May 14, 2025
By Luciana Calle, WSG Science Communications Fellow
On a sunny Wednesday morning, Aaron Barnett and Bridget Trosin, who manage the Clean Marina Washington Program, walked on the deck of Boat Street Marina, admiring one of the many marinas helping to protect Washington’s waters and marine life. In this marina, small black ducks swam between parked boats while geese sunbathed on the warm wooden panels of the deck, carefully preening their backs with their beaks. As a certified Clean Marina, Boat Street is a hub of activities, where wildlife and boaters can enjoy the calm waters of Portage Bay and savor the rare sunshine mornings of Seattle.
Clean Marina Washington, established in 2005, has served Washington communities for more than 20 years. The program helps to preserve the health of our marine environments and maintain pollution-free waters to ultimately “leave a healthy wake” for all to enjoy. The program was one of the first to be implemented on the West Coast after programs on the East Coast began to proliferate out of concern marinas would face legal action under the Clean Water Act. The Clean Marina program is best described as a self-auditing program that provides certification for marinas given they meet the minimum pollution prevention requirements, identify sustainability goals and activities, and create a plan to achieve them over a three-year period.
Washington Sea Grant (WSG), among other partners, was one of the first to oversee the implementation of the Clean Marina program in Washington state. In 2022, WSG took over leadership of the program with the goal to continue protecting Washington’s marine environments and publicly recognize marinas following environmentally-sound practices and procedures.
Although many marina certifications and recertifications were placed on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, Clean Marina site visits are now back in full swing. Barnett, WSG Boating Program Specialist, and Trosin, WSG Coastal Policy Specialist, visited Boat Street Marina to evaluate their goals and assess current marina operations for recertification under the program. For Barnett, this particular marina holds personal history. His grandfather owned the marina in the 1960s, previously named University Boat Street. The marina is also a great example of the local impacts of Clean Marina: the program’s focus on pollution control measures means cleaner waters for the local community and businesses of Portage Bay to thrive. As Boat Street is nestled among multiple restaurants and businesses and shares space with a paddling club, the marina’s operations help protect the livelihoods of the local community– where kayakers pass by playing upbeat music and university students convene during lunch hours.
Aaron Barnett examining the inside of the pumpout station at Boat Street Marina.
One of the components of the site review was examining current equipment such as the pumpout station and black-water pump station and discussing current marina operations. “I always think of this area as a freeway between the two lakes (Lake Union and Lake Washington), so people are constantly using this pump with it checked every week by maintenance,” commented Brandi Anspach, Boat Street’s manager.
Site reviews also make suggestions for marina managers to improve and clean up their operations. Boat Street Marina has experienced some bad cases of Eurasian watermilfoil, an invasive aquatic plant, as it found homes within boat propellers and equipment. Currently, the marina applies spring and fall treatments of herbicide to limit its spread, which contains environmentally-friendly ingredients. One suggestion to further limit watermilfoil was to increase boater awareness on the mechanisms of watermilfoil proliferation and encourage boaters to clean vessels upon entering the marina. The Clean Marina program has a multitude of on-site and online resources targeted for boater outreach including spill reporting, vessel maintenance and repairs, waste management, and compliance with laws and regulations.
The final site review plan for Boat Street included establishing liners to street drains to collect petroleum runoff, adding new information to the marina’s newsletter and new signage, and providing oil spill response barrels for boaters to use. With the site review completed, Boat Street Marina became recertified as a Clean Marina and joins the more than 80 Clean Marinas in Washington state that commit to keep Washington’s waters clean.
Informational signage posted outside the gate to Boat Street’s dock area for boaters to use.
“A lot of the work in this program is centered on making information easy and accessible for boaters,” notes Barnett, reflecting on the 20 years of Clean Marina. “Often boaters are reluctant to report their spill, so we provide spillage signs to marinas that have the contact information of the US Coast Guard for boaters to call.” In addition, the Clean Marina program provides resources for marinas on best management practices, staff training, facility maintenance as well as support through the Derelict Vessel Removal program and applying for the Clean Vessel Act Grant to sustain clean marina operations.
“The end goal is to make [the program] more friendly and approachable for the boating community to rely on,” comments Trosin. “And we have seen the impact the program has on each marina as every certification creates actionable steps that bring us closer to sustaining clean waters throughout Washington.”
Washington Sea Grant continues to improve water quality within marinas through efforts such as Pumpout Washington and the Small Spills Prevention Program that provide resources for boaters to divert pollution from entering marine environments. The new Pumpout Nav app is one of the resources that serves as a great user-friendly tool for boaters to locate pumpout and dump stations within Washington and along the West Coast.
The Clean Marina Washington Program is more than a certification– it represents the resilience of the boating community and Washington’s commitment to maintaining clean and healthy marine environments.
To learn more about the Clean Marina Washington Program, visit cleanmarinawashington.org/.
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Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington, helps people and marine life thrive through research, technical expertise and education supporting the responsible use and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Washington Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.
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MAY
2025