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.

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?

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:
(more…)

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)

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.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups are on the verge of suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency for failing to do its part in cleaning up the expansive bay.

Sunrise over Chesapeake Bay // Kitsap Sun

Foundation President Will Baker called the EPA an “absent partner” in restoring the waterway, according to a story by Timothy Wheeler in the Baltimore Sun.

The federal lawsuit, to follow an official notification to the EPA, will demand that the agency appropriate enough money to do its part in cleaning up the bay, which includes enforcement of federal laws.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation offers a video and several links to information on its Web site.

“People are fed up with the government’s failure to reduce pollution in this national treasure,” Baker was quoted as saying. “We have no other course of action left but to go to court and try to get EPA to comply with its own Clean Water Act.”

While the lawsuit targets the EPA, officials acknowledge that Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia also failed to achieve their cleanup goals as required by the agreement they signed. They are not targeted, however, because environmental leaders believe they have made “good-faith efforts.”

Officials involved in the Puget Sound Partnership often say they are trying to avoid a repeat of the troubled efforts to restore Chesapeake Bay. Measuring progress step-by-step after setting priorities is seen as one difference in the Puget Sound effort.

It’s interesting to think that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is going after the EPA, when the agency is playing only a minor part in the Puget Sound effort. On the other hand, we don’t have more than one state government to fuss with here. Assuming the governor, Legislature and a majority of the people are on board with the Puget Sound Partnership, dealing within one state can be a good thing. (On the other hand, we sometimes forget that we are sharing waters with another country — Canada.)

Two years ago, I spent some time in the Chesapeake Bay region, meeting the people and comparing the issues to those in Puget Sound. My stories may provide some background for you as this issue rises to national attention.

Dying Bay, Dying Ways

Lessons from Chesapeake: When talk is not enough

I think the pressure is beginning to be felt at all levels of the Puget Sound Partnership — and this is not meant to be a criticism in any way.

Staff of the organization, its Leadership Council, its Science Panel and its large Ecosystem Coordination Board have all been charged with figuring out what is wrong with Puget Sound, and they were given less than a year to work out a strategy for correcting the problems.

While it’s true that much is known about Puget Sound, the problems have been compartmentalized over many decades. You’ve got the Department of Ecology doing one thing, the Department of Fish and Wildlife doing another, local health departments doing something else, and the list goes on and on.

The Puget Sound Partnership has been tasked with breaking open those compartments, tearing down the walls and sorting through everything that falls out.

That’s how we are now confronted with a list of more than 125 possible actions that point the way to restoring Puget Sound to health. I have to say that the process looked a bit disjointed on Wednesday, when the Leadership Council struggled to get their bearings with a massive amount of information. See the story I wrote for Thursday’s Kitsap Sun. If you’d like, you can download the List of Initiatives (PDF 261 kb) that caused the members to struggle a bit.

I ducked out of the second day of the meeting to write the story about the missing Puget Sound orcas and to track down some other stories that you will read about in coming days.

But, following the second-day meeting, I had a good conversation with David Dicks, the Partnership’s executive director. From that, I wrote a short piece, which went up on the Kitsap Sun’s Web site on Thursday and is scheduled to appear in the paper tomorrow.

One of the outcomes of the second-day meeting is that the first draft of the Action Agenda, to be released in less than two weeks, will be a staff recommendation, not a Leadership Council recommendation. It will undergo more refinement and discussion before it will become the recommendation of the Partnership as a whole.

Since the 125+ possible action items represent most of what is wrong with Puget Sound, the ones that don’t become top-priority for the first two years could fit into the text of the Action Agenda, David Dicks told me. About 25 or so could be destined for top-level action, essentially those things that will produce the most bang for the buck.

Criteria for the top-level actions were decided by the Leadership Council, although the current draft (PDF 44 kb) shown here may not be final

The other ideas for change won’t go away; they’ll just be put into priority for work over the coming years.

David Dicks said he has a pretty good notion what 10 of the top action items might be. One he mentioned was “mitigation reform,” with the idea of creating some kind of mitigation banking to compensate for wetland and other types of habitat destruction.

Personally, I have confidence that something good will come out of this process, because I know how much everyone involved in the effort cares about Puget Sound. But success could depend on money and whether anyone can develop a convincing strategy for tackling difficult problems during times of economic struggle.

As often pointed out by David Dicks and state Rep. Phil Rockefeller, the prime architect of the Partnership structure, the Action Agenda will be an evolving document, just as the restoration of Puget Sound must undergo adaptation as we discover new ways of protecting the environment.

All three deliberating bodies of the Puget Sound Partnership — the Leadership Council, Ecosystem Coordination Board and Science Panel — are making progress on what will be the first draft of the Puget Sound Action Agenda.

The Action Agenda is scheduled to be made public Nov. 6, after which time people may offer their comments in meetings or in writing.

The Ecosystem Coordination Board met this week and discussed a load of projects that could become priorities in the Action Agenda, as I discussed in a story in Thursday’s Kitsap Sun. Members did not have time to review possible funding sources, so that will be taken up at a later time.

Here’s the proposed schedule from Oct. 1 until the Action Agenda is presented to the Washington Legislature.

Oct. 1: Ecosystem Coordination Board gives input on Partnership Initiatives and rationale for actions
Oct. 6: Staff members transmit topic forum synthesis work to Science Panel for review
Oct. 7: Science Panel meets
Oct. 17: Science Panel communicates guidance re: synthesis to staff
Oct. 22-23: Leadership Counsel discusses Action Agenda and feedback from Ecosystem Coordination Board
Nov. 6: Public review begins
Nov. 11: Leadership Counsel discusses Action Agenda, funding strategy, public hearing
Nov. 20: Public comment period ends
Nov. 21: Leadership Council meeting with public hearing and finalize guidance to staff
Nov. 19-30: Staff finalizes Action Agenda text and begins production
Dec. 1: Leadership Council approves Action Agenda; celebration and media event
Dec. 2-Jan. 6: Action Agenda layout and printing for legislature; all appendices and background documents complete