Ink First Part of Antidote for Puget Sound
Signing partnership into law, governor calls for a new era in cleanup and restoration of the fragile waterway.
The new Puget Sound Partnership promises an aggressive, unprecedented approach to saving Puget Sound, officials say.
Yet the legislation signed into law Monday contains no new regulatory authority for any level of government.
"It’s a lot more about bringing people together and building a consensus," said state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, chief architect of the legislation. "Our goal is to integrate diverse efforts that have been going on for many years."
In short, billions of state and federal dollars will be directed toward actions deemed vital to restoring Puget Sound to health by the year 2020.
In a single-minded approach, the actions will be grounded in science and based on the needs of the Puget Sound ecosystem.
The amount of state money spent on Puget Sound cleanup was roughly doubled by the Legislature this year, and numerous existing grant programs were realigned to make spending consistent with a future cleanup plan.
The effort will include federal, state and local governments along with non-governmental and business entities. The new law allows entities to become "partners" and win priority for funding. It also establishes a process to publicly condemn those who fail to meet their obligations.
"To date," Rockefeller said, "most of the efforts related to Puget Sound have been described ... as useful to Puget Sound, but there has never been a common set of goals with standards for evaluating the work."
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, said restoration efforts in Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and other regions of the country have all failed because the goals were unclear and the efforts were not targeted at the most critical actions. A task force appointed by the governor learned those lessons and applied them to Puget Sound, Dicks said.
He said the state’s new $138 million budget for Puget Sound programs will demonstrate to federal officials that Washington state is committed to success.
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Ink First Part of Antidote for Puget Sound
