Ruckelshaus named to lead Puget Sound cleanup

Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief William Ruckelshaus has been named to chair the citizens council overseeing the state's effort to clean up Puget Sound, Gov. Christine Gregoire announced Monday.

The Puget Sound Partnership is charged with overseeing the cleanup and restoration of Puget Sound by 2020. The rest of the members of the Puget Sound Leadership Council have not yet been named.

The leadership council Ruckelshaus will head will work with a science panel and a coordinating board to craft a restoration plan by Sept. 1, 2008. A separate nonprofit also may be created to help raise public awareness and money for the effort, which could cost as much as $27 billion by 2020.

Ruckelshaus, 74, who lives in Medina, said one of the partnership's first tasks will be to inform the public that the Sound is in trouble. Despite a litany of woes facing the ecosystem, more than 70 percent of people surveyed last June said they thought the Sound was in good-to-excellent shape.

The partnership also must build collaboration for restoration of a healthy Puget Sound, said Ruckelshaus, who headed the EPA under Presidents Nixon and Reagan.