by Marta Murvosh
Cleaning up Puget Sound means cutting down on water pollution by building more densely packed communities, cleaning up what Washingtonians drop on their streets, and money, lots and lots of money — up to $872 million over the next two years.
Those are just a few of the recommendations made Thursday by the Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency responsible for restoring the Sound by 2020. The Partnership released a 96-page draft of its Action Agenda.
In 2007, Gov. Chris Gregoire set the 2020 goal, an estimated $8 billion venture. The state spends about $572 million each biennium on restoring the Sound and the partnership plans to ask for an addition $200 million to $300 million for the 2009-11 biennium.
The partnership has proposed setting five goals: Protect ecosystems that haven’t been harmed, undo past damage to ecosystems, prevent water pollution at its sources and develop and coordinate government efforts, so that agencies from the local to the federal level are all moving toward the same end when it comes to the Sound’s health.
Among the most significant priorities proposed for Skagit and Island counties are:
n Protecting farms and forestlands, by preventing land from being cleared for development and maintaining the 2007 levels of agricultural acres;
n Preserving and expanding habitat for fish, migratory birds and other wildlife, including purchasing land;
n Reducing pollution in stormwater run-off, including petroleum from cars, human and animal waste from failing septic systems and hobby farms, and fertilizers from lawns and farms.
The partnership noted that 150,000 pounds of toxic materials are dumped into the Sound each day, making cleanup efforts vital to improving water quality.
Shellfish beaches are often closed to harvest because of human and animal waste, copper is interfering with salmons’ ability to find their way to their spawning grounds and high concentrations of fire retardants and other unhealthy chemical compounds are showing up in seals and Washington’s iconic orcas, according to several scientific studies.
Recent deaths in the endangered southern resident orca population have reduced their numbers by 10 percent, but scientists haven’t determined the cause of the fatalities.
Although the partnership’s draft contains examples of benchmarks to measure its progress, it’s short on the details of how to accomplish its goals.
“The issue with the orcas is we can’t wait around and get everything perfect. We have got to get some stuff on the ground,” said David Dicks, partnership executive director.
At a conference call for the media Thursday afternoon, Dicks didn’t get into specifics but he did say that laws and regulations would have to change and habitat would need to be purchased.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to have to be honest about the fact that we’re going to have to pay for certain things if we are going to encumber private property,” Dicks said. “If a certain party owns land on an important part of a river, we’ve got to buy it. It’s not fair to burden private property owners on something that is a benefit to society.”
It’s likely that the state’s Growth Management Act and other laws governing development will need to be modified. For instance, state law prohibits installing a sewer system in the Hood Canal area, a measure that would help eliminate the “dead zones” and improve the health of the Sound, Dicks said.
It’s possible that voters could be asked in the future to create a Puget Sound improvement district, he said.
Local communities are going to have to make tough decisions on land use, Dicks said.
“I think you’re going to have to figure out areas where you want to have farming,” Dicks said.
Ultimately, the partnership’s to-do-list is similar to proposals made in the late 1980s by the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, one of the state’s first forays into restoring the Sound.
The primary sources of pollution of the Sound haven’t changed in 20 years, they’ve just gotten more critical, said Kathy Fletcher, executive director for People for Puget Sound, a nonprofit environmental group.
Other than the growing impact of climate change, the same old problems of pollutants in stormwater runoff and development encroaching on wildlife habitat and agricultural land remain as important as ever, she said.
“What’s different is the situation is far more urgent today,” said Fletcher, who from 1985 to 1990 was the Sound water quality agency chairwoman. “The real issue is: When are these issues going to get done and are they going to get funded and who is going to do what and when and are people going to be held accountable.”
The majority of pollution running into Puget Sound comes from non-point source pollution, according to studies by the State Department of Ecology. Industry is responsible for only 10 percent of the total water pollution, Ecology officials said.
Recent findings issued Thursday indicated that 95 percent — or 52 million pounds a year — of the non-point source pollution is petroleum, much of the oil and fuel dripping from cars onto pavement from where it is then washed into storm drains, according to Ecology.
Ecology officials say reducing non-point source pollution means changing how much people drive, how they maintain their cars and improving stormdrains filtration, a bone of contention between local communities and the state agency.
Reducing the amount of impermeable surfaces — parking lots, driveways, roofs — also cuts down on water pollution, but such measures raise the issues of private property rights and development interests. Economic pressures on farmers also may also mean land is sold to residential or commercial developers, adding to the spread of pavement.
Fletcher said that to save the Sound the state will need to combine incentives with regulation and do things differently than it has in the past. For instance, preserving farmland may mean figuring out a way to provide incentives to prevent farms from being sold to developers.
“These are tough issues. They are controversial issues, and there are conflicts,” Fletcher said. “…Part of this is about mustering the funds and the political will to do the things that make a difference.”
And money won’t be easy to come by. With the state facing a $3.2 billion gap between projected tax revenues and spending, providing new money for Sound restoration could be a hard sell to the Legislature.
Comments will be taken until Nov. 20 and the Partnership will finalize its Action Agenda Dec. 1.
Dicks said he’s hopeful that the President-elect Barack Obama administration will put together an economic stimulus package that includes aid for “green” infrastructure, which could come to the partnership or communities seeking to reduce pollution.
“Obviously, we can’t do this in one fell swoop,” Dick said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .
