Olympia calls for strong measures to save, restore the inland waterway.
Sound + vision
These are the first stories in a multi-part series examining Gov. Chris Gregoire’s initiative and local efforts to clean and protect Puget Sound.
Bainbridge is an island surrounded by a sickened sea.
Toxins from industrial sites and roadways pulse along with the Puget Sound’s tides. Human waste from septic systems and overburdened sewers seep or spill into waterways, further fouling the sound’s vital functions. The estuaries and marshes that form the sound’s lungs are increasingly smothered by pavement or choked off from fresh water streams. In the mix are sea life – salmon and shellfish – whose numbers wane as human populations bloom.
At the sound’s center is Bainbridge, an island increasingly teeming with people who, though they may wish it weren’t so, are adding to the sound’s ills.
But some islanders are working to change that. They draw added strength from recent state efforts aimed at putting vim and vigor back into Washington’s iconic inland sea.
“This is the ‘Big One,’” said state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, a Bainbridge Democrat. “It’s the issue we need to deal with because we are having a huge impact on the sound.”
Rockefeller helped craft a comprehensive report that estimates it will cost $9 billion to clean up and restore the sound by 2020.
The report, drafted by the Puget Sound Partnership, which also includes environmental and business leaders, was taken up by the governor and incorporated into a wide-ranging proposal that could put over $220 million into new restoration efforts over the next two years.
“Beneath its blue waters, the sound is sick,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire when she introduced her plan late last month. “Many people are working hard to protect Puget Sound, but they need more support.
“I will strengthen policies and target investments to help restore fish and wildlife that are essential to the Sound and to the strength of our economy and protect habitat that is disappearing to growth and development.”
Gregoire’s plan divides the $220 million into six areas:
• $56.3 million to clean up septic pollution. According to the partnership, human waste from failing, outdated or overloaded septics are injecting waterways with high doses of bacteria and other pollutants. This money would help homeowners repair faulty systems, improve local government programs overseeing septic systems and bolster waste systems at state parks along the sound.
• $54.7 million to clean up 60 contaminated sites along Puget Sound.
• $40.7 million to protect shorelines, floodplains, near-shore forests and other habitats essential for salmon and other sea life.
• $37.4 million to restore shorelines by removing toxic creosote-soaked poles and pulling away rock walls and bulkheads that damage beaches.
• $25.3 million to help cities comply with new stormwater rules. Funding would pay for retrofits of existing stormwater systems and pilot projects testing new innovations in stormwater control.
• $5.8 million to boost public awareness about the sound through partnerships with local and regional organizations, businesses, tribes and governments.
While the governor’s plan is a comprehensive start, some wonder if it’s enough.
“It is just a drop in the bucket,” said state Rep. Sherry Appleton, also a member of the partnership. “If it was up to me, I’d explore getting even more money because this is critical.”
Appleton, a Poulsbo Democrat who represents North Kitsap and the island in the state House, said the sound’s dire state could require more immediate and better-funded action.
According to a recent Elway Poll, most people living along the sound’s shores are willing to fork over more money to restore the region’s marine health.
Nearly 70 percent of Puget Sound residents said they’d be willing to pay $5 a month to clean up the sound, according to the poll.
If every resident of counties along the sound paid that much, it would generate almost $250 million a year.
While acknowledging widespread support for a better-funded effort, Appleton is throwing her support behind Gregoire’s plan.
“She’s using a lot of this money to identify the problems and she’s probably right to do that first, but I’d prefer to attack this from the beginning.”
According to Rockefeller, the federal government, state and local jurisdictions already spend about $500 million a year on Puget Sound clean up.
Adding another $220 million over the next two years amounts to a modest start that could lay the foundation for larger funding efforts.
“What the governor’s proposing is a significant step forward but it’s not as much as anybody thinks we need,” he said. “But we need to develop strategies, and that’s what a lot of this money is for.
“Once those strategies are in place, we’ll have a better chance when we go to the public and say ‘this is the problem’ and then ‘this is how much it will cost to clean it up.’”`
