Seattle boatyard using expensive water filter

SEATTLE -- Many industry groups are waiting to see how plans to protect Puget Sound will affect their businesses, but one local boatyard owner isn't the type to wait around.

On a typical day of grinding, scraping and painting at Seattle's Seaview East Boatyard, the ground is unavoidably littered with debris.

In the past, that would simply be washed away by hoses or rainwater, down drains and into the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Not anymore at Seaview.

"I'm raising the bar," said Phil Riise, who owns Seaview and three other big boatyards in Western Washington. Over the last three decades, he's watch the rules of his business change and has a reputation of staying ahead of them.

"I've been knows to be fairly proactive I would say," said Riise.

Proactive to the point of installing the latest technology in runoff treatment systems, called StormwateRx.

"This system is designed to designed to remove 95 to 100 percent of the total water that falls on this site," said Cal Noling, CEO of StormwateRx.

That water is pumped into a big tank that looks like a dumpster from the outside. But if you get inside and you're familiar with how a fish tank works at all, it's pretty much the same concept. It filters and cleans the water by sending it through sand, gravel and fabric, but on a much larger scale.

It's big, expensive and it's way beyond what's required.

Why is Riise doing it?

"Real simple, it's the right thing to do for the environment, plain and simple," said Riise.

Simple to Riise maybe, but for Puget Sound protection groups, this is big.

"Phil Riise has stepped up to the plate at Seaview Boatyard and it's very exciting," said Sue Joerger of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance.

"It's just real inspiring to get out to see these people grabbing the bull by the horns and doing something real," said David Dicks of Puget Sound Partnership.

And doing it at a time when many in Riise's industry are much more worried about the economy than ecology.

The system is already operating at one of Riise's boatyards in Bellingham and will be installed in his other two yards soon.