If Puget Sound is battling a death of a thousand cuts, the Clean Marina Washington program is helping stop the bleeding.

Many of the region’s largest marinas participate in the voluntary program that aims to keep oil, sewage and trash out of the fragile marine environment. Last week the Port of Bremerton joined the effort and became its 40th member.

Environmentally friendly programs are a good fit for boaters and marinas, those involved said.

“The majority of people want to do the right thing and protect the environment,” said Marla Kempf, deputy director of the Port of Edmonds, a recognized leader in the effort.

“They want to enjoy the beautiful environment,” she said. “That’s why they bought a boat in the first place.”

Clean Marina, which started in Washington in 2005 and is administered by the nonprofit group the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, takes a two-pronged approach. It works with marina owners to reduce their pollution and also helps them educate their tenants and marina visitors about ways to safeguard beaches and waterways.

Although the total number of residents in the state—about 6.5 million—dwarfs the number of boaters, “each individual (boater) probably has a bigger opportunity to make a bigger impact one way or another than someone on land,” said Chris Wilke, director of the Clean Marina program.

The program encourages boaters to keep their engines well-tuned to prevent oil leaks. If leaks occur, boaters should pump out the oily bilge water and treat it, rather than pump it overboard. Puget Soundkeeper is launching a program to increase the number of sites in the Sound that will accept polluted bilge water from about three to 13.

Marla Kempf, deputy director of the Port of Edmonds, shows one of the receptacles that will be placed at the marina for collecting monofilament fishing line for recycling.

Clean Marina also instructs boaters to pump out their sewage waste for disposal. It’s illegal to dump untreated waste in the Sound, though some boats have treatment systems onboard. Wilke says even treated waste tends to be very high in bacteria that makes shellfish unsafe for people to eat, so it should also be pumped out.

The program educates marina owners about the best ways to store hazardous and oily waste. And it works with boaters to make sure waste is recycled safely.

At the Port of Edmonds, managers are going even further to recycle all sorts of trash, including fishing line and the giant plastic sheets of Visqueen used in boatyards when hulls are cleaned and painted.

“We look at all the money being spent on cleaning up all the plastics already out there,” said Lisa Friend, recycling outreach coordinator for Bellingham’s RE Store, a nonprofit group promoting the reuse of items.

Friend is providing Edmonds with receptacles for collecting fishing line so it can be recycled and removed from the marine ecosystem. “It entangles birds, it entangles fish” she said. “It’s really nasty in the environment and it never breaks down.”

While Clean Marina is helping save the Sound, more ecological bloodletting continues. The majority of the state’s approximately 200 marinas haven’t joined the program. Some argue that stricter standards are needed and that even treated boat sewage should be banned from dumping in Puget Sound, which is shaped like a bathtub and slow to flush with river and ocean water.

But Clean Marina is a start. Marina Hench, director of government affairs with the Northwest Marine Trade Association, thinks more marinas want to join and supports more funding for Puget Soundkeeper to increase its outreach.

“I don’t think it’s difficult to meet the requirements of the program. It’s just a matter of the person in charge taking the time,” Hench said. “Anybody can do it. It’s a matter of them making it a priority.”

Tips for protecting the marine environment:

• Pump out sewage waste to onshore facilities
• If treating waste onboard, empty holding tank far from shore and while underway—but it’s still best to pump out waste
• Repair engine leaks
• Pump out oily bilge for treatment; don’t dump it overboard
• Keep absorbent pads on hand when fueling up and don’t overfill tank
• Recycle fishing line, nets and ropes
• Recycle Visqueen tarps used for hull scraping and painting projects
• Encourage your marina to join the Clean Marina program if it hasn’t already
• Report spills at by calling Washington’s Emergency Operations Center at 800-OILS-911 and the U.S. Coast Guard at 800-424-8802

Learn more about the Clean Marina Washington program at: www.cleanmarinawashington.org

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