After 5 years, Gregoire's Puget Sound progress is uncertain
The governor launched an effort to restore the Sound to good health by 2020. But money, goals, and data remain elusive.
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Evidently, most people still don't realize the Sound needs saving. The Partnership's surveys have never showed much public appreciation of the Sound's problems. And the agency's leaders have always been reluctant to push expensive solutions for problems that haven't reached public consciousness. Beyond that — and some critics suggest that the surveys have asked the wrong questions — most people who do acknowledge a problem still tend to speak in terms of "cleaning up" the Sound. Fix leaky septic systems. Clean up industrial discharges. Lay pipe to carry stormwater. But the underlying threat remains the existing pattern of land use. And, of course, no one has taken significant steps toward raising enough money to do what should be done.
The 2007 law signed with such fanfare appropriated $238 million over the next biennium for save-the-Sound programs that over a longer period were expected to cost at least $8 billion. That $8 billion was never supposed to be all new money. The Partnership is supposed to channel existing revenue streams toward programs that fit into its blueprint for the Sound. But obviously, neither the initial appropriation nor those existing revenue streams will produce enough cash. Where is the rest of the money going to come from?
Nobody knows. Most people who have given the issue much thought think the Sound needs a dedicated source of funding, something that generates money just for restoration and preservation programs. The Puget Sound Partnership went to Olympia in 2009 hoping for a statute that would enable voters in the 12 counties bordering Puget Sound to create an improvement district that could raise money for restoring the Sound. If the enabling legislation had been passed, a tax or taxes to raise money for Puget Sound would have required a vote by the improvement district’s governing body. Creation of the governing body would have required a vote by the people who lived in the 12 counties. That would have required a campaign to convince people they wanted to be taxed by yet another governmental entity.
That, in turn, would have required decisions about how the vote would be structured — and what the governmental entity would be. The Partnershp's first director, David Dicks, envisioned a system in which seven counties, including King, would have had to vote for the district. If seven or more had said yes, any county voting no would have had to go along. Counties plus the largest cities would somehow have been represented on the governing board, as they are on the board of Sound Transit.But Olympia wasn't keen on new taxes. The improvement district didn’t even come up for a vote. The idea was put aside for a more opportune time. That time hasn't come.
"The most fundamental problem we've had," says John Lombard, author of Saving Puget Sound, "is to raise adequate revenue to pay for these things." Lombard envisions a tax or taxes that force people to pay for their environmental sins. (At a panel discussion a few years ago, he mentioned a possible tax on removal of water from the natural ecosystem.) He thinks it should be possible to "get people to really recognize that our actions are having consequences and there are practical ways that we can create economic costs associated with those actions so that people do less of them." There's plenty of precedent: Lombard notes the legislative willingness to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol over the years, and more recently to vote for soda-pop taxes. Most people realize the problems with that smoking, drinking, and consuming high-sugar beverages. "Therefore," he says, "it's the one place where they've been able to raise money. This [idea of enivronmental sin taxes] is really the same basic argument."
"I see us getting around [the current tax aversion] in two ways," Lombard says. In addition to taxing sin, he favors "looking at this as tax reform and combining a set of these kinds of environmental taxes with tax cuts . . . . .You can put this in the most simple terms: We want to tax economic bads . . . and we want to reduce taxes on economic goods."
"If we don't do it, we might as well give up," Lombard says. "If we all think we have some God-given right to contribute to the problem without paying any charge whatsover, then any discussion about how much we care about this place and want to restore it is just empty rhetoric."
Even raising money may prove less challenging than persuading people that we must change the pattern of land use around Puget Sound. ”It’s all land use,” Bill Ruckelshaus said five years ago. Gregoire agreed. She acknowledged that getting people to change patterns of land use would be a hard sell, but added that it would have been even harder earlier. It's still hard. "There certainly are points of contention" about restoring the Sound, Ruckelshaus says. "The primary one is land use." Something there is in citizens that does not like other people telling them what they can't do on their own land — especially if those other people aren't from around here. Ruckelshaus talks about "how difficult it is to draft those regulations centrally and get any degreee of enthusiasm out of the landowners." He figures that planning at the watershed level may be the way to go.
It's a dilemma: On one hand, how do you get people to buy into the process unless you let them make decisions at a local level? On the other, how do you solve a regional problem if each part of the region can go its own way — or can simply opt out?
