We must act now to save Puget Sound

Our views

• Published February 20, 2008

David Dicks, the man charged with cleaning up Puget Sound by 2020, knows the magnitude of the challenge ahead.

"This is the last good shot we've got," Dicks said. "If we blow it now, in 15 years it will be too far gone."

That assessment should rock every Puget Sound resident to his or her core. It's horrifying to think that our glorious Sound — an incredible natural resource that is the absolute gem of Western Washington — could go the way of the Everglades, the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay.

That's a distinct possibility unless we act now to reverse the downward spiral and rescue Puget Sound from multiple sources of toxic pollutants.

Dicks, 36, the son of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks of Tacoma, is the governor's point man on Puget Sound. He's the director of the Puget Sound Partnership, a new state agency charged by the Legislature with directing efforts to clean up Puget Sound. The challenge is monumental, but Dicks has accepted Gov. Chris Gregoire's appointment with enthusiasm and a commitment to succeed. "If we execute the plan, we can get this done," he said.

Public perceptions

The first challenge is to convince the public that there is a problem. Polling in 2006 shows that 97 percent of residents love Puget Sound and want to pass it on to future generations in a pristine condition. But only 26 percent of those same residents understand that Puget Sound is in peril.

That's a huge disconnect and why a big part of Dicks' challenge is public education.

It's true that state agencies have been working on Puget Sound in a concerted way since 1985. It's also true that not a lot of joint planning and cooperation has happened. And the old Puget Sound Action team did not have the ties to business, industry, American Indian tribes and federal government that the new state agency has.

Make no mistake, the two decades of work have led to some notable successes. First and foremost, the state has managed to largely control the so-called "point source" pollution — the pipes from factories and shoreline mills that used to dump a toxic stew of chemicals directly into the waterway. Forest and farm practices have been altered to reduce pollution and environmental regulations have restricted growth and protected pockets of habitat.