We must act now to save Puget Sound

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.

But we've failed, too.

Stormwater runoff into the Sound is largely unchecked. Salmon runs are 10 percent of their historic levels. The magnificent black-and-white orcas that populate Puget Sound on their annual migration are among the most contaminated marine mammal populations in the world. And there are hundreds of acres of toxic hot spots that continue to contaminate the water.

New approach

Recognizing that failure, Gregoire and the Legislature created the Puget Sound Partnership in 2007 with an assignment to reverse the Sound's downward trends by 2020.

The stars are in alignment at the federal level, Dicks said, because the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other environmental agencies desperately need a win. They've seen other natural treasures like the Everglades and Great Lakes succumb to pollution. The feds recognize that Puget Sound is not too far gone and that they can score a significant environmental victory if they can restore water quality.

Dicks and his agency staff members will, by Sept. 1, develop an action plan that divides the Sound into geographic areas, identifies the major sources of pollution in each and lists the contributory causes. They then will tailor individual strategies for each geographic area, and prioritize and pay for cleanup programs. The Puget Sound Partnership will measure successes and failures and file regular updates with Washington residents.

The plan is practical, rational and does not impose another level of bureaucracy. If Dicks and his staff do things right, they will have no problem convincing the public of the magnitude of the problem and at the same time instill in the public confidence that the state, in concert with the federal government, has developed a reasonable solution.

The stakes are huge. Blow this opportunity and Puget Sound could well be beyond rescue. That would be a tragedy of untold proportion.