Restoring Puget Sound to health could cost $10 billion, and it will take a public-relations campaign to persuade the public — and Congress — to make improving it a priority.

That was the message from about 50 state lawmakers, environmentalists and representatives from Congress, the governor's office and federal agencies who gathered in West Seattle yesterday to begin attempting a regionwide response to years of ecological change that some fear puts the overall health of the Sound in jeopardy.

"It's relatively easy to generate a lot of enthusiasm for Puget Sound in the short term," said William Ruckelshaus of Seattle, two-time head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under presidents Nixon and Reagan. "Sustaining the effort to clean it up is somewhat tougher."

Recent reports show toxic chemicals are still in fish and marine mammals, bird species are disappearing, habitat is being eroded by development and pollution is still flushing into the Sound.

Even though millions of dollars a year are spent on restoration, the Sound's health is in flux when it should be improving.

So with the population expected to keep booming, the community leaders want to elevate the Sound's national importance to a par with the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay.

But maintaining national attention is difficult. The Army Corps of Engineers, for example, several years ago made a sweeping plan to breathe life into the Sound's web of tideflats, marshes and deltas.

But the agency has yet to get more than a fraction of the federal funding it needs.

Yesterday, after meeting with representatives from massive restoration programs in other states, the ad hoc collection of community leaders, including The Nature Conservancy, the EPA and others, agreed it should recommend that Gov. Christine Gregoire work toward a campaign to get Congress to pay up to $5 billion, said Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound.

In coming months, the same group plans to recommend specific actions — from user fees to salmon taxes — to help pay for the other half of the work.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com