November 20, 2008 
To:    Puget Sound Partnership
Fm:    Puget Sound Environmental Caucus

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft 2020 Action Agenda. The Leadership Council and the Partnership staff are to be commended for the intense effort that went into producing this document. We especially appreciate the effort expended by Partnership staff to meet with technical experts, tribes, local governments, watershed groups, business, environmental interests and other stakeholders in the seven Action Areas to identify problems and propose creative solutions related to Puget Sound Recovery. 

The Puget Sound Environmental Caucus was formed in early 2006 to bring the environmental community together behind a unified agenda for recovery and to advance the Governor’s Puget Sound Initiative. The Caucus is composed of 43 organizations, with diverse areas of expertise, to provide the Partnership with information, recommendations, and support for recovery actions. We have attached to this letter our Top Priority recommendations for the Final Action Agenda and a bulleted of list of additional issues that should be addressed in the final document.

The draft Action Agenda is a comprehensive listing of new or unrealized actions necessary to protect and restore the Sound.  We hope the final Action Agenda you adopt on December 1st follows through on these identified actions and addresses the concerns we identify in this letter. We also note that individual member groups of our Caucus will be providing detailed comments to the Partnership in the areas of their expertise. 

Recognizing that an effective recovery effort must be guided by the best available science and scientists, the Leadership Council has put together a distinguished Science Panel to inform Partnership work.  Also recognizing the need to initiate actions right away, the Leadership Council and the Ecosystem Coordination Board advised the Partnership staff to identify those important actions that will carry ‘no regrets’, and organized them into five priority strategies: Protect, Restore, Prevent water Pollution at its source, Work together, and Build and implement the new system.  

We applaud the intent to focus the Action Agenda on protection and restoration of ecosystem processes and stopping pollution before it gets into the environment, and the recognition that there are economies of scale and efficiencies to be gained by working together across traditional institutional and geographic boundaries within the Puget Sound ecosystem.  We also recognize the recovery effort will require new management approaches and systems to evaluate progress and performance, provide science and technical support, build public understanding and awareness, and provide stable and sufficient funding for this critical and timely recovery effort. The likely impacts from climate change in our region require swift implementation of the Action Agenda to mitigate these impacts; promote energy and water efficiency in transportation and land use planning; build resilient communities; anticipate and prepare for climate variability; and keep the Puget Sound healthy and productive for generations to come.

The Governor and the legislature have recognized that we need to dramatically scale up, integrate and enhance the many efforts underway to restore the Sound. Importantly, they together set a date of 2020 for accomplishing that goal and broadly identified what a healthy Puget Sound will look like. One of the major reasons past cleanup efforts failed was the lack of clear timetables for action. The state’s goal of 2020 is a culture changes in that it establishes a time dimension for accountability. While the draft Action Agenda identifies several areas critical for the recovery of the Sound, it is equally important for the final Action Agenda to set target dates for specific strategic actions that will direct the investments and guide our collective efforts toward achieving the 2020 goal.

We hope that the final Action Agenda will describe the critical path to 2020 recovery that is strategic, effective, measurable, and accountable. We are concerned that the Action Agenda draft currently lacks adequate and comprehensive indicators and benchmarks, which are the key ingredient to accountability and measuring success. The lack of clearly articulated milestones and measures has been one of the greatest contributors to our failed efforts to recover the Sound over the last 25 years. If the final document does not include benchmarks that are tied to proposed actions, we request that it provide a timeframe within which we can expect to see a comprehensive 2020 plan with the indicators and benchmarks that are required by the statute creating the Partnership. This is the only way to achieve accountability for results. Over the last 18 months, the environmental caucus has recommended a complete menu of specific indicators and benchmarks for the Partnership to consider, and we hope that the final document incorporates this approach. 

We would also like to emphasize how important we think it is that the final Action Agenda endorse a robust funding package to ensure the Action Agenda is actually implemented. Insufficient funding has been the other factor that has undermined progress on the Sound for 25 years, and new sources of funding are desperately needed to achieve the 2020 recovery goal. 

Again, the Puget Sound Environmental Caucus wants to thank the Partnership for the opportunity to comment on the draft Action Agenda.  The document represents a great deal of work by a large body of people and is an important step towards recovery of the Sound by the year 2020.  The Caucus and its member groups look forward to working with the Governor, the state legislature, the Partnership staff, Science Panel, and leadership, and the citizens of the Puget Sound region to support and implement the final Action Agenda. 

