'People need to get passionate about Puget Sound's cleanup,' Gregoire says

John Dodge, The Olympian | • Published August 06, 2006

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The state spent nearly $572 million on projects during the past two years to clean up and protect Puget Sound.

Add in local government, federal government and private sector funding and the two-year figure could easily top $1 billion.

And while that might sound like a staggering amount of money, this rate of spending might not be enough to reach Gov. Chris Gregoire's goal of a healthy Puget Sound by 2020.

The Puget Sound Partnership, the 17-member group of regional leaders Gregoire has pulled together to work on Puget Sound issues, said in its preliminary report last month that more money is needed for the cleanup.

But first things first.

In a recent interview with The Olympian, Gregoire said she is hesitant to ask the public for more money for Puget Sound until residents are:

• Convinced Puget Sound is in dire straits and needs major help.

• Assured the money for Puget Sound will be well spent and get results.

"Until the public accepts we have a problem, we won't get everyone paying their fair share," she said. "People need to get passionate about Puget Sound cleanup. It's a huge challenge."

"There will be no new sources of money until the taxpayers are satisfied about how the money we already have is spent," said state Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning, who co-chairs the partnership. "We still need to answer some questions about what we're spending now."

In a report due to the governor in November, the partnership hopes to have some rough ideas of what it will cost to tackle some of the big ticket items over the next 15 years, including stormwater controls, replacing and upgrading wastewater treatment plants, salmon recovery, nearshore habitat restoration and toxics cleanup, said Jim Cahill, a senior budget analyst for natural resources at the state Office of Financial Management.

Puget Sound salmon recovery alone is pegged at $1.6 billion over the next 10 years, noted Jim Kramer, a partnership project manager.

"It will probably be billions and billions of dollars," Cahill said of the cleanup and protection costs ahead.

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