Puget Sound cleanup only succeeds with public involvement

Cleanup of Puget Sound picked up important momentum in the nastiest economy and tightest state budget in more than 20 years.

The Legislature endorsed with bipartisan votes and scarce dollars a vitally important to-do list. Lawmakers, such as Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-San Juan Island, helped turn the action agenda of the Puget Sound Partnership into a working plan to repair a beloved but polluted estuary.

Legislators endowed capital projects to remove dikes in the Nisqually River delta and launch dam removal on the Elwha River. Another project will study phosphorus loading into Lake Whatcom, where half of Bellingham and Whatcom County residents draw their water. The goal is a model for stopping pollution before it enters the Sound.

Here it comes, the word one might expect after all that effusive, alluvial editorial runoff: "however."

Missing alongside the capital expenditures is a complementary infusion of operating dollars to pay for rigorous oversight of how the money is being spent. A new law ensures scientific review, but not enough poking and prodding to get projects started and finished on time, and on budget.

Also missing is a robust investment with the highest return per tax dollar: public education and citizen involvement.

Recruiting, organizing and training volunteers pays enormous dividends. Equally important is teaching the nearly 4 million residents around Puget Sound about the direct role they have in the pollution and cleanup of the Sound.

The importance of engaging individuals in Sound cleanup and helping them accept their responsibility in keeping pollutants out of sewers and storm drains was a repeated theme in a powerful documentary previewed this week at Town Hall.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith looks at the ragged health of Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay three decades after the federal Clean Water Act. His two-hour "Frontline" presentation, "Poisoned Waters," will air Tuesday on KCTS-TV at 9 p.m.

Smith's report is a lot like the Sound itself on a bright sunny day. Visually stunning. The difference is the former New York Times reporter and foreign correspondent will not leave us content with our sparkly assumption all is well. Scuba diver Mike Racine reveals the "unbelievable gunk" coming into Elliott Bay and around the Sound.

The Atlantic's Chesapeake Bay is an aquatic mess of epic proportions, and it is painful to witness the Sound compete for environmental and public-health infamy.

Smith describes "Poisoned Waters" as "journalism, yes, but a work of personal passion." He lives in Washington, D.C., but he has been visiting family in Seattle for 20 years, and bought a house on Orcas Island five years ago.

"Poisoned Waters" is part of our learning curve. We share in the subtle, pervasive pollution of the Sound. Drippy cars, lawn fertilizers, household and personal-care products and prescription medicines find a path through stormwater runoff and sewers into the Sound. The usual suspects are gone. Look in the mirror.

William Ruckelshaus, present at the creation of federal cleanup policy, and patron saint of local environmental restoration, is emphatic the people of Puget Sound must understand the problem, and then act. He told the Town Hall audience it would be "unconscionable of us to fail. So we won't."

The Legislature leaves too many proven tools idle — think Washington State University's Beach Watchers. Spend more on education and volunteers and save vast sums over time.

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