A lot of people’s minds clearly haven’t expanded to see saving the Sound as a whole-landscape problem yet. But some scientists and activists have been trying to convince them of that for years. Everything is connected. Where should we start? University of Washington geologist David Montgomery has been arguing for years that we should start with lightly-developed flood plains. Once upon a time, local rivers meandered through braided channels, flowing beneath or around huge log jams, periodically spilling out onto the low-lying ground beside them. Now, they mostly run unimpeded through single channels, diked off from their natural floodplains. And yet, Montgomery has written, “Floodplain restoration presents our best opportunity to provide salmon with sanctuaries where their interests would not be sacrificed to human interests over the next century.”
It's crucial to think about such things long-term. The regional environmental group Forterra's basic insight is that over the next century, if nothing changes as the Puget Sound area's population doubles (as it is universally expected to do), virtually the entire landscape will be paved or sodded from salt water to the Cascades. Currently, the Growth Management Act channels development away from rural areas. But it's not foolproof. In the short run, a little development outside the lines doesn't do any harm. In the long run, it will be transformative. That's the basic premise, too, of Montgomery, a 2008 MacArthur fellow.
Nine years ago, in his book, King of Fish, Montgomery advocated turning the lightly developed floodplains into greenbelts, and letting the rivers flood them again as nature intended. We could create a network of productive habitat and public open space. We could stop subsidizing the destruction of habitat. He has modified his original idea, but not much. He still thinks that letting the floodplains flood is probably "the most cost-effective thing we could do to have a lot of people and a lot of fish share the landscape. . . I think that argument is probably just as good today as it was then." However, he no longer thinks that absolutely everyone should clear out. "The caveat of course is that some of our best farmland is also in flood plains," he says. "Today I'd do a hybrid of farms and greenbelt." However obvious a strategy of restoring flood plains seems to Montgomery, he realizes that it's not obvious to everyone else. Instead of letting the rivers flood, in many places "we're talking about building the levees up."
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 7:55 a.m. Inappropriate
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate the depth of the article.
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 8:28 a.m. Inappropriate
The Puget Sound Partnership is a corrupt slush fund for Democratic Party agendas and associates. It should be ended.
When Chinook salmon were listed as an endangered species, a flood of federal money (and local taxing options!) inundated the region. Governments and non-profits swarmed like scavengers at a kill. In 2007, it became painfully obvious that our salmon restoration efforts were, instead, a money grab that had spawned a whole growth industry of disconnected, self-serving, fiefdoms. In 2007, the Washington State legislature formed the Puget Sound Partnership to coordinate - and bring efficiency and accountability to - our recovery efforts. Not only has the partnership failed to do that, it has become another hungry mouth at the trough, conspiring with the other fiefdoms - always - for MORE MONEY, MORE MONEY. And what of this money? For one thing, no one knows how much has been spent; there is no accounting. Yes, Daniel may throw a number out, but it doesn't take into account the millions spent "off the books"; state and local transportation dollars spent on fish-passage projects, for example.
And "science"? Puh-leeeze! Money is spent according to political influence. One need look no further than Maury Island to see that. And no further than David Dicks to see the agency's political favor.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2012764293_guest31myers.html
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 9:09 a.m. Inappropriate
Thanks Blue Light for a well thought out response.
SeeBee
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 9:45 a.m. Inappropriate
Good job Dan in calling out the meakness of our environmental response (big eyes/little stomach). But you missed the elephant in the room which is stormwater. It is the thorniest issue for government to tackle and it will not get tackled without genuine leadership. Yet stormwater is the biggest contributor to the degradations of our watersheds and Pugeet Sound. Rest assured, there will be hand wringing for years to come!
Ken Pritchard
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 10:12 a.m. Inappropriate
And, oh by the way, researchers at Oregon State University have determined the NUMBER ONE THREAT to PNW salmon and their habitats is increased immigration into the region, the vast majority of which comes from outside the U.S. and Canada (their findings, not my assertion). Seems one cannot have their cake and eat it, too. Yet, the Puget Sound Partnership - good Democratic Party soldiers that they are - deign not speak against The Party's immigration policy (for fear of upsetting a voting block!). The fact is the Democratic Party's immigration plank is incompatible with the Democratic Party's, professed, environmental plank. Will the Puget Sound Partnership speak this truth? Don't hold your breath.
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_21_3/tsc-21-3-hurlbert-salmon.shtml
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 11:03 a.m. Inappropriate
The failures of environmental cleanups and other electioneering slogan initiatives can be traced to one of the big shell games of patronage. The D. Pelz Demo crew has hidden from the public a most critical finding of the cleanup process; attorneys don't do no shoveling and they don't do stuff that might be icky. They make money as long as nothing is actually done.