American Rivers                Transportation Choices
Audubon Washington                WA Citizens for Resource Conservation
Bainbridge Alliance for Puget Sound    Washington Conservation Voters
Citizens For a Healthy Bay            Washington Nurses Association
Conservation Northwest            Washington Water Trust
Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition        Washington Environmental Council
EarthCorps                    Washington Native Plant Society
Environment Washington            Washington Toxics Coalition       
Friends of Deschutes                Whidbey Watershed Stewards
Friends of the Earth/WAVE Consulting    Wild Fish Conservancy
Futurewise                    Washington Council of Trout
Great Peninsula Conservancy            Unlimited
Hood Canal Coalition                Alliance for Puget Sound
Lake Forest Park Streamkeeper            Shorelines
League of Women Voters            Toxic Free Legacy Coalition           
Mountains to Sound Greenway        Puyallup River Watershed Council       
National Wildlife Federation            RE Sources
Olympic Environmental Council        Seattle Aquarium Society
Orca Network                    Seattle Audubon
People For Puget Sound            Sierra Club
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance            Surfrider Foundation
Pt Townsend Airwatchers            The Nature Conservancy
 
Top Priority Recommendations

Stormwater
•    The goal of 20% increase in impervious surfaces by 2020, referenced in the indicator and benchmark section, should be restated to reflect the research by the University of Washington that shows that when watersheds have more than 10% impervious surface and less than 65% forested cover, salmon are significantly impacted. The goal set by the Partnership should, at a minimum, state that 65-10 be the goal for all watersheds throughout the region In areas where we are currently above 10% impervious surface, we should institute major stormwater retrofit programs to achieve the goal.
•    Please place a heavier emphasis on the need to maintain and restore natural hydrologic systems including forests and wetlands to achieve water quality objectives by 2020. The Action Agenda should recognize that many state and local land use / land management programs fail to integrate water quality objectives in their planning process. C.2.1 touches on this. We recommend that you add to this section, calling for local governments in the region to conduct basin planning to identify where there are opportunities to maintain natural hydrologic functions as well as identify important retrofit opportunities. We are concerned that basin planning occurs at the appropriate scale. There is a suggestion that such work occur on a WRIA basis in A.1.3.2. This scale is too large. Review must occur at the basin or sub-basin level to completely understand the hydrologic implications of restoration or land use decisions on water quality.
•    The Action Agenda should recognize the fact that, under the recent PCHB ruling, LID is now required for new development. The Draft Action Agenda, section C.2.2.4, emphasizes an incentive strategy which seems out of step with the new regulatory approach.
•    While we appreciate the focus on municipal stormwater problems, there is no mention of industrial stormwater, construction stormwater, or DOT related stormwater problems.  Likewise, the draft includes no direction to Ecology to bring the estimated 16,000 unpermitted dischargers into the stormwater program or to geographically expand the coverage of the program to the entire Puget Sound watershed.

Toxics
•    Establish policies and programs that help businesses phase out their use of chemicals of concern to Puget Sound through increased technical assistance and partnerships with research institutions, businesses, and nonprofit groups to identify safer alternatives.
•    Support of recommendations proposed by Ecology's Toxics Reduction Advisory Committee (TRAC), which is looking comprehensively at these issues.
•    Support a toxics reduction program - not just a public outreach campaign.  In addition, the issues of air quality reduction – a major source that impacts both wildlife and human health - need stronger actions for 2020, including programs that address cumulative impacts. Finally, the phase out of mixing zones should be explicitly included in the 2020 agenda as a key method to move us towards toxics reductions up the system.
Habitat
•    A common set of standards for protection need to be science-based, aimed not just at maintenance at the site-scale, but also maintenance and recovery at the ecosystem level.  Task A.1.2 should read: Prepare and consistently use a set of land use and habitat protection standards (including stormwater management measures) to guide government in land use decisions.  It should be designed to be applied anywhere in Puget Sound, and when applied these standards will bring consistency to decision-making across the region. 
•    The watershed should be the basic unit for protection, both in an inventory or characterization of the attributes of a watershed (functioning habitat and the habitat-forming processes) and in regulation, to determine if habitat and habitat-forming processes are indeed maintained and protected.  This includes protection afforded by the Growth Management Act, the Shorelines Management Act and the stormwater permitting program of the Clean Water Act.  Over the years, various entities have pointed out the need for “watershed permitting” in stormwater permitting, including NOAA and the Independent Science Panel, in regard to Washington, and now, on a national basis in a recent report by the National Research Council (NRC).  We strongly urge the Partnership to examine the NRC report.
•    The Action Agenda should include a goal of reducing impervious surfaces.
While we agree that permanent protection of well-functioning and important habitat is needed (Task A.2), we caution that society will be unable to simply buy all the habitat that is needed to restore and protect the Sound.  Our protective regulations must be sufficiently strong and adequately enforced so that future land-use actions do not degrade ecosystem functions, at both the site scale and in regard to the Sound.  Therefore, we urge that the Action Agenda include as another near-term action under A.2.:  Advocate for proposed Tier III designations to protect critical aquatic habitat in priority areas. 
•    Watershed-based activities in Priority A need to be better linked with watershed-based stormwater permits, suggested in Task C.2.1.1.  We suggest an additional task in A.2.2:  Integrate watershed-scale stormwater permits with other protection efforts (e.g., GMA and SMA protections,) and conduct a comprehensive watershed-based assessment of habitat protection.  Use comprehensive plans to project to build-out conditions.
•    We support proposed action A.2 on page 10 of Question 3, which recommends changes to the SMA rules that would require conditional use permits for bulkheads and docks for residential development. We support limits on new or replacement shoreline armoring, the requirements that soft or bioengineered alternatives be used where armoring is unavoidable, and limits on docks and prohibitions on new shoreline armoring at feeder bluffs, forage fish spawning areas, and eelgrass beds. However, the Action Agenda also needs to include reforms to WDFW’s HPA process. Current HPA regulations authorize the permanent, unmitigated loss of shoreline habitat through allowing up to six feet of encroachment onto the beach for new bulkhead construction. And, the current regulations fall far short of protecting shoreline processes and functions by allowing continued armoring of important sediment sources. To prevent regulatory inconsistencies and ensure effective implementation of Puget Sound protection and recovery strategies, the HPA process should be amended to better protect nearshore habitat from impacts of shoreline armoring. 
•    Task A.2.2.1 recommends assisting local governments in completing and implementing shoreline master program updates on the current schedule.  That means that Island, Mason, Skagit, and San Juan Counties will not update their regulations until 2012, meaning that their regulations will not include “no net loss” provisions, nor soft shoreline armoring provisions.  A tremendous amount of shoreline degradation can occur in four years, and therefore the PSEC calls for these important shoreline areas to be protected on an expedited schedule, by accelerating the updates of shoreline master programs. 

Species
•    Salmon are a migratory species and so while their recovery is important to the Puget Sound ecosystem, they do not make a good indicator for the health and abundance of other resident species.
•    Herring and eelgrass where highlighted as indicators in Question 2 Page 4 and then replaced throughout the rest of the document by salmon and salmon recovery plans. Herring and eelgrass are important indicator species and the document should reflect this when discussing recovery and restoration plans.
•    Herring are not appropriate PBDE indicators due to their poorly understood migrations and low position on the food chain. It is more appropriate to have harbor seals as the indicator for PCB and PBDE tissue levels as the harbor seals are resident species and there is extensive historic data tracking this information in two locations that needs to be expanded around the Sound.  It might also then be easier to relate the harbor seal data to human health concerns.
•    The justification for the listed provisional indicators needs to be explained.  If the Science Panel does not yet feel comfortable listing specific indicators and benchmarks (i.e. herring) they should indicate where the gaps in their knowledge are and the research they deem necessary to fill those holes.
•    The Partnership’s plan for invasive species is a good one. Their proposed database of invasive species could be used as an indicator of Puget Sound’s poor health.

Water Quantity
The near term actions on water quantity presented in section A.3 of Question 3 are critically important to Puget Sound recovery.
•    On page 11 of Question 3, section A.3.2 discusses the need to “[r]eform state water laws to be more protective of instream flows and encourage conservation”.  We agree that state water laws need to be reformed to keep more water instream; however, section A.3.2.1 says, “Discourage waste of water resources and protect instream flows by addressing water laws that deter conservation and efficiency” (emphasis added). The words in italics are often used as a rationale for eliminating or narrowing relinquishment – the “use it or lose it” provision in state water law. We urge the Partnership to change the wording of this section to say, Revise water laws that discourage conservation and efficiency measures in such a way that will result in more water dedicated to in stream flows.
•    Funding for water resource programs is often a challenge, especially in today’s economic climate. However, we urge the Partnership to invest in water quantity programs to avoid more costly and complicated problems associated with unsustainable water use and climate variability in the future.

Additional Issues that Need to be Addressed in the Final Action Agenda

•    Vessels and ports pose significant risks of oil spills with over 15 billion gallons of oil transported yearly to our State’s five refineries and as fuel for commercial vessels.  In addition, ballast water is a major source of invasive species.  Ships also contribute a significant amount of air and noise pollution as well as sewage and grey water.
•    Industrial stormwater, construction stormwater, or DOT related stormwater problems.  Likewise, the draft includes no direction to Ecology to bring the estimated 16,000 unpermitted dischargers into the stormwater program or to geographically expand the coverage of the program to the entire Puget Sound watershed.
•    It is unfortunate that the Partnership did not include the work plans (with implementation steps and milestones) for each of the near-term actions.  This is the meat of the Action Agenda in the short-term and should have been available for public comment.
•    It would be helpful to include the work plans for each of the near-term actions, as these are the meat of the Action Agenda in the short-term and should be available for public comment.
•    Agricultural sources of pollution are not addressed at all and have been long recognized as part of the problem with nutrients and low dissolved oxygen, as well as pathogens and shellfish bed closures.
•    AKART needs to be updated for all NPDES permits, as most industrial and municipal facilities have not undergone a thorough review in many years to determine if they are utilizing the most current treatment technology.
•    Water quality standards should be updated for toxics.
•    Elwha dam removal needs the support of the Partnership if it is to be prioritized at the federal level.
•    The recommendations of the state’s climate change committee should be integrated into the final Action Agenda, especially those relating to land use and transportation.
•    A governance structure for Regional Monitoring that is independent and transparent should be endorsed by the Partnership.