Executive Director's weblog - "On the Road"
People for Puget Sound Executive Director Kathy Fletcher recently started her own weblog to share her thoughts about conservation and the health of Puget Sound
On the Road
I spent the first part of last week at the board meeting of Restore America’s Estuaries, our national partnership of 11 organizations like People For Puget Sound.
We met at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s headquarters in Annapolis—a “green” building certified at the highest level, the platinum standard. Sorry to plunge right into a discussion of toilets, but I have to! The entire building, which serves scores of employees as well as an event center for weddings and conferences, uses waterless, composting toilets. The restrooms are clean and fresh-smelling. Instead of flushing, you throw in a small handful of wood shavings and close the lid. Artistic signage explains that the composted “product” is used on the grounds (which are beautifully restored with native vegetation), and that nothing is discharged into Chesapeake Bay. After you wash your hands in sinks supplied with rainwater collected from the roof (another great feature), you’re on your way.
Why aren’t we doing this everywhere? Why can we surf the internet on a machine the size of our hand, which is also a phone and a camera, but the toilets we use are virtually the same technology used in the 1800s? Does anybody think it’s a good idea to take our precious pure water, mix it with human waste, and then be stuck with the engineering challenges and enormous costs of trying to get it clean again?
We have a dead zone in Hood Canal mostly because of human waste from inadequate septic systems. Many of our shellfish beds are closed to harvest for the same reason. More than a million new people are coming to live near Puget Sound in the next 15 years, and most everybody assumes they will be flushing right along with the 4 million folks already here. What is wrong with this picture?
Many of us by now have used a composting toilet in a park (I’m not talking outhouses here). But an office building and conference center? That was the wake-up call for me. What are we waiting for? Check out the Clivus Multrum website to see what I’m talking about (no, I don’t own stock!).
The RAE board meeting was stimulating in other ways too. We met with top-level people from environmental engineering and consulting firms to discuss how to fund the large scale of the habitat restoration challenge. We also got first-hand Katrina and Rita reports from our Gulf Coast partners, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Galveston Bay Foundation. A third Gulf Coast partner, Tampa Bay Watch, was facing the prospect of Wilma. Topmost on everyone’s mind is how we can learn, not repeat, the lessons from these disasters. How we treat our shorelines is a big part of the story.
Thanks to the generosity of People For Puget Sound’s donors at our annual Harbor Lights gala and auction, I was able to present a check to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL). We dedicated two percent of the proceeds of our live auction to helping them in the monumental tasks that lie ahead. CRCL’s executive director Mark Davis, who is currently living with his family in a trailer with no phone and no cell phone coverage, expressed his deep appreciation for our gesture of support. In the business of protecting and restoring our nation’s shorelines, we are all in this together.
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