Glacier Northwest has begun work on the controversial pier that will eventually support its gravel-mining operation on Maury Island. See updated story by Leslie Brown in the Vashon Beachcomber.

Meanwhile, a protest demonstration got underway this morning near the construction site. Kathy Fletcher of People for Puget Sound reported about 50 protesters as well as some 10 dinghies and kayaks at 8:30 a.m. this morning.

Yesterday, a contingent of 20 to 30 killer whales — apparently including members from all three Puget Sound pods — visited the South Sound area, not far from the Glacier site. I thought maybe they had come south to join the protest, but during the night they turned north and came up through Puget Sound.

If you recall, the orcas were cited among reasons to deny the construction activity in an aquatic reserve frequented by the whales in winter.

As of 11:30 a.m. today, the orcas were in Admiralty Inlet north of the Kitsap Peninsula, according to Howard Garrett of Orca Network, who was among the widely scattered whales when I talked to him by phone.

See Orca Network for reports of whale travels. In case you’re not aware of it, anyone can sign up for e-mail reports of whale sightings, typically compiled at the end of each day.

By the way, People for Puget Sound has scheduled a “Bremerton Moonlight Beachwalk” Thursday in Bremerton and a “Starlight Beachwalk and Bonfire” Friday in Burien. Reservations are recommended for both events.

The Northwest region of the Environmental Protection Agency announced today that its enforcement program has been responsible for increased inspections and doubling the amount of pollution reduced and treated this year, compared to last.

In a news release, Elin Miller, EPA’s regional administrator in Seattle, had this to say:

“Our enforcement results speak for themselves. We’ve increased our inspections, more than doubled the pounds of pollution reduced or treated, and required more than $57 million in process improvements to ensure future compliance. This translates directly into better health protection for both the environment and local communities.”

I always like to give credit where it’s due, especially when the truth runs counter to perceptions about the Bush administration (or anyone else). I don’t doubt the findings, but the information does not tell us whether the EPA has done a great job this year or a poor job last year. In fact, some of the results show that 2006 was better than 2008. And how do these results compare to EPA records under previous administrations?

I was not able to find comparable statistics, but I did find footnotes saying the methods of calculating some stats have changed, so I quit looking. If anyone would care to add some perspective, I would welcome it.

For specific numbers, review the EPA’s Web page called 2008 Region 10 Compliance and Enforcement Annual Results.

The regional office lists these “federal case highlights.” More information can be found in news releases linked from this EPA Web page.
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We don’t know if salmon actually enjoy the smell of Christmas cookies that wash into Puget Sound with sewage effluent, but they can probably sense the holiday smell, according to Rick Keil, associate professor of oceanography at the University of Washington.

Keil and his students have been taking samples of water from Puget Sound and measuring the levels of chemicals associated with specific tastes. Chemicals associated with thyme are found after Thanksgiving. Methyl-vanilla, an ingredient in waffle cones and kettle corn, is found only in summer. Natural vanilla and cinnamon peak at holidays such as Christmas, Valentines Day and so on.

Keil started this project as a way to help people see the connections between the human and natural environments. He has pretty much stayed out of controversy by avoiding discussions about pharmaceuticals that can be found in Puget Sound. Some researchers believe that drugs flushed into local waters after passing through the human body may cause physiological changes in fish, including effects on the immune and reproductive systems.

Keil says all of the cinnamic acid, associated with cinnamon, that gets into Puget Sound has passed through the body of a mammal. Since it’s not likely that dogs and bears are eating a lot of cinnamon, he assumes that almost all is coming from human sewage.

“Control” stations off Vancouver Island in Canada show almost none of these compounds.

Ethyl-vanilla, a petroleum-derived product that creates a stronger vanilla taste than even natural vanilla, is more abundant in Puget Sound than the substance it mimics.

How these spices are affecting fish and wildlife remains uncertain. Are salmon ignoring these smells? Are they using them to home in on their natal streams? Are they confused by the smell of the holidays, experiencing more difficulty in finding their way through Puget Sound?

“You are what you eat,” Keil says, “and so is Puget Sound. If you eat it, Puget Sound eats it.”

Keil has been reporting on these results and adding to them for a couple of years. Read the latest UW news release or look up a story he wrote for the summer edition of “Watershed Review” (PDF 1.5 mb).

The latest twist on this research is getting more people involved in testing the waters in various areas of Western Washington. The Sound Citizen program includes UW students and scientists as well as anyone willing to follow scientific procedures in their sampling. Sampling kits are available. If you are interested, go to the Sound Citizen Web site.

I heard a couple of radio reports on this subject yesterday. But if you have 22 minutes, I highly recommend a recorded lecture of Keil’s. You can link to the audio and download the related slide show (PDF 1.5 mb). The discussion is quite informative and allows this researcher with a human touch to display his sense of humor before a live audience.

The Environmental Protection Agency needs to make “radical changes” in its stormwater program to address serious pollution problems, according to a new report by the National Research Council.

Congress authorized the EPA to deal with stormwater in 1987, expanding a role that previously focused on sewage and industrial wastes. But the program has suffered from a lack of accountability and uncertainty about how to effectively manage stormwater, according to the report.

Much has been learned over the past 20 years, so the EPA asked the National Research Council to look at the program and make recommendations.

The council said the EPA — and states that have assumed jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act — should abandon the approach of issuing separate stormwater permits for municipalities, industries, and construction sites. Instead, regulators should take a “watershed-based” approach, working with municipalities to manage all stormwater as well as sewage and industrial discharges within a local area.

Even without watershed planning, one could bring construction and industrial stormwater permits under the jurisdiction of a nearby municipality, which would be compensated with extra funding.

“Federal and state permitting authorities do not have nor could expect to have sufficient personnel to inspect and enforce stormwater regulations on more than 100,000 discrete point source facilities discharging stormwater,” states a news release regarding the recommendations.

“A better structure would allow operators of municipal storm sewer systems to act as the first tier of control. EPA’s successful treatment program for municipal and industrial wastewater sources could serve as a model for integration.”

The council also recommended that the EPA focus less on chemical pollutants and more on reducing the volume of water that carries pollutants into local waterways.

Readers of Water Ways know we’ve discussed how officials in Washington state are wrestling with these very issues, as the Department of Ecology moves to impose stricter regulations than these established at the federal level.

Read the news release or download the “report in brief” (PDF 404 kb). The full report also can be read on online.

On Monday, the Puget Sound Partnership will deliver to the Legislature its Action Agenda for restoring Puget Sound to health.

The draft of the Action Agenda and supporting documents can be found on the Partnership’s Web site.

We can expect the Action Agenda to be an evolving document, with the constant goal of restoring Puget Sound to health by 2020. I think we will see the agenda grow more detailed as time allows the Partnership to delve deeper into various issues while involving regional representatives.

As for the goal of restoring Puget Sound to health by 2020, most people I know believe that this goal is too ambitious, practically impossible. But everybody is fairly nervous about speaking out and telling the emperor he (or she) has no clothes.

In any event, the release of the very first Action Agenda provides an important milestone to be celebrated. The rollout for the media will include comments by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, U.S. Rep Norm Dicks; Gov. Chris Gregoire; Bill Ruckelshaus, chairman of the Partnership’s Leadership Council; David Dicks, executive director of the Partnership; state Rep. Dave Upthegrove, a chief architect of the legislation creating the Partnership; and Elin Miller, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Puget Sound Environmental Caucus, a coalition of 43 organizations, offered a letter and comments on the Action Agenda prior to the deadline. If you wish, you can read the two documents for yourself (PDF 100 kb). Priorities for these groups, with detailed suggestions, are stormwater, toxics, habitat, species, water quality and various other issues.

I’ve pulled out a few noteworthy statements from the cover letter:
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I’m still trying to understand the various implications of a study by David Bain and Pete Schroeder, who found that Puget Sound’s killer whales are harboring antibiotic-resistant bacteria as well as some strains of bugs that can be deadly to immune-compromised mammals.

Puget Sound killer whales // NOAA photo

It seems likely that killer whales are picking up bacteria from humans, since the resistance is most likely caused when people or livestock take antibiotics but don’t take them long enough or in great enough concentration to kill all the bacteria. The result is that some bacteria get a taste of the antibiotics but escape and become resistant.

How the bacteria get into marine waters is somewhat uncertain, but likely sources are discharges in stormwater, in sewage effluent and from boats.

The fact that the researchers found some bad bugs is not a good thing, since the orcas’ immune systems may be weakened by toxic chemicals and a shortage of food.

