Happy New Year!

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting many entries lately. I’ve been on vacation since the beginning of the snow — officially since the beginning of last week. I will return to full speed on Monday.

Meanwhile, I’ve been watching developments on the environmental front and will try to catch up on some of the bigger issues when I get back. I’d like to discuss, for example, some of President-elect Obama’s staff positions related to water and the environment.

For now, I’d like to call your attention to a disturbing Washington Post story about Chesapeake Bay, then I’d like to talk about implications for the restoration of Puget Sound.

The Post piece begins:

Government administrators in charge of an almost $6 billion cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay tried to conceal for years that their effort was failing — even issuing reports overstating their progress — to preserve the flow of federal and state money to the project, former officials say.

The cleanup, which had its 25th anniversary this month, seems doomed to miss its second official deadline for achieving major reductions in pollution by 2010.

The story, by David A. Fahrenthold, goes on to say that the Chesapeake Bay Program failed to achieve the political will to reduce pollution. So how did officials in the Environmental Protection Agency and other organizations respond? They fudged the data to show greater progress than what was actually taking place.

Officials did not have good monitoring data to measure progress. So they used computer models to show what should be taking place. Richard Batiuk, the EPAs’ current associate director for science for Chesapeake Bay, said exaggeration was never intentional. Officials simply did not use the models correctly.

When scientists finally caught up with the truth across the sprawling Chesapeake Bay watershed, which covers parts of five states, the price tag for cleanup was $28 billion. Officials realized they had no real plan to meet such a financial and public relations challenge. At the same time, it became clear that the goal of cleaning up the bay by 2010 could not be met — but nobody wanted to be the one to say so.

Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive director for the Chesapeake Bay Commission, said she suspected as early as 1997 that public statements were too optimistic. The situation became more clear as time went on.

“I think that, by 2005, 2006, you know, we should have made more . . . perhaps [we] could have recognized it more publicly,” she was quoted as saying.

In 2004, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that computer modeling and a lack of real-world data “downplays the deteriorated condition of the bay” and paints too-rosy of a picture.

That’s when I began paying closer attention to Chesapeake Bay and comparing it to efforts taking place in Puget Sound. See my stories from Sept. 17 and Sept. 18, 2006. We’ve all learned a great deal more over the past two years.

So what are the lessons to be learned from Chesapeake Bay?

I believe there are many. Above all, the people of Puget Sound must understand where things stand and what is at stake. We must rely on scientific conclusions based on real-world monitoring. Politics must not get ahead of the science — which is to say that most, if not all, actions should be analyzed for their costs and benefits to the ecosystem.

Bob Benze of Silverdale recently wrote a piece for the Seattle Times bemoaning the lack of science brought to bear on the recently adopted Puget Sound Action Agenda. He points out that legislative deadlines forced remedies to be proposed before scientific teams could validate those efforts.

Much of what Bob says is very legitimate, but one could argue that scientists have a general idea about what needs to be done. So taking actions before completing a full scientific evaluation may not be a waste of money. It may be a way to keep Puget Sound from slipping further behind while scientists catch up. Above all else, scientists need data to work with. Much monitoring has been done, but more is needed.

I think Bill Ruckelshaus, chairman of the Leadership Council of the Puget Sound Partnership, has a good grasp of the situation. He has talked about the vital need to measure and report progress. This is one of the big lessons from Chesapeake.

Here are some other lessons I’ve learned: Let the scientists do their jobs; be willing to pay for monitoring; be thoughtful about how progress is measured; be honest with all appraisals; and let the public know the truth, no matter what the repercussions may be.

For more than a decade, the city of Bainbridge Island has aggressively proclaimed the public’s right to use “road ends,” which are public rights of way that run down to the beach.

Many city and county governments have been shy about promoting public use of such narrows strips of land where adjoining residents often maintain expensive homes. Some people worry about vandalism and excessive tramping of sensitive habitats. But couldn’t these quiet little access points also help people appreciate nature?

Many road ends across the island and throughout Puget Sound seem to be the result of haphazard platting rather than carefully designed access. Still, the Legislature has recognized the importance of maintaining what little public access remains for average Washington residents. See RCW 35.79.035.

Public access to shorelines is a growing issue in Washington state, where most tidal areas were sold off in the early 1900s to promote commerce related to the shellfish industry. Bainbridge Island decided years ago that road ends offer a public-access opportunity worth millions of dollars.

