Sound off | Citizens must rally to make Puget Sound healthy again

COUPEVILLE, Whidbey Island — Puget Sound is ailing and in decline. The problem is, almost no one believes it. How could anything so radiant and robust be in trouble?

Yet, 500 people turned out on a cold, drizzly Saturday morning in February to learn how they could help make the Sound healthy again. Concern stirs such a strong response, but the invitation had to come from a credible source with a record of achievement.

That pretty much sums up WSU Island County Beach Watchers, the perfect template for rallying and educating citizens to a monumental environmental challenge.

Beach Watchers is a program of Washington State University Extension, started in 1989 by Island County extension agent Don Meehan. For almost two decades, Beach Watchers has employed user-friendly training and community projects to connect volunteers to their marine surroundings.

The genius of the approach is to recognize the breadth of ties to Puget Sound and tap into those interests. There is no political agenda nor any bright-green zeal required. Those instincts have a role in working toward a healthier environment but they do not drive the philosophy of Beach Watchers.

Puget Sound needs help, and millions of us live close enough to lend a hand. Gov. Christine Gregoire led an admirable administrative response in Olympia, but the absence of links to ordinary lives can be a serious impediment to progress.

All the troubles and tasks are understood, if not widely known: leaking septic systems, toxic hazards, stormwater runoff and the imperatives of chinook salmon habitat restoration. None of the best of intentions and renewed investments of public dollars will succeed without broad public involvement.

Sometimes the discussions never seem to stray from salmon recovery and watersheds, and the endless tensions among timber, fish, agricultural, environmental and tribal interests. Vital stuff, but the loop can feel closed to outsiders.

Beach Watchers welcomes the gardeners, cooks, artists, youth groups, historians, poets, hikers, cyclists, crabbers, naturalists, recreational boaters and lighthouse aficionados who should be part of the conversation.

Three years ago, a sober report on the health of the Sound begat the governor's Puget Sound Initiative in 2005, which brought more resources to water-quality and pollution-control efforts. Bigger budgets helped, but there was a clear need for a comprehensive approach. A high-profile citizens group working with legislators and members of Congress came together as the Puget Sound Partnership. They presented the governor with a restoration plan in December and the name stuck.

Their ideas were the starting points for House and Senate bills, which passed their respective chambers. A final bill is headed toward passage. Democrat Rep. Dave Upthegrove, of South King County, is chairman of the House Select Committee on Puget Sound. He promoted accountability measures in the legislation to build public confidence that actions would produce results. Accountability measures also increase chances for federal funding.

Included in the biennial budget to launch the Puget Sound Partnership is roughly $2.5 million a year for citizen partnership: money to promote public awareness and participation.

If sunlight glinting off a picturesque Sound does not betray a problem, how does one rally support to rethink stormwater runoff, redouble water-quality protection, restore marine habitat and toughen septic-system enforcement?

Master watchers

Beach Watchers breaks the challenge into smaller pieces. Efforts to recruit volunteers and engage the public are interesting and accessible. The hallowed model is the familiar Master Gardener program, which began in King County in 1972.

Back then, two overworked WSU Cooperative Extension agents were victims of their own success, advising urban gardeners and commercial horticulturalists. Demand for information was so great, David Gibby and William Scheer decided to train volunteers to spread the word.

A plug for their idea in Sunset magazine attracted 600 applicants, of which 300 were accepted and 200 trained, according to a program history authored by Gibby, Scheer, Sharon Collman and George Pinyuh. The first training sessions were at the Renton Library and the Tacoma Grange Hall.

In exchange for 60 hours of university-level instruction, the volunteers committed to give back 50 hours to the community. Today, there are Master Gardener programs in 45 states and four Canadian provinces, and they hold national conventions.

Meehan applied the model to the care and protection of Island County shorelines, bluffs and nearshore Sound. Beach Watcher recruits are screened. Successful applicants receive 100 hours of free training, and they sign a contract to return 100 hours of donated time to the public. More than 400 people have received the intensive training.

A growing movement

Meehan in 2004 helped expand Beach Watchers into six more North Puget Sound counties: Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, Clallam, Jefferson and Snohomish.

On Feb. 3, Island County Beach Watchers hosted "Sound Waters," its annual "one-day 'university' for everyone." For a $35 registration fee — that included coffee, snacks, lunch, guest lecturers and pounds of brochures and handouts — hundreds of people of all ages browsed among 60 classes on everything from Island County groundwater and First Nation cultures to how to buy and prepare seafood.

College professors, state and local experts and knowledgeable amateurs covered topics clustered under broad headings: "The Earth," "Marine Life," "Island History," "Plant Life," "Wildlife" and "Island Living." Subjects of local interest might not meld seamlessly with bigger issues, but they all nurture a connection to the Sound.

The day's keynote speaker was Brad Ack, director of the Puget Sound Action Team, which produces the "State of the Sound" reports out of the governor's office, and will morph into the Puget Sound Partnership staff.

Featured in the "Sound Waters" course catalog was a summary of essential priorities for a healthy Puget Sound. They are strong on active verbs: protect, restore, reduce, improve and sustain. Classes that matched those priorities were grouped together to quietly make a point. They are core themes and key features of the campaign to clean up Puget Sound by 2020.

Staying power

The crowd surging through the hallways and open spaces of Coupeville middle and high schools was dramatic, but Beach Watchers' impact is measured by continued involvement. Schoolkids to retirees help with research; assist with a variety of beach surveys — maybe looking for creosote contamination or invasive plants and marine life; attend workshops; and go on walks and tours and record beach conditions as a benchmark to measure future changes.

No one has to go through formal training to turn up and help. On-the-spot instruction is provided by trained Beach Watchers. Throughout the year, volunteers by the hundreds donate tens of thousands of hours. For them, the Sound becomes a beloved neighbor to watch after and care for.

Meehan emphasizes that Beach Watchers is not trying to make experts, but is trying to give people a sense of place and sense of inter-connectedness.

One cannot attend an eye-opening Beach Watchers session and still believe that all that glitters on a sunny day is pristine and robust. Or leave thinking remedial improvements are unattainable.

Good friends

The northern counties have working contacts on Sound issues. Washington Sen. Patty Murray and the late Republican Rep. Jack Metcalf were instrumental in creating the Northwest Straits Commission, which tracks topics of interest across international waters. Murray and Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen have kept the dollars flowing to related, county-level marine-resource committees.

These forums are useful, but they operate with a detachment from the immediacy of Beach Watchers, as conceived and successfully nurtured by Meehan. Adaptability counts. The environmental and economic stakes are too big for static, conventional approaches to educating the public about the health of the Sound.

The hands-on, land-grant spirit of WSU and the marine-research strengths of the University of Washington-based Washington Sea Grant Program have teamed together with good results. They are proposing a University Sound Partnership to promote public involvement. Listen to the idea as if it were a seashell, and one can hear Beach Watchers roar in the background.

Puget Sound has 4.1 million neighbors in 12 counties. Invite them to learn about and help reverse a serious environmental decline. Use Beach Watchers to build a durable citizen partnership.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com