Federal biologists studying the risks of extinction for Puget Sound orcas worry that a catastrophic event — such as an oil spill or disease — could kill one-third or more of the animals, leaving a nonviable population. It’s distressing to think that humans are loading these animals up with toxic chemicals, which reduce their resistance to disease, then dumping potentially deadly bacteria into the waters around them.

Read more about these findings, including interviews with the researchers, in a story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun.

The draft of the Puget Sound Action Agenda is a bit of a jumble in its initial form, but officials with the Puget Sound Partnership say this wide-ranging report will get better with time.

Valerie Wolf braves the rain Thursday near the Norm Dicks Government Center in Bremerton Carolyn J. Yaschur, Kitsap Sun

It is, after all, a broad list of the actions that need to be taken to move Puget Sound toward a healthy condition. What will help in future versions is a list of possible actions in order of priority. I’m told the final draft will also include additional summaries to help people work their way through the dense 50-page report (not including the “action area profiles” at the back).

State Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, chief architect of the Puget Sound Partnership structure, told me that he’s pleased to have something down on paper for people to review and make comments about. The issue is complex, he said, and people need to understand that those involved with the Partnership are working very hard.

I get the sense that many people, especially conservationists, would like to see a more forceful, perhaps activist, attack on the problem. So far, the Partnership has taken a rational, scientific approach. It seems there is a strong desire among the leaders to bring the public along with education before asking for the levels of funding needed to turn things around more quickly. Economic times are tough, after all.

Can we afford to go slow while putting an optimistic face on the problem, or do we need to scare people into the realization that salmon and orcas are going extinct? That is the key question that the Puget Sound Leadership Council needs to address with some clear certainty.

In writing about this draft, I found it hard to discuss what might be proposed during the first two years without listing all the “near-term actions” (which I didn’t do), because there won’t be enough money to do the dozens of things listed. Those decisions must be made by the Puget Sound Leadership Council, preferably by Dec. 1. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at the list in the draft Action Agenda (PDF 1.7 mb).

Also, it’s not always clear who is going to be responsible for what. That is something to be negotiated with state and local agencies, as well as other entities. Such commitments, along with accountability, is the essence of the Puget Sound Partnership structure.

David Dicks, executive director, said what has been missing in previous efforts to restore Puget Sound is an overall scientific-based plan that puts everyone on the same “songsheet.” It’s the same problem plaguing other ecosystems, such as Chesapeake Bay, he said. Plans by the previous Puget Sound Action Team seemed to be no more than a list of what the agencies said they would do, whether or not those things ever got done, Dicks said.

Bill Ruckelshaus, chairman of the Leadership Council, often talks about the need to obtain cooperation from the other “partners.” The Legislature gave the Partnership new techniques of holding people accountable. One would be recommending that funding be withdrawn from entities that aren’t doing the job. Another would be a report card that essentially grades everyone and holds people up for public ridicule if they aren’t getting the job done.

So feel feel free to read my story in today’s Kitsap Sun, and check out reports from other newspapers in the region: Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Olympian.

UPDATE

I revised the story for Friday’s Kitsap Sun.

—————-

I just came off a teleconference where David Dicks and other Puget Sound Partnership officials discussed with reporters the draft of the Action Agenda, which was released today.

Dicks said the number-one problem facing Puget Sound is all the toxic chemicals that drain into the waterway with stormwater, which we have discussed many times before. He also emphasized the need to protect the last remaining fish and wildlife habitat of high quality.

I’ll have more to discuss later, but I’m posting this item for all you e-mail subscribers who like to stay on top of things. Here’s the quick-and-dirty story I wrote this morning about today’s activity. You’ll find a lot more by going to the Puget Sound Partnership Web site:

Report is a “road map” for restoring Puget Sound to health

By Christopher Dunagan

Puget Sound Partnership, tasked with restoring Puget Sound to health, released a draft of its first Action Agenda, a road map for protecting, restoring and cleaning up the waterway.
For the first time, one organization has laid out a strategy to observe the threats and changes to Puget Sound and to direct unified efforts to reverse the long decline in habitat and water quality.

One of the greatest threats to Puget Sound, according to the report, is ongoing stormwater runoff. Each year, some 52 million pounds of toxic chemicals – or nearly 150,000 pounds per day – flow into Puget Sound. That’s equivalent to a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez every two years, officials said.

“These disturbing numbers are putting more than 40 species in Puget Sound at risk, including the Sound’s orca population, where we just saw a decline of nearly 10 percent in the past several months,” David Dicks, executive director for the Partnership, said in a written statement.

Recommendations fall into four strategic areas:

• Protecting sensitive lands, including working forestland, farms and shoreline.
• Restoring degraded areas, such as estuaries, wetlands and marine ecosystems — including the implementation of salmon recovery plans that have already been developed for every watershed.
• Reducing water pollution, including that from stormwater, sewage treatment plants and septic systems.
• Coordinating efforts to restore Puget Sound by encouraging all agencies, organizations and individuals to manage Puget Sound as one complete ecosystem.

For information, including a copy of the Action Agenda and related scientific reports, go to the Puget Sound Partnership’s main page.

Comments on the Action Agenda will be taken until Nov. 20. Two public meetings are planned, both beginning at 9 a.m.:

• Nov. 11: Embassy Suites Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, 15920 W. Valley Highway.
• Nov. 21: Edmonds Conference Center, 201 4th Ave N.

Members of the Poulsbo Parks and Recreation Commission have called out Johnson Creek as a special wildlife habitat that needs more protection. In doing so, they have pushed a hot button in the city of Poulsbo.

See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun along with a video I shot in July with Jon Oleyar, a fish biologist who probably knows the streams of East Kitsap better than anyone.

Oleyar and others tell me that Johnson Creek is an important salmon stream. Because the stream corridor is largely undeveloped, it also serves as wildlife habitat. Is it one of the most important salmon streams or wildlife habitats in Kitsap County? I’ve asked the question and received mixed answers.

What the parks commission has pointed out, however, is that it may be the only significant wildlife habitat left in the city of Poulsbo. It’s clear the parks commissioners would like to get someone to pay attention to this area.

What worries property owners is that they won’t be compensated fairly, if at all, should the city seek to preserve the habitat. Planning Director Barry Berezowsky says the parks commission is getting “a little far afield” in discussing the city’s Critical Areas Ordinance.

It seems to me the parks commissioners have knowingly created tension within city hall as an act of conscience, knowing that it will be up to others to carry the ball forward.

As for the property owners, somebody deserves credit for leaving so much of the area undeveloped all these years. The Puget Sound Partnership has made it a top priority to protect the “last best places.” Maybe the state should come up with the money to take a closer look at the entire corridor. If it turns out to be prime habitat, then the state should be prepared to pay for acquisition of land or development rights.

A “habitat assessment” map (PDF 2.5 mb) by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is available on the Kitsap County Web site, but be aware that it’s a big file.

I realize that property values soared when portions of Johnson Creek were moved into an urban growth area. This isn’t a simple issue. But some people, for a price, may be willing to sign a conservation easement on a portion of their property. The result could be a wonderful piece of open space for Poulsbo residents to enjoy along with those who eventually buy a house near Johnson Creek.

I can’t say whether the parks commissioners went beyond their authority. But, after listening to them discuss the issue, I find it courageous of them to battle the pressure and craft thoughtful proposals as well as explaining the rationale for their actions.

I will try to share more information about this when the planning documents become available.

Local government officials have been getting letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency about saving salmon. The letters say the National Flood Insurance Program violates the Endangered Species Act and describe how to fix the problem.

I mentioned this situation in a story in Oct. 19 in the Kitsap Sun. This morning, I received the text of the letter (PDF 40 kb) in an e-mail from FEMA.

As the result of a federal lawsuit and consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service, FEMA needs to change its flood-management program. It remains unclear, however, how much local governments will need to change their land-use rules to qualify for flood insurance under the new program.

Measures that must be taken to comply with the law are spelled out as “reasonable and prudent alternatives,” which begin on page 151 of the “biological opinion,” which can be downloaded from NOAA’s Web site.

Steve Landino of the National Marine Fisheries Service said the effects of the biological opinion are likely to vary from place to place.

“It is the most complicated (biological opinion) that we have worked with, at least in our office in Washington,” Landino told me.

The notice mailed last week was required to recommend a temporary moratorium on floodplain development and explain the next steps to come into compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

FEMA must make sure that local governments implement changes “as soon as practicable” but no later than three years from now. Priority must focus on “Tier 1” salmon populations, followed by “Tier 2.” Kitsap County and its cities are located in the second category.

Tier 1 areas involved in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) include all the major rivers in the Puget Sound area, as shown below.
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