Puget Sound's future depends on drastic change

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published February 17, 2008

OLYMPIA – Measures to tame stormwater runoff into Puget Sound will require new ways of developing land and major lifestyle changes for the residents of the region — not to mention the 1.4 million headed this way in the next 15 years.

That's the consensus of developers, environmentalists, public officials and everyday residents who were asked what must happen to curb the No. 1 source of pollution in the rapidly-growing Puget Sound basin — stormwater runoff.

"We can't have the population growth predicted in the Puget Sound basin and save Puget Sound, if we continue to develop the way we have in the past," said Bill Ruckelshaus, Leadership Council chairman of the Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency created to clean up Puget Sound.

"There needs to be lifestyle changes, including adjustments to human habitat and transportation," said Nisqually Valley resident Howard Glastetter. "We need to stop paving over the Puget Sound corridor."

Ruckelshaus and others said a key to saving Puget Sound is low-impact development, a stormwater management strategy that uses vegetation, pervious surfaces, living roofs and other techniques to disperse and soak up stormwater on the site. "We know how to develop land in a better way," said Bruce Wulkan, stormwater program manager for the Puget Sound Partnership. "We have to stop the mass grading and clearing of the land."

When the state Department of Ecology issued new stormwater permits last year for cities and counties in urban Western Washington, the environmental community urged the agency to make low-impact development mandatory for the sake of Puget Sound. Ecology chose not to go that route.

"We can't solve the stormwater problem through permits only," said Dave Peeler, Ecology water quality manager. "We were sensitive not to write a permit that smacks of land-use control."

For now, low-impact development is a tool in the stormwater management tool box, but it's slow to catch on with builders, developers and the local governments that issue building permits.