King County Executive Ron Sims gave the keynote speech to the Select Forum on Restoring Puget Sound: A meeting with National Experts September 14, 2005. Entitled "Our Generation's Responsibility," the Executive's remarks opened the one day forum to explore the steps necessary to elevate the Puget Sound and its recovery to national prominence and to develop recommendations for Governor Gregoire as she crafts her Puget Sound Initiative. Executive Sim's speech called on the forum participants, who represented primarily environmental non-profits, to take on Puget Sound as our generation's responsibility, that we "cannot run from this challenge, we cannot wait for others to lead. We must act now." He committed King County government to be a model for addressing its impacts on the Sound and to contribute aggressively to the Sound's recovery.

Our Generation's Responsibility

Keynote Address:
Selection Forum on Restoring Puget Sound
Thursday, September 14, 2005

Picture for a moment our region 25 years from now. We will be bigger, of course, and more bustling. And while that will put strains on our relationship with the environment, it does not have to be a death sentence for the unique ecosystems in which we live.

In fact, it must not be. We have the power to plan our growth with foresight, and manage it with intelligence, so long as we have the will to correct on our past oversights and strengthen our legacy of environmental protection. We can live well, and live in harmony with nature.

Here is what I see when I envision this area in 2030: a cluster of vibrant, growing, well ordered communities that preserve our high quality of life and coexist in harmony with our spectacular natural landscapes.

I see our majestic snow-capped mountains anchoring our horizon and towering over valleys still lush with green space.

And I see the waters of perhaps our greatest natural treasure, the Puget Sound, as not just cleaner than they are now, but crystalline. I see an aquatic paradise free of chemical contaminants and sewage, but bursting with fish and wildlife.

Puget Sