Laura Blackmore, deputy director of Puget Sound Partnership,
will slide into the agency’s executive director position when she
comes into work next week.
Laura Blackmore
Laura has built a reputation as a facilitator, helping to meld
diverse ideas into cohesive policies. That experience should serve
her well in the director’s post, where she will take on the primary
role of shaping the direction of the Partnership for the coming
years.
“Puget Sound is in trouble, and we know what we need to do to
fix it,” Laura told me. “It took us 150 years to get into this
mess, and it will take us awhile to get out. What we need is the
political will to keep going.”
Puget Sound Partnership has honed its high-level game plan for
restoring the Puget Sound ecosystem, including a sharp focus on 10
“vital signs” of ecological health.
The newly released draft of the Puget
Sound Action Agenda has endorsed more than 600 specific
“near-term actions” designed to benefit the ecosystem in various
ways. Comments on the plan will be accepted until Oct. 15. Visit
the Partnership’s webpage to view the Draft Action Agenda and
access the
comments page.
The latest Action Agenda for 2018-2022 includes a revised format
with a “comprehensive
plan” separate from an “implementation
plan.” The comprehensive plan outlines the ecological problems,
overall goals and administrative framework. The implementation plan
describes how priorities are established and spells out what could
be accomplished through each proposed action.
Nearly 300 near-term
actions are listed at Tier 4, the highest level of priority,
giving them a leg up when it comes to state and federal support,
according to Heather Saunders Benson, Action Agenda manager.
Funding organizations use the Action Agenda to help them determine
where to spend their money.
The greatest change in the latest Action Agenda may be its focus
on projects that specifically carry out “Implementation
Strategies,” which I’ve been writing about on and off for nearly
two years. Check out
“Implementation Strategies will target Puget Sound ‘Vital
Signs’” in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound.
Restoring Puget Sound to a healthy condition by the year 2020 is
an unrealistic goal that needs to be addressed by the Puget Sound
Partnership, according to the latest performance audit by the Joint
Legislative Audit and Review Committee.
It’s a issue I’ve often asked about when talking to people both
inside and outside the Puget Sound Partnership. What’s the plan?
Are we just going to wait until the year 2020 and say, “Ah shucks;
I guess we couldn’t reach the goal.”?
Puget Sound Partnership, the organization created by the
Legislature to coordinate the restoration of Puget Sound, is on the
right track in many ways, according to the
preliminary audit report. But the Partnership needs to address
several “structural issues” — including coming up with realistic
goals for restoration.
It’s always nice when I can report a little good news for Puget
Sound recovery. For the second year in row, we’ve seen more
shoreline bulkheads ripped out than new ones put in.
Graphic: Kris Symer,
Puget Sound Institute / Data: WDFW
After officials with the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife completed their compilation of permit data for 2015, I can
say that 3,097 feet of old armoring were removed, while 2,231 feet
were added.
Scientific evidence is mounting that bulkheads cause
considerable harm to the shoreline environment, affecting salmon
and many other species integral to the Puget Sound food web.
As I pointed out in a story published this week in the Encyclopedia of
Puget Sound, we cannot say whether the armoring removed has
restored more valuable habitat than what was destroyed by new
structures. But we can hope that’s the case, since state and
federal governments have targeted restoration funding toward high
priority habitats. They include shorelines used by forage fish,
such as surf smelt and sand lance, as well as feeder bluffs, which
deliver sands and gravels needed for healthy beaches.
One problem with the data, which officials hope to improve in
the future, is that we don’t know whether the new bulkheads being
built are the standard concrete or rock bulkheads or the
less-damaging “soft-shore” projects. Unlike hard armor, soft-shore
projects are designed to absorb wave energy by sloping the beach
and placing large rocks and logs in strategic locations. It’s not a
perfect solution, but it is a reasonable compromise where armoring
is truly needed.
By swimming the entire Green/Duwamish River in King County, Mark
Powell hopes to show that the river’s full length — roughly 85
miles from the mountains to Puget Sound — is a single system worthy
of protection and restoration.
I believe that most people have heard about the Duwamish
Waterway in Seattle, a channelized, industrialized section of the
lower Duwamish River where decades of pollution are being cleaned
up, one step at a time. But how much does anyone know about the
upper end of the river, which begins as a trickle of crystal clear
water in the Cascade Mountains south of Snoqualmie Pass?