“This is an island, but we have little access to the water to enjoy the peace, the birds and a quiet walk,” Marci Burkel, a member of the city’s Road Ends Committee, said in a Kitsap Sun story by reporter Tristan Baurick.

The island has been publishing maps of its road ends for years, but many of these sites are overgrown and difficult to use for shoreline access. Now, the Road End Committee is recruiting volunteers to monitor conditions at the road ends. More ambitious folks are encouraged to maintain the access points.

For additional information, check the Web page for the city’s Road Ends Committee, which includes annual reports for 2004 (PDF 660 kb), 2005 (PDF 496 kb) and 2006 (PDF 588kb). The island’s Shoreline Access Guidebook contains maps of the access points and general rules and guidelines to avoid potential problems.

I’m aware of several prime locations in Kitsap County that could provide access routes for people to reach to the water. Should other cities and counties in the Puget Sound region follow Bainbridge Island’s lead, first by publishing the locations of these road ends and then recruiting volunteers to clear these areas for public use?

Those who attended Puget Sound Partnership’s “celebration” on Monday were treated to a video featuring experts, policy folks and other concerned people describing the values of Puget Sound and its various threats. It included some impressive footage of the waterway and its environs.

This afternoon, the video was posted on the Puget Sound Partnership’s Web site.

Featured are folks including Kari Koski of The Whale Museum, Mike Racine of Washington Scuba Alliance, Mary Ruckelshaus of NOAA Fisheries, Dave Herrera of the Skokomish Tribe, Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms, Steve Bauer, a Kitsap County commissioner, and Steve Sakuma, a Skagit Valley farmer.

Some of these people are directly involved in the Partnership process. For example, Sakuma is a member of the Leadership Council; Bauer is a member of the Ecosystem Coordination Board; and Ruckelshaus is a member of the Science Panel.

Monday’s celebration called attention to the release of the Puget Sound Action Agenda, a blueprint for restoring Puget Sound to health.

Will the economic stimulus package being formulated by President-Elect Barack Obama align with the financial demands of cleaning up Puget Sound?

Several speakers celebrating yesterday’s approval of the Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Agenda said that is exactly where Gov. Chris Gregoire wants to go. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

If that’s true, and Gregoire is able to pull this off, it would be an amazing turnaround. Many of us were thinking that shrinking government revenues would force major cutbacks in state spending — including a retreat in the effort to clean up Puget Sound. Instead, we’re being led to believe that the effort can survive tough economic times.

It’s not clear whether Gregoire will shift funds around to increase, or even continue, existing funding levels for Puget Sound. It’s not evident that she’s even thinking about issuing state bonds to jump-start the effort. And, although the federal government has the ability to print money, we’ll have to see how much fiscal constraint takes place at the federal level and how Puget Sound cleanup fits into the national picture.

Of course, it never hurts to have U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, one of the strongest advocates for Puget Sound, holding a few purse strings in Congress.

Where will the political winds blow? Will the public get behind the Partnership, perceiving local waters as the lifeblood our culture and economic well-being? Or will people be outraged by the notion of spending money to improve water quality and protect plants and animals while people are suffering?

It will be fun to watch the public debate over the next month or two.

One last note about the Action Agenda, something that I’ll need to follow up with further reporting: Why did the Leadership Council retreat from numerical goals, measured by “benchmarks”? I was prepared to put together a list of the “current conditions” along with goals that will bring Puget Sound closer to a healthy condition. The final document deleted most of the numerical goals listed in the draft while expanding the description of current conditions.

I suspect that the simple answer will be that the benchmarks need more work by the Partnership’s Science Panel. But I’ll try to dig into the questions about whether benchmarks can truly represent ecosystem health. In other words, can anyone be comfortable using a few benchmarks to measure restoration progress, given the enormous complexity of the Puget Sound ecosystem?

The Environmental Protection Agency runs a blog called Greenversations. This week, the question being asked is: How do you conserve water?

Posted this morning, the question already has generated responses from 43 people. Some of the ideas are old hat among water conservers — such as turning off the tap while brushing your teeth.

A few responses were quite detailed and show years of working on the goal of saving water. For example, here’s the one from Marianna:

We adhere to the toilet motto “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down”.
Until hot water comes out of the tap we save the cold water to flush the toilets with.
I use gray water generated in the kitchen during the growing season to water my gardens.
We don’t wash our cars!
We reduce our yard irrigation to the bare minimum to keep the grass alive.
I’ve converted a good part of the lawn to gardens that require a lot less water.
I’ve put nearly all of my vegetable & flower gardens on drip irrigation.
I save scarce rainwater that runs off of the roof by installing gutters and putting several rain barrels in place.

To sum: to us water is a precious, not-to-be-wasted resource, just like gasoline or firewood!

I’m sure readers of this blog have some good ideas. Post them on the EPA’s blog and add them as a comment here if you would.

By the way, one idea is to fix leaky pipes, both in your home and in your city’s water system. Each day, 6 billion gallons of clean, treated drinking water disappears — mostly due to old, leaky pipes and mains, according to a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. That’s “enough water to serve the population of a state the size of California.”

See a story in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce about acoustic technology used to identify leaks before they occur. Reducing leaks in water mains is one of the requirements of Washington’s Municipal Water Law.

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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Swimming around Bainbridge Island, a little piece at a time, is a beautifully simple idea loaded with potential for suspense, excitement and exploration.

Mark Powell // Kitsap Sun photo

Island resident Mark Powell wanted to find a way to know his island better when was struck by the inspiration to swim around it, observing the variety of sea life, shoreline structures and underwater formations along the way.

As Tristan Baurick writes for the Kitsap Sun, Powell considered waiting for the right weather or the right time of year to begin, but then he realized any delay could kill the inspiration. So he took to the water on a windy Columbus Day, Oct. 13, slipping into the cold water at Fort Ward State Park. (View his blog, which includes an entry for each leg of his journey.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been following the blogs of two 16-year-old boys, each sailing separately by themselves around the world. There’s Zac Sunderland of Thousand Oaks, Calif., aboard a 36-foot Islander, who left Los Angeles June 14 (See Zac’s Web site and blog).

The other 16-year-old is Mike Perham of St. Albans (England), who left Brighton on the South Coast of England on Nov. 16 in a 50-foot custom racing yacht. (See Mike’s web site and blog).

Both boys hope to be the youngest to sail around the world solo. It is a pretty remarkable feat to contemplate — what with risky seas, boat mishaps and dangerous people lurking in various corners of the world.

So I’ll keep following the adventures of these two boys who have their separate dreams of sailing. Their blogs contain details of their travels, which aren’t much while they’re at sea, but the photos are nice.

Still, my admiration goes to Bainbridge Island’s Mark Powell, whose trip is filled with adventure of a different kind. From Mark’s blog, I am hearing things about things somewhat familiar to me and personally more interesting.

As Powell writes in the introduction to his blog:

I’ve got an itch. I’m indoors too much, and lacking adventure. So, thrashing around a bit on what to do, it came to me.

I’ll swim around Bainbridge Island, my home island.

It’s all here, 53 miles of shoreline with at least a small dose of almost everything you’ll find in the modern ocean world.

We have a Superfund site and pristine shoreline, armored banks with fancy houses, and forests that reach the water. Some good fishing, and some sadness over what’s missing.

Thanks to Mike Sato for catching a name error in the initial post

Just a quick reminder: If you wish to submit comments regarding the draft of the Puget Sound Action Agenda, they must be in by Thursday.

The Puget Sound Partnership offers plenty of information — including downloads of the entire Action Agenda and a way to offer comments online — at the Action Agenda Center of the PSP Web site.

If anyone would care to summarize your comments in a few sentences and send them to me by e-mail, I’ll try to find a place for them on Watching Our Water Ways. Or you can just post something as a comment to this entry.

Also of interest on the Web page:
Full Size Draft Action Area Profiles (PDF)
New Report on Puget Sound Toxic Pollution (ECY)
2009-2011 Biennial Science Work Plan (PDF)
DNS (PDF)
Final SEPA checklist (PDF)
Q1 supplemental materials (PDF)
Q2.2 supplemental materials (PDF)

ABC World News is reporting that it will feature a story about the seven Puget Sound killer whales that are missing and presumed dead. Locally, watch Channel 4 at 5:30 p.m. A written story with plenty of photos can be seen on the World News Web site.

The Kitsap Sun was the first daily newspaper to report on the missing orcas. For breaking news and regular reports, sign up for e-mail notification or RSS in the right-hand column of “Watching Our Water Ways.”

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.