It is our backyard.

Puget Sound.

A big, beautiful, backdrop for all of Western Washington.

Many of us get to see this view each and every day, and it is truly breathtaking. But there's another view you should see that's equally breathtaking -- but in a bad way.

The ugly brown water pouring out of a pipe isn't toxic waste - - it is water, rain water, dumped into the Sound after just an average weather event.

This particular stormwater outflow just happens to be a few feet under the window at one of Seattle's most picturesque spots: Salty's on Alki Beach.

"It is a river, a pipeline about this big around -- spewing forth a brown noxious soup of nastiness. It is unbelievable, it is dramatic, and somewhat scary when you come upon it and it is in full roar," said Mike Racine.

Racine heads up a network of volunteer divers called the Washington Scuba Alliance. He sees what many of us never get the chance to see - the bottom of Puget Sound. And he says it's not a pretty picture.

Racine says to really understand what is happening in the Sound, one needs to look topside at everyday things like watering the bushes or washing the car.

Think of one tiny little droplet of water as it trickles down the landscaping, perhaps picking up pesticides, then hitting the asphalt, where it picks up oil and gas, before it creeps over the edge of the storm drain, the plops into the stormwater pipe, where it will drain straight into Puget Sound.

Now multiply that one dirty little drop of water, by a million -- a billion.

"I think we are just beginning to realize how much our daily living impacts things -- the Sound," said Ginny Arveson of Edmonds.

Arveson may be watering now, but that's only because her condo complex just planted some shrubs and trees a few days ago. They picked native species so they'd never have to water them again. Theirs is a perfect example of simple ways that the average Joe can cut down stormwater runoff.

Video from Chopper 7 showed an unintended consequence of runoff: Algae blooms. The blooms do happen naturally, but the Washington Department of Ecology is also studying what effect we are having on the development of these blooms.

Ecologists believe that fertilizers draining into the Sound make these blooms happen more often, and make them more potent.

Those same fertilizers are also believed to have an effect on the many species of fish swimming in the Sound, though most people like recreational fisherman Norm Santarin still don't consider it that big of a problem.

"We've heard if you eat a little too much of something, you may catch something, but you just have to limit it," said Santarin.

But as our 6-month long investigation found there are indeed problems in Puget Sound.

We take our cameras diving deep, into places most have never seen before.

In our next story the aftermath of hundreds of years of fishing, gill nets, once used to catch fish, are now catching everything else.