdiction because McKay's property is not on the reservation. But they are now pushing for action.
Tribal Chairman Narciso Cunanan said the tribe wants to work with the county and federal agencies to stop the immediate risk of more debris going into the river, and develop a long-term solution.
Tribal Administrator Pat Check said the first step is to get the refuse away from the river and stabilize the stream bank. Then, officials can figure out how to get rid of the accumulation of refuse on the property.
"The ultimate goal is to clean it up," Check said. "The river has moved so far towards the property that it's the tribe's belief that the whole site needs to be cleaned up."
Judy Joseph, superintendent of the Puget Sound Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said her agency is working with the tribe on the cleanup process. The job should be under EPA oversight, with likely involvement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she said.
Nobody at EPA was immediately available to comment Thursday.
Jeff Hegedus, county environmental health supervisor, said he doesn't anticipate any serious problems with the cleanup, since the wastes there do not appear to be of a highly toxic nature. No cost estimates have been made, but Hegedus agreed that the price tag is likely to be in six figures.
"Debris is going into the river," he said. "We can't have that ... This is needing attention big time and it needs it right now."
Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust and environmental representative on the county's watershed planning process, agreed.
"From what I've heard, everybody is concerned and wants something to be done, but that's the same place we've been at for 10 years," Weimer said. "Somebody needs to step up and get something done."
McKay said there isn't anything hazardous on his land, and he's ready to cooperate on the cleanup.
"I've tried to do everything legal," he said.
And if nothing is done this time, McKay said he's ready to pile rock, cement and junked cars on the riverbank to protect his land.
"I've been cooperative with everybody but there is nobody who wants to do anything," he said.