Biggest challenge for Puget Sound? 3 experts weigh in

The Seattle Times convened a panel of experts last week to discuss the future of Puget Sound. The participants were David Dicks, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership, the new state agency tasked with protecting and restoring Puget Sound; Peter Orser, president of Quadrant Homes, the largest homebuilder in the region; and Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, a nonprofit environmental group.

Here are excerpts from the conversation:

Seattle Times: "What is the biggest challenge we face in protecting and restoring Puget Sound?"

David Dicks, executive director, Puget Sound Partnership:

"We have to be really practical, really honest, and stand back from this whole thing and figure out as a society how are we going to live here. We have a lot of studies, a lot of information and a lot of parts. But we have to knit it together into a strategy, and that is what I hope the Puget Sound Partnership is going to do.

"... Our role as the Puget Sound Partnership is to explain to the public what is going on. A lot of people don't know there is a problem with Puget Sound.

"When you look out on a nice August day, it looks pretty good. Appearances are deceiving. ...

"The biggest thing is the failure to stand back and say what does this all add up to.

"We have to be willing to be straight about what's working and what is not working. Maybe it is partially a generational thing. I don't care what we thought was going to work in 1974. We've got to be willing to stand back and say, as I think we would all acknowledge, it isn't working. For a lot of reasons. And it is not to point fingers at people. It's just to say, we don't need incremental change. We can't get there with that.

"I think frankly that the creativity that we have [is] by standing back and looking at this whole living system ... and thinking about how humans are going to come here, how they are going to operate ... looking at the whole macro perspective. And then coming [up] with a strategy that people like, that they will do, that they will buy into. And then having a plan, and robust implementation of it.

"And we have to have the courage to say when something is not working. Fix it. Get rid of it. Start over.

"I think if we had a really practical discussion, we are not going to dictate from the top, we are not coming out in any black helicopters, we are not doing that.

"[But] there are a lot of efficiencies we could be gaining if we stepped back and looked at the whole system.

"We have to be doing both prevention, making sure we are protecting the best places going forward, and that are providing functions for this ecosystem. We have to find out where they are, and go out and acquire them, or do whatever it is that we have to do to protect them.

"And with mitigation, if there was a point where we said we can't mitigate [for development] on site, but we could look over the hill and said, there is a big piece of land, or a wetland, and pick the really high-quality site, you can get lift, a biological up, if you go in and restore or acquire a high-quality place. But you have to be willing to look at it as a whole system, and have regulations that let you do that."

Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound:

"In a way, we are in a race against time if we are serious about protecting and restoring the health of Puget Sound. And I think we have learned quite a few things, and one of them is that the incredible fragmentation of decision making and lack of enforcement of our existing rules and regulations has created this really confusing situation for everybody, including citizens, who one day may have an enforcer coming down because of their septic system and the next day see the county just pave over a wetland or a restoration project.

"There is a lot of cynicism out there that this effort to save the Sound is going to mean anything. We need to grab the urgency of the problem, and deal with the fact that there is a lot of disbelief that we are going to make a difference. When people are cynical, they start thinking, 'It's about me.' They are going to get theirs, because no one is really looking out for the public at large. ... "

On the need for regulation and enforcement:

"People say, 'Oh, if we do education, voluntary measures will take care of Puget Sound.' No. We know that is not the case. We can't go the voluntary route. We don't have time, let alone that people may or may not decide to do the right thing.

"People don't like to pay taxes, they don't like to pay fees. This is going to cost some money. But in the end it is going to save some money, because Mother Nature is out there as the most cost-effective way to handle rain, for example. Mother Nature does it for us for free. And yet people say, 'Oh, we can pave it over and replicate it.' Well, in the end that is the most expensive option."

Peter Orser, president of Quadrant Homes:

"Puget Sound is one of the driving forces of our economy. The reason we have more jobs than the rest of the nation, the reason we have more people moving in here, is because people love Puget Sound and what it brings. I can't run a business, we can't grow unless we have a thriving community and community is defined as the natural community as well as the built community. So I am absolutely an advocate. This is an economic issue as well as an environmental issue. And it's everybody's issue.

"Sometimes I feel just a little like the guy that is carrying the weight of the world here. Absolutely there are impacts from new homes being built. But new churches, new schools, new office buildings, new fire stations, new everything are creating [impacts].

"There's, what, 1.5 million households here today, and not very many of them that were built pre-1990 have any kind of regulatory control on them. That house we point to in Wallingford and like? Yeah, it's nifty in terms of GMA [the Growth Management Act] and its density. But it doesn't have any stormwater control. And it doesn't have any green practices at all.

"The real impact is coming from the people who are already here saying, 'I've got mine, I'm not creating an impact. You go solve that on the constituent that doesn't even live here yet.'

"The biggest challenge is redistributing those costs to everybody, because it is everybody's issue.

"Rather than create a new series of regulations, let's make sure the ones we have now are being worked to the full force and effect. That's education, that's enforcement and accountability. There is a lot of potential in the regulation that we have today."

On underfunding land development and environmental agencies:

"It's irresponsible legislation, that you don't understand the full cost of what it takes to process the permit and then enforce the permit. Today, with the housing market contracting, [county executives] are laying people off in their permit departments right and left. As the economy contracts so does the staff, and now we get backlogs, poor reviews, no follow-up. It is not a good system.

"Can you believe that I am advocating for enforcement? But we have the law on the books. Let's do it right."