Public urged to help protect Puget Sound

It can start with poop — dog poop, that is.

And the message is simple: Picking it up and dumping it in a plastic bag in the trash (and not the yard-waste container) actually can help.

The state agency charged with trying to clean up Puget Sound kicks off a campaign today to help Western Washington residents understand what they can do to limit the flow of pollution into the country's second-largest estuary.

Seventy-five percent of the nutrients and toxic chemicals dumped into the Sound are flushed off roadways and parking lots by the region's heavy rains.

The Puget Sound Partnership, a state agency, joined with 57 cities and counties and several hundred private or nonprofit groups to educate the public about the threat such stormwater discharges pose to the Sound, and some of the changes individuals can make to improve its health.

Many of those changes are simple: avoiding fertilizers and pesticides, cleaning up after pets, washing cars in commercial facilities that drain into the region's wastewater-treatment plants.

The campaign will highlight them in television commercials, presentations to schools and businesses, and online at www.pugetsoundstartshere.org. It will also do outreach to get more people involved in volunteer work to help restore the Sound.

The $200,000 media campaign was paid for by grants from the state Department of Ecology, the Puget Sound Partnership and money provided by a few local governments.

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