LYNDEN, Wash. – Occasional wildfire smoke is not the only pollution that comes our way from north of the border.

A local farm advocacy group is sounding the alarm over pollution in creeks that flow across the border and feed the Nooksack River near Lynden.

Whatcom Family Farmers Executive Director Fred Likkel says testing by Washington state and Whatcom County have found bacterial pollution levels in the creeks as high as 260 times the legal limit.

That is impacting farmland, fish and shellfish beds near the mouth of the Nooksack.

He says a trans-border collaboration helped sharply reduce this type of pollution from 2018 until Canada abandoned the program in 2021.

That left them unable to even determine what the source of the pollution is.

Whatcom Family Farmers sent a letter to the Department of Ecology and other agencies urging them to prod the Canadian government into addressing the problem.