Duh !
I've been holding my breath for over 40 years - sure, call me blue, now you can see why.
Jsa
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 11:33 a.m. Inappropriate
As I understand it, the leading source of pollution in Puget Sound is cars and highways. Unfortunately, we seem to be doing everything we can to exacerbate the problem: pouring billions of dollars into highways, drastically slashing transit service, and refusing to consider alternatives. Gregoire's "leadership" has been catastrophic in this regard. She vetoed taxing authority for Snohomish County to sustain their transit system, forcing the total elimination of Sunday bus service. When Mayor McGinn suggested that maybe we should be thinking in broader terms than cars and highways, Gregoire called him a "disgrace." And she was outraged by the suggestion that maybe future light rail should be taken into account for the new 520 bridge.
Of course, it's not just Gregoire. WSDOT, the legislature, and the local media all seem to worship the automobile with Jonestown-style zealotry, and any proposed alternative is a form of heresy ("the war on cars!"). For a region that prides itself on how "green" we are, it's pretty disappointing that we're one of the most backwards places on the planet when it comes to ecologically responsible transportation policy.
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 1:15 p.m. Inappropriate
Dan, A nice tour of the horizon.
Several comments. Spending money on endless PR and Planning activities
is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The Partnership needs to change its focus.
There have been a number of smaller projects, and land purchases, but most have flown under the radar and have not been as well publicized as the "Nisqually" project. Forterra has done some, Tribal governments, the Nature Conservancy, County governments have done others. The point being that when critical habitat is OWNED by the people through their government, we can quit arguing about land use regulations and get on with the business of habitat restoration.
Water quality efforts by DOE are showing improvements: many small and medium sized cities have invested in better treatment and SECONDARY treatment. Look at Everett, Stanwood, Anacortes, Tulalip Tribes Quilceda Creek, the Warm Beach Camp and Senior Communtiy.
The City of Seattle and King County Metro are the two 800 pound gorillas in the room, but the direction of change is forward, although S_L_O_W.
I'm optimistic. Some days for good reasons. Some days for no damn good reason at all.
Ross Kane
Warm Beach
Snohomish County Council ( 1990-1993)
Former Board Member, Cascade Land Conservancy
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 5:18 p.m. Inappropriate
Even suffering years of ridicule by the environmental community....
No study, no attorneys, no government .....
John Beal - 1950 to 2006 R.I.P.
Hamm Creek ..... he was brushed off and the subject of party jokes by the smug community, until he caught a break in the media, then suddenly the envi-community turned on a dime and loved him.
Hypocrites ! Would you do your environmental work if you got zero money for it ? Make me laugh and say you would ....
Jsa
Posted Wed, Jun 6, 10:41 p.m. Inappropriate
Another good one, Dan. You wrote:
"Will the Sound become an issue in the campaign? Aside from some harmless platitudes, will it even be mentioned? So far, the signs aren't good. And why should they be? Virtually everyone cares about the Sound — who doesn't? — but actually doing something about it would require taxes, regulation, the expenditure of political capital. Do you hear the masses clamoring for anything like that? Right."
Replace "the Sound" with "pollution caused public health problems", "climate change", "looming energy shortage", "over population" (as pointed out in other comments), or any of a number of other huge problems, and the paragraph still reads true. Ruckelshaus and Manning speak of "cultural shift", but I see very little happening in that department. “If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction.” Arthur Koestler
It is getting more and more difficult to be an optimist.
Posted Thu, Jun 7, 10:35 a.m. Inappropriate
Example: This Daniel Jack Chasan article itself is not listed in Crosscut's "Recent Stories"; I only saw it because of the photo teaser that floats by at the top. (It is also buried in the "Most Commented" list.)
Posted Thu, Jun 7, 11:30 a.m. Inappropriate
Whereas every fizz and jolt (two per day) gets triple coverage, make that four when one or the other makes the "Most Commented" list. Enough already.
Posted Thu, Jun 7, 11:56 a.m. Inappropriate
So sad, how truth, this from a commenter on neoliberal Walter Russell Mead's blog:
" Green policy seems either to be
1) a new religion with mindless adherents or
2) a get-rich-quick scheme for connected insiders"
How do we get serious?
Posted Thu, Jun 7, 7:26 p.m. Inappropriate
5 years? being Director of Department of Ecology doesn't count?
