And then there was stormwater. The rain that pummeled Washington’s concrete skin—its roads, driveways, parking lots—rushed downhill to the Sound, carrying with it a toxic brew of motor oil, transmission fluid, gasoline, copper, and other automotive tinctures. Deadliest of all, though no one knew it then, were the particulates shed by tires. Scientists would eventually pin decades of coho salmon die-offs on 6PPD-quinone, a chemical that manufacturers apply to tires to protect them from ozone. We’d paved the earth for cars, then used them to poison it.
