Charting a new course toward a healthy Puget Sound

AS a third-generation Washingtonian, I'm encouraged by the strong voice of The Times and others who advocate for Puget Sound.

Your recent editorial ["Failing our Sound," May 15] helps keep the pressure on all of us in the Puget Sound region to do what is necessary to make our magnificent Sound a healthy and vital ecosystem.

However, I think it's important to recognize that we have charted an entirely new course for the Sound. We now have all levels of government, businesses, nonprofits and an energized public working collaboratively and accountably to make Puget Sound restoration a reality.

Gov. Christine Gregoire and the Legislature have put forth a bold challenge — nothing less than a healthy Puget Sound by 2020.

We are making progress. We have created the Puget Sound Partnership — led by a distinguished and diverse Leadership Council, guided by science, advised by a broadly representational group of citizens — and it is bringing vigor and vision to Puget Sound protection and restoration.

More importantly, the Partnership has the tools to hold my agency, other state and federal agencies, and local governments across the Puget Sound basin accountable if they fail to do their part in the restoration effort.

Meanwhile, we're making on-the-ground, in-the-water progress in correcting the problems of the past and preventing problems in the future.

We've accelerated cleanup of some 80 additional contaminated sites in and around Puget Sound, with more sites commencing cleanup every year.

Since 2005, our state has provided an additional $237 million to communities for local toxic-site cleanups, wastewater-treatment plants, solid-waste management and recycling, oil-spill-response equipment and pollution control.

We've provided $3 million in matching funds to the Hood Canal Regional Septic Loan program, which is solving one of the major problems in Hood Canal: faulty septic systems. The loans help homeowners and businesses fix commercial and residential septic systems in Jefferson, Kitsap and Mason counties. In the past year, 52 septic systems were repaired or replaced, and nine more are under construction.

The Times' series of articles on Puget Sound vividly describe our failures in protecting wetlands. I agree that more needs to be done. Several years ago, the Department of Ecology studied our rate of success in requiring replacement of wetlands lost to development. We found we were successful only half of the time.

That's why one of Ecology's strategic initiatives is to dramatically improve our success rate in protecting wetlands. For the first time in years, we have put more "boots on the ground" for wetland identification and compliance inspections. We can't, and won't, be afraid to say "no" when a project threatens excessive and irreversible harm to wetlands.

We are literally reinventing the way we protect wetlands — developing new, much-improved approaches to mitigate unavoidable losses. These include wetland "banking," or "advance mitigation," ensuring that wetlands damaged by development will actually be replaced with high-quality wetlands and will be maintained for generations to come.

Your articles also describe the biggest challenge of all: stormwater, the No. 1 water-pollution problem in urban areas of our state. When rain hits our roadways, parking lots, rooftops, industrial facilities and construction sites, it carries off a toxic stew of nasty chemicals and metals into creeks and rivers and Puget Sound. Whether it's zinc from chain-link fences or copper from vehicle brake pads, all those seemingly tiny quantities of toxins find their way into stormwater and from there into the Sound.

Cleaning up, and managing, stormwater is one of our highest priorities, and it's exceedingly difficult.

Washington's municipal stormwater permit — the rule book for cities and counties for controlling their stormwater — is one of the most stringent in the nation. Similarly, our industrial and construction stormwater permits are extraordinarily rigorous.

Yet, environmental advocates view Ecology's approach as not adequate to solve the problem. Local governments, industrial site operators and builders view these same requirements as incredibly costly and difficult to comply with.

And the darn thing is, they're both right. However, we're learning every day how to better control and reduce the threat that polluted stormwater poses to the Sound.

As a Washingtonian who grew up fishing, beachcombing and practically living on Puget Sound, I know how important the job of restoring the Sound is. I know how challenging the job is.

Because the governor and the Legislature set a 2020 timeline and created a new Sound-wide approach that holds all of us accountable for our actions and inaction, I believe we will get the job done.

I believe my children and grandchildren will inherit a healthy Puget Sound because our generation made this commitment.