New agency considered a vital step in Sound's restoration

A bill to create a new agency to guide the cleanup of Puget Sound passed the state Senate and was sent to Gov. Christine Gregoire for a signature Friday.

Creation of the Puget Sound Partnership, considered a vital first step to restoring the Sound to health, came after Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-Seattle, abandoned efforts to add a provision to the bill that would block expansion of a controversial sand and gravel mine on Maury Island.

With that threat eliminated, the Senate voted 43-4 to create the partnership.

Proponents proclaimed the vote to be a "landmark" beginning to the cleanup effort, which could cost $18 billion to $27 billion by 2020. It is a centerpiece of Gregoire's environmental agenda.

"I think it's the most important piece of environmental legislation this session, and without it the Puget Sound effort would have been sidetracked or derailed entirely," said Jay Manning, head of the state Department of Ecology.

Still, the last-minute legislative wrangling, which could have endangered the bill's survival, underscored the political challenges still ahead for the cleanup initiative.

"It's not going to be easy," said Kathy Fletcher, head of the environmental group People for Puget Sound. "It's, I think, illustrative of the challenge to see the same Legislature pass this Puget Sound bill ... and not pass the Maury Island bill."

Passage of the bill required an unusual compromise among local governments, businesses and environmental groups. And it had been thrown into doubt by the politicking around the Maury Island issue.

Environmentalists were hoping to score a double-play by stopping the mine expansion and getting the new cleanup agency. But the Association of Washington Business vowed to withdraw support for the bill if it contained limits on the gravel mine.

Finally, after negotiations with House leaders and the governor, Poulsen dropped his attempt to attach the island protections to the Puget Sound bill. He said he has also decided against trying to insert it into a budget bill, after resistance from House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.

"The mining company is going to prevail again," said Poulsen, whose district includes Maury Island. His original attempts to block the mine through a separate bill died in the House.

There were several other contentious measures related to Puget Sound in this year's Legislature:

• Environmentalists and Gregoire won despite industry objections in a push to phase out PBDEs, a class of potentially toxic flame retardants that have been found in fish and orcas in Puget Sound.

• Industry groups beat back an effort to increase a tax on oil coming into the state, and to tax oil transfers over water, such as pumping fuel onto a barge. Environmentalists wanted the money to beef up oil-spill protection.

The Legislature is also expected to more than double the money spent on cleaning up the Sound to somewhere around $200 million over the next two years.

Now that the Puget Sound Partnership is formed, the seven-member board will develop an overall cleanup plan, steer money to projects, and act as a watchdog over the myriad local and state governments whose work affects the Sound.

In the end, the agency won't create new pollution regulations or have the power to fine polluters. But it can steer grant money toward governments that cooperate with the recovery plan and, as a last resort, ask the governor to block money to local governments that don't cooperate.

Attention now turns to the governor's choices in board members. The partnership then has until September 2008 to craft a detailed recovery plan.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com