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‘Our last, best chance’ to save Puget Sound

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published February 18, 2008

All eyes are on the Puget Sound Partnership, the new state agency viewed by many as the last chance for saving Puget Sound.

• Part 1: Toxic runoff silent killer

Changes — one area at a time

Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater have low-impact development ordinances on the books; Thurston County is likely to adopt one in 2008.

Some examples of low impact development techniques:

• More than 20 years ago, Tumwater built parking areas that absorb stormwater at Tumwater Historical Park to keep runoff out of the Deschutes River.

• When Olympia widened R.W. Johnson Boulevard last year, the bike lane was constructed with a pervious surface to soak up stormwater runoff from the road.

• The Lotus Springs medical building on Olympia's west side eliminated stormwater runoff with the use of rain gardens and a porous cement parking lot.

• The Seminar II Building at The Evergreen State College features a living roof and rain gardens.

• The Lacey Downs shopping area in Lacey uses rain gardens in the parking lot.
The Puget Sound Partnership will kick off a series of public workshops and community conversations across the Puget Sound region to engage the public in development of its cleanup action plan.

"It's important that the people who live and work on Puget Sound play a role in bringing it back to health," said David Dicks, executive director of the partnership. "These community discussions will be the first of many opportunities for everyone who has a stake in Puget Sound to tell the partnership how it should be restored."

The first round of workshops will focus on the overall status of Puget Sound health and the greatest threats it faces. In South Sound, the first public meeting is set for March 7 in Lecture Hall Building No. 3 at The Evergreen State College. The workshop is from 1 to 5 p.m. and the community conversation will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Formed by the 2007 Legislature, the partnership grew out of Gov. Chris Gregoire's call in December 2005 for action to cure what ails Puget Sound by 2020.

The challenge is a daunting one. The tasks include:

• Bringing about 40 threatened species — from the mighty orca to the iconic chinook salmon — back from the brink of extinction by restoring water quality and habitat.

• Convincing the public that a healthy Puget Sound is vital to a healthy Puget Sound basin economy.

• Revamping land use patterns and transportation to curb stormwater runoff from the 4 million people already living in the region, and the 1.4 million headed here in the next 15 years.

• Sustaining the cleanup and protection effort with dedicated funding measured in the billions of dollars.

"This is our last, best chance for saving Puget Sound," predicted Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the conservation group People for Puget Sound. "We need to stop destroying habitat and face up to the pollution problems, or it's all just talk."

Fletcher is no stranger to the challenge. She served as the executive director of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, the first state agency, formed in 1985, to tackle Puget Sound pollution problems. Several years later, it was gutted by partisan politics and big business and replaced with the Puget Sound Action Team, which offered advice to state agencies and little else.

Now comes the partnership, led by such regional movers and shakers as Bill Ruckelshaus, a prominent Republican and first director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal member and revered Native American leader who speaks for the salmon. "This is our best chance to save Puget Sound," Ruckelshaus said. "But we won't be successful unless everybody who lives in the Puget Sound region sees it as their special place."

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