Mark Powell
“Almost nobody knows the river well, not even the people who
live along the river,” Mark told me.
Mark, the Puget Sound Program director for Washington
Environmental Council. said the idea of swimming the entire river
came to him during the kickoff of a new
Green/Duwamish Watershed Strategy by King County and Seattle.
The plan is to identify all the significant problems in the
watershed (map,
PDF 1.1 mb) and to increase restoration efforts where
needed.
“I thought this would be an interesting way to connect with
people,” Mark said. “I’m a guy who likes to get outdoors, so this
is a personal commitment I could make.”
Mark swam around Bainbridge Island in the winter of 2008-09.
““By swimming the whole coastline, I’m not just diving to the
pretty spots. I’m forced to look at the gross parts,” he told
reporter Michelle Ma in a story for the
Seattle Times.
So far, Mark has been swimming the upper and middle portions of
the Green/Duwamish River. He said his biggest surprise is finding
pockets of good habitat everywhere he goes.
Earlier this month, he was accompanied on the river by Sheida
Sahandy, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership, and
Martha Kongsgaard, chairwoman of the partnership’s Leadership
Council. A few days before they swam the river near Auburn, the
Leadership Council approved new “vitals signs” indicators for
“human health” and “human well-being” to emphasize the human
connection to the Puget Sound ecosystem. See
“Water Ways” July 30.
The human connection was still on Sheida’s mind when I talked to
her about a week after her trip to the Green River. The most
“eye-opening” part of the swim for her was the condition of “this
incredibly beautiful natural element coursing through a very urban
landscape.”
She saw evidence of people living along the river in
less-than-desirable conditions, she said. There were barbecues and
trailer houses but no suggestion that people had any connection to
the river — except that some individuals apparently were using it
as a toilet, she said.
“I haven’t quite wrapped my head around that, but it feels very
right that we are considering human well-being,” she explained. “On
the one hand is what we have done to the river. On the other hand
is what we have done to ourselves. We need to figure out how it all
links together.”
Mark’s adventures on the river are chronicled in a blog called
“Swim
Duwamish.” He hopes to swim every section of the river where he
is allowed to go and be safe. A portion of the Green River
controlled by the city of Tacoma has no public access, because it
is a source of the city’s water supply. Rapids in the Green River
Gorge are said to be dangerous, so Mark will look for a guide to
help him. And because of heavy marine traffic in the Duwamish
Waterway, he may use a boat to escort him on his approach to
Seattle’s Elliott Bay.
The Green/Duwamish River may be the most disjointed river in
Puget Sound, both physically and psychologically. People who have
seen the industrialized lower river find it hard to visualize the
near-pristine salmon stream spilling clean water down from the
mountains. It is the upper part that provides the inspiration to
clean up the lower part, Mark told me.
“If there was a reason for sacrificing a river, you could find
it in the Duwamish,” he said. “But we can’t afford to sacrifice
even one river. To me, this is what protecting Puget Sound is all
about. By the time the pollution gets to Puget Sound it is too
late.”
If salmon can make it through the gauntlet in the lower river,
they may have a fighting chance to spawn and produce a new
generation of Green River fish. Improving their migration corridor
is not an impossible dream.
I suggested to Mark that the name of the river be officially
changed to “Green/Duwamish” or “Green-Duwamish” to help people
recognize that this is a single river from the mountains to Puget
Sound. After all, the name “Salish Sea” has helped some people
realize that we share an inland waterway with Canadians. The other
name-change option would be to call it Duwamish all the way.
Until I started reading about the Duwamish, I didn’t realize how
this river once captured water from the Black River and the White
River as well as the Green River and the Cedar River. But the
system has changed drastically over the past century or so.
As you can see in the map on this page, the Green River once
joined the White River and flowed north, picking up waters from the
Black River. The Black River, which took drainage from Lake
Washington, picked up water from the Cedar River.
Where the Black River merged with the White River, it became the
Duwamish all the way to Puget Sound.
Two major events changed the rivers’ flow and subsequently the
nomenclature. In 1906, a flood diverted the White River to the
south into the channel of the Stuck River, which flowed into the
Puyallup River. Shortly after that, the White River was
artificially confined to keep it flowing south. Because the river
flowing north contained water only from the Green River, the name
“White” was changed to “Green” downstream to where the Duwamish
began.
