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‘Our last, best chance’ to save Puget Sound
2/18/08 Olympian story on what it will take for the Partnership to be successful
Feb. 18, 2008
by John Dodge
The Olympian
All eyes are on the Puget Sound Partnership, the new state agency viewed by many as the last chance for saving Puget Sound.
Formed by the 2007 Legislature, the partnership grew out of Gov. Chris Gregoire's call in December 2005 for action to cure what ails Puget Sound by 2020.
The challenge is a daunting one. The tasks include:
• Bringing about 40 threatened species — from the mighty orca to the iconic chinook salmon — back from the brink of extinction by restoring water quality and habitat.
• Convincing the public that a healthy Puget Sound is vital to a healthy Puget Sound basin economy.
• Revamping land use patterns and transportation to curb stormwater runoff from the 4 million people already living in the region, and the 1.4 million headed here in the next 15 years.
• Sustaining the cleanup and protection effort with dedicated funding measured in the billions of dollars.
"This is our last, best chance for saving Puget Sound," predicted Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the conservation group People for Puget Sound. "We need to stop destroying habitat and face up to the pollution problems, or it's all just talk."
Fletcher is no stranger to the challenge. She served as the executive director of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, the first state agency, formed in 1985, to tackle Puget Sound pollution problems. Several years later, it was gutted by partisan politics and big business and replaced with the Puget Sound Action Team, which offered advice to state agencies and little else.
Now comes the partnership, led by such regional movers and shakers as Bill Ruckelshaus, a prominent Republican and first director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal member and revered Native American leader who speaks for the salmon. "This is our best chance to save Puget Sound," Ruckelshaus said. "But we won't be successful unless everybody who lives in the Puget Sound region sees it as their special place."