PEOPLE FOR PUGET SOUND’S ‘ACTION AGENDA’
FEBRUARY 2008
Scaling up Funding, Enforcement, and Accountability for Real Results

If the Action Agenda is truly to scale-up the effort to save the Sound by 2020, current laws must be fully funded and enforced; new sources of long-term sustainable revenue must be established in 2009; and the Partnership must be held accountable by the public for results on annual, measurable benchmarks. Fortunately, the law establishing the Partnership clearly calls for all three.

FUNDING
SSB 5372 requires the Partnership to deliver to the legislature September 1, 2008, a report with recommendations for projected funding needs through 2020 to implement the action agenda; funding needs for science panel staff; identify methods to secure stable and sufficient funding to meet these needs; and include proposals for new sources of funding to be dedicated to Puget Sound protection and recovery. (From SSB 5372(19)(2).)

Over the past 25 years, the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, the Puget Sound Action Team, and the 2006 Puget Sound Partnership have all conducted research to identify possible long-term funding sources for Puget Sound clean up and protection. Some sources have been enacted into law; most have not. The new Puget Sound Partnership must take seriously the need to recommend new revenue sources to the 2009 legislature and work to get them enacted. Public opinion surveys completed in the past 2 years show strong public support for paying for Puget Sound recovery. In a spring 2006 poll conducted by the 2006 Partnership, 76% say that we should do everything we can to protect and restore the Sound, even if it requires us to spend more through taxes and fees.

ENFORCEMENT
Positive steps to cleanup the Sound have been overshadowed by further deterioration due to, primarily, weak enforcement of regulatory programs.  Every meeting of the 2006 and current Partnership has included a discussion of this problem, and the 2020 Action Agenda must address it head-on.  SSB 5372, Section 17 states that the legislature intends that all governmental entities within Puget Sound will exercise their existing authorities to implement the action agenda and that the Leadership Council may review and assess performance in undertaking implementation strategies with a particular focus on compliance with and enforcement of existing laws. The 2020 Action Agenda must include a clear proposal to fund enforcement and to hold agencies accountable for implementing existing laws and regulations.

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR REAL RESULTS:  MEASRUABLE BENCHMARKS
For the Partnership to hold others accountable and for the legislature and the public to hold the Partnership accountable, measurable benchmarks must be laid down in the 2020 Action Agenda, as explicitly required in SSB 5372(13), that, when achieved, represent real results in the Sound. Here are some important examples:

•    Number of acres of shellfish beds cleaned up every year
•    Number of acres of wetlands restored every year
•    Number of polluted waterways reduced every year
•    Number of tons on toxics chemicals entering the Sound reduced every year
•    Number of acres of toxic sediment sites cleaned up every year
•    Number of gallons of reduced stormwater flow to the Sound every year
•    Number of acres of dead zones in Puget Sound
•    Number of stream-miles restored to fish passage