Sound Partnership gets funds to double budget

Puget Sound restoration and preservation efforts received a major boost this week with an increase in funding from the federal government.

The Puget Sound Partnership will receive $50 million next year for implementation of the agency's Action Agenda, a 100 percent increase over the current year's budget.

"We said having a credible, science-based plan would attract funding, and we were right," said David Dicks, executive director for the state agency.

The money will be used to develop performance measures, fight stormwater pollution and preserve some of the last, best habitats in the Puget Sound Basin, among other efforts, Dicks said.

Meanwhile, more than $152 million in federal stimulus money also is being spent on Puget Sound projects. Those include more than $54 million to move up the schedule of dam removal on the Elwha River, from 2013 to 2011.

Money also was provided in the federal stimulus package approved earlier this year to complete a sewer system in Belfair, Mason County, to improve water quality in Hood Canal, long troubled by low oxygen levels caused in part by leaking septic tanks.

More than $3.2 million in stimulus money also was provided to remove dikes in the Nisqually estuary in Thurston County, to restore about 762 acres of estuary habitat.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com