Group gets muddy to save Sound

So it's come to this: A beauty-pageant queen in a hot-pink, strapless mini-dress, rubber boots and a sparkling tiara alongside our new mascot, the Mud Monster, brought to us by the same people who created the Mariner Moose.

Who knows whether this may finally get the public to take an interest in restoring Puget Sound. But at least that's the hope behind this public outreach and involvement campaign, called "MudUp," launched with cheer and celebration Thursday at Seattle's Alki Beach by The Alliance for Puget Sound Shorelines, a consortium of environmental groups.

Why the tiara and the cuddly mascot?

Guilt is a turnoff, the masterminds behind this campaign said. Instead, this is hip, cool, they said. Even fun.

"Just as there are a million little things that got Puget Sound in trouble, it will take a million little things to get it back," said Bill Ruckelshaus, newly appointed chairman of the new state restoration agency, the Puget Sound Partnership, after he gamely cut a ribbon made of beach grass held by the Mud Monster and the beauty queen, Allison Rone, Miss Emerald City.

"The key word is engagement," Ruckelshaus said.

At the core of the new effort is a Web site — www.MudUp.org, of course. It's a clearinghouse for posting and finding cleanup events, beach walks, and other such activities around the Sound. The site is meant to provide something for everyone, from posting photos of themselves with the Mud Monster to digging up opportunities to help plant native plants.

Ultimately, the alliance hopes to build public support for the larger policy changes needed to restore Puget Sound. Polls have found that many people don't think Puget Sound is that bad off, despite plenty of science to the contrary.

After the ribbon cutting, Rone was tiara-deep in preschoolers as she knelt for photos. She vowed to join in cleanups throughout the summer.

"I probably won't be wearing the pink dress, but I'll have on my Wellies," she said. "And the crown is a great bridge builder."

The Mud Monster, in a mud-brown fleece suit with dangling kelp and starfish appliqués, plans to show up everywhere from public markets to community festivals to get the word out to save Puget Sound.

The Monster, played by several part-timers, is the still-waters-run-deep type: silent at public events, but communicating with pantomime, and reachable by e-mail, naturally: mudmonster@mudup.org.

Not everyone is convinced the campaign is altogether the right approach.

"If you are using the same tools to sell awareness of Puget Sound and salmon that you would use to sell a car or a movie or a hot dog, they lose their special place," said Jim Lichatowich, a fisheries biologist and the author of "Salmon Without Rivers," an influential book on the salmon's woes. "We have been treating this like it's some kind of Wal-Mart special."

But Hilary Bromberg, a cognitive neuroscientist by training who now works for Egg, the Seattle consulting firm that devised the MudUp concept, said she thinks the idea of mud and the Mud Monster strike just the right chord.

"The most obvious thing is to show people pictures of dead fish, gloom and doom, but no one is going to respond to that," Bromberg said.

"We've found people don't want the guilt. You have to say, it's easy, it's fun."

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736