Climate Lab is a Seattle Times initiative that explores the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The project is funded in part by The Bullitt Foundation, CO2 Foundation, Jim and Birte Falconer, Mike and Becky Hughes, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, University of Washington and Walker Family Foundation, and its fiscal sponsor is the Seattle Foundation.

Have you ever been near the water and wondered whether it’s safe to go in? Thanks to a new law, the public will soon have an easier way to check whether a body of water might have been recently contaminated by sewage.

Under the law passed this year, the Washington State Department of Ecology must develop and publish a website by June 2026 with notices of reported sewage spills, including the volume, level of treatment

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