Posted Fri, Jun 8, 10 a.m. Inappropriate
I don't really trust all these dam removal projects.
While ostensibly it's to "restore the environment" at the same time it removes cheap hydropower resources.
Given the corrupt nature of the Gregoire administration and it's dealings with coal, one has to question motive.
Posted Tue, Jun 12, 11:08 a.m. Inappropriate
Thanks Dan for a much needed piece on the Puget Sound Partnership. One thing the state government does particularly badly is periodically review projects and undertake a "lessons learned" exercise. I believe your piece is very good - as far as it goes.
I think there are a couple of indispensably important points which are essential to consider in a thorough review of the Partnership and it's efforts to clean up the Sound:
1) The very creation of the PSP was flawed, and revealing from the beginning. It was enabled with no legal authority and clear statements about the non-relinquishment of authority by the myriad of jurisdictions who already have great impact over its degradation...and any potential cleaning. The agency was created as a pure case of sausage/legislation - a way for the Governor and Legislature to convey their "concern" about the Sound while also achieving compromises to assuage any opponents (i.e. builders, developers, local governments who rely on the builders and developers, etc)and thereby garner a "bipartisan" bill.
2) From that flawed, yet predictable start came the inevitable dithering, procrastinating and faux consensus making. The first director, obviously put there for political reasons (secure Dad's funding from Congress) and not his qualifications nor managment abilities, ran a well intended yet dysfunctional ship. Soon the fanfare present when the agency was created became the malaise and distancing so often the case when politicians create something designed to look like they are doing something without actually doing anything.
3)The result has been the (not so) plausible deniability by the very same Governor and the Legislature now claiming that the agency is not doing enough...or fast enough. While that is true - they were hamstrung and emasculated from the very beginning. The new director, Gerry O'Keefe is exhibiting no leadership, exhibiting no creativity and displaying complete risk-aversion. In short, exactly the bureaucrat you want in charge, when you want nothing done.
4) Knowing a perfectly good moving pick when they see one, local governments, natural resource state agencies (and DOT) and the federal agencies are only too happy participating in the decision avoidance game that continues. They allow the very deleterious stormwater discharge we know is a large contributing factor to the degradation of the Sound. They sanction, ney even promote the very development in the floodplains we know to run exactly counter to our efforts to prevent further erosion. They often, at best, avoid the tough decisions needed to right the ship. At worst they cower while the growth machine storms on and their political patrons not only fail to have their back but in fact are conspirators in the very destruction they espouse caring so much about on the campaign trail.
A few comments on the...comments:
Jay Manning did some very good things as DOE Director. He did also, however, preside over the agency during this very "look the other way" period where a Mary Riveland-type "the regulated community is our customer" mentality seemed to persist.
Is is simply a case of insufficient money? As someone who believes very much in the role and power of government to effectuate positive change, I'm afraid that the money argument can be simple and easy distraction to continue to avoid the very land use decision making discussion which is in fact the crux of the issue.
The conspiracy-theory anti-Democrats who post here are, well...pretty funny. It's a shame they know little of what they spew. They are sometimes right- for the wrong reasons. It's a shame indeed that they so despise certain people and political ideologies that the opportunity to have constructive thought and analysis is impossible within the silly villain scenario they are stuck in.
I worked for the legislature and governor on water policy issues for 10 years. I also represented an Indian Tribe at the PSP for a year watching closely their proceedings.
Posted Tue, Jun 12, 1:09 p.m. Inappropriate
The Puget Sound Partnership is a corrupt slush fund for Democratic Party agendas and associates. It should be ended.
Posted Wed, Jun 13, 12:28 p.m. Inappropriate
You do realize the irony of your post immediately below Russ Lehman's, don't you? If this is your attempt at sarcasm, it's pretty lame.
Posted Thu, Jun 14, 5:05 a.m. Inappropriate
loup2x
you're either part of the problem or part of the solution,,, the problem is there is no solution and the problem is it costs too much to keep this charade going.
Private sector could have made positive changes without the overhead and ongoing fingerpointing, oh and create jobs, enhance our recreational assets and not have to hear the whining that these losers need more money every year for new ideas.
The government just needs to admit they failed Puget Sound, and come to terms that they themselves are the ones needing to be educated.
Posted Thu, Jun 14, 9:40 a.m. Inappropriate
If you think they are getting rid of these dams to "restore the Puget Sound" or help a salmon get better dates, dream on. All it does is remove potential cheap, citizen owned hydropower and allow the coal-biased Democrats to increase our addiction.
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