Puget Sound Partnership Public Meeting

South Sound Action Area
March 7, 2008 

About 100 people attended the afternoon workshop in Olympia at The Evergreen State College on Friday March 7.
Most attendees were state, county or city agency staff, with a few nonprofit employees and 10 or so private citizens.

Partnership staff made a presentation on their process for developing the Action Agenda and took many questions about whether it will be science-based, whether it will include quantitative benchmarks, and whether it will build on and scale-up existing plans.

Dan Wrye, who works for Pierce County Stormwater Management and who represents the South Sound "Action Area" on the Partnership's Ecosystem Coordination Board, gave a presentation on South Sound pollution and other issues. Breakout groups on water quality, habitat and land use, and other Action Agenda issues met to brainstorm for an hour or so, with the group reconvening to hear reports on what issues are of most concern in South Sound.
 
For the evening session, about 35 people convened in the same room at Evergreen. Most people felt that the major threats to the Sound are from stormwater, land development, lack of education, lack of political will, and lack of enforcement of existing regulatory programs. People agreed that the criteria for selecting priorities in the Action Agenda should include cost-effectiveness, prevention, measurable benchmarks, treating the cause not just the symptom, and be based on sound science. Attendees expressed concerns about the Partnership "preaching to the choir" and using too much technical language to appeal to the general public.

Written by Naki Stevens, edited by John Daly
Posted 3/12/08