Dive Site Will Vanish As Part Of Puget Sound Clean-up

Almost every month, Karlista Rickerson and Pete Wojcik visit an underwater world off Maury Island that few people ever see. It's a place of decorator crabs as delicate looking as flowers, spiny lump suckers painted a brilliant yellow and alabaster nudibranchs that look ghostly with their waving blue-white gills. Small rubescens octopi, a mere 16 inches long, have been known to undulate past them, as well as the reclusive giant Pacific octopus, a 10-foot-long behemoth. "It's a whole other world down there," Wojcik said as he stood on the shoreline preparing to dive last week. Now, they say, they stand to lose this underwater playground - as special to them as a trail through the woods is to a hiker. The reason: The derelict pilings that provide a home to all those undersea animals are coated with creosote, a cancer-causing toxin. And the state is poised to remove them...