Cuts to EPA make little or no sense

Puget Sound is a labor of love for Washingtonians. It is slow work to clean up and protect this iconic Northwest waterway, which serves as international shipping channel, marine food source and popular recreational playground.

As we’ve seen with South Sound inlets, including Olympia’s Budd Inlet and Henderson Inlet, sustained effort is needed to counter a legacy of toxins, damaged habitat, wastewater and runoff. This requires a lot of money and public education.

Federal, state and even local dollars are essential to keep progress going. Depending on it are valuable shellfish and fishing industries, tribes, tourism, recreational interests and such endangered species as the southern resident orcas.

This is what makes President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency so mystifying. On one hand, they are short-sighted. On the other hand they are outrageously stupid.

Sheida Sahandy, executive director for the state’s Puget Sound Partnership, says $28 million in yearly funds for Puget Sound work are at risk. The agency receives nearly $2.6 million of that for programs and the rest goes to tribes, state support programs and local efforts. The Legislature in 2015 allocated roughly $1.3 million a year in additional funds for toxic cleanups and enhancements for aquatic lands along Puget Sound.

In effect, EPA’s money acts as a glue that holds together cooperative efforts by the state, counties, cities and tribes. Sahandy says elimination of EPA’s Puget Sound program would make it harder to keep up with the tide of challenges brought by population growth, changing water acidity and runoff from stormwater surges.

“It takes effort just to hold the line. Then — not even doing that — we’re going to be washed over by this tsunami of negative impacts,” Sahandy said.

Nationally, cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency would total 31 percent. Trump, a climate-change denier who has shown hostility to regulations, is targeting pots of money in other areas of the budget that go for climate research. Ocean acidification, which is linked to climate change, has clear implications for Puget Sound health.

Trump’s budget proposals don’t just hit EPA hard. The Republican president proposes double-digit cuts at other agencies in the discretionary part of the federal budget. These include cuts of 21 percent for the Department of Labor, 21 percent for Health and Human Services, 18 percent for Agriculture, 16 percent for Commerce and 14 percent for Education.

In other words, Trump has dropped a political cluster bomb. Perhaps this is a strategy — to distract from his other troubles.

Unfortunately, the recent equipment breakdown at a King County sewer treatment plant during February’s record rains may undermine public support for spending federal money for Puget Sound. The cascade of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Sound may give ammunition to those who want Washington to invest in its own cleanups before seeking federal help.

The cause of the West Point breakdown remains under investigation. In Olympia, a release of millions of gallons of sewage occurred in 2007 at the LOTT Clean Water Alliance’s plant. But the latter system is configured so that stormwater and sewage mix only in collection pipes in the downtown area. That design, aided by investments in storage basins in 2014, gave our community breathing room during this year’s rains.

It is fair to ask why the Legislature does not invest more resources to help Puget Sound. At the least, lawmakers should do more to assist on-the-ground projects that actually improve water quality. This includes stormwater projects. There is logic in also insisting that a locality share costs of cleanup and pollution prevention.

But Seattle’s mess does not lessen the federal government’s duty to help protect waterways that, like Puget Sound or Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, are degraded national treasures.

Puget Sound is of special cultural significance to Northwest tribes, too. This is important because Puget Sound tribal members enjoy treaty rights to harvest half of the allowable catch of salmon in the Sound. These fish in turn require a healthy food chain to survive and reproduce, which requires environmental protection.

Tribes rightly see this as a question of tribal sovereignty and upholding federal treaties. If Congress moves ahead with Trump’s proposals, lawsuits are sure to follow. These would tie up public resources better spent on improving the health of the Sound.

In the end, Trump’s unwise proposal is short-sighted and bad for the Northwest. Friends of Puget Sound must fight back.

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 8:32 PM with the headline "Cuts to EPA make little or no sense."