The other big event was the construction of the Lake Washington
Ship Canal in 1917 to connect the lake with Puget Sound. The
construction lowered the lake by more than 8 feet, with the lake
level controlled by the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. The Black River,
which had taken the discharge flow from Lake Washington before
construction, then dried up. The Cedar River, which had flowed into
the Black River, was diverted into the lake.
Following those changes, the Green River and the Duwamish became
essentially the same river, with the total flow perhaps one-third
as much as it had been before the changes. If you are interested in
this history and other geological forces at work in the area, check
out the 1970 report by the U.S. Geological Survey
(PDF 53.1 mb).
As far as I know, nobody has come up with a good name for the
type of pollution that gets picked up by rainwater that flows
across the ground, carrying contaminants into ditches, streams and
eventually large waterways, such as Puget Sound.
Cleaning out storm drains is
the last line of defense before pollution from the roads gets into
public waterways. // Kitsap Sun photo
“Stormwater pollution” is a term I have frequently used. But
Sheida Sahandy, executive director of Puget Sound Partnership, made
a good point when I interviewed her last summer about the perils of
stormwater.
“I don’t really like calling it ‘stormwater,’” Sheida told me.
“It doesn’t have much to do with storms. It has to do with people.
We’re talking about our dirt, our detritus, our filth. Everyone has
it, and we all dump it into the sound to one degree or
another.”
Stormwater is relatively pure when it falls from the sky as
rain. It only gets dirty because the runoff picks up dirt, toxic
chemicals, bacteria and other wastes, mostly left behind by
people.
“Stormwater has gotten a bad wrap,” Sheida said. “It’s really
what we’ve done to the poor thing that makes it evil.”
Officially, the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington
Department of Ecology tend to call it “nonpoint source pollution.”
It’s a term that tells us what this kind of pollution is not.
Specifically, it is not pollution coming from a point source, such
as a pipe. But “nonpoint” does not describe what it really is.
Technically, nonpoint pollution is more than stormwater. It
includes waterborne sources such as marinas and atmospheric
deposition from air pollution. Taken together, this form of
pollution remains the most serious threat facing those who would
clean up and protect Puget Sound.
We need a new term like “mess-left-behind pollution,” because it
generally results from someone leaving some kind of contamination
on the ground — such as animal waste or leaking motor oil — or
failing to anticipate future problems — such as those caused by
toxic flame retardants in furniture or mercury from a multitude of
coal-fired power plants.
Agriculture, including livestock wastes;
fertilizers and pesticides; and erosion from grazing practices and
over-cultivation of fields.
Atmospheric deposition, including emissions
from automobile, industrial and agricultural sources and backyard
burning of trash.
Forest practices, including turbidity from
erosion caused by loss of vegetation and road-building, as well as
pesticides and fertilizers from forest applications.
Habitat alteration/hydromodification,
including increased temperature from loss of vegetation or water
impoundment; turbidity from erosion caused by shoreline alteration;
and increased bacteria and chemical concentrations from loss of
streamside vegetation.
Recreation, including sewage, paint and
solvents from boats.
Urban/suburban areas, including bacteria from
failing septic systems, pet wastes and urban wildlife; erosion from
construction and landscaping; lawn chemicals; road runoff; chemical
spills; and increased stream temperature from loss of
vegetation.
The plan lists a variety of
objectives and strategies for reducing the impacts of nonpoint
pollution. Among them are these ideas:
Complete 265 watershed cleanup plans by 2020, focusing on at
least eight priority watersheds each year.
Respond to all complaints about water quality by confirming or
resolving problems.
Provide grants and loans for projects designed to bring a
waterway into compliance with state and federal water-quality
standards.
Support local pollution identification and correction programs
to track down pollution sources and eliminate the problems. (Kitsap
County was identified as a model program.)
Support water-quality trading programs that allow water cleanup
efforts in lieu of meeting increased requirements for industrial
and sewage discharges.
Increase education efforts to help people understand how to
reduce nonpoint pollution.
Coordinate with organized groups and government agencies,
including tribes.
Continue existing monitoring programs and increase monitoring
to measure the effectiveness of water-quality-improvement
projects.
Develop a statewide tracking program for cleanup efforts with
an annual goal of reducing nitrogen by 40,000 pounds, phosphorus by
14,000 pounds and sediment by 8,000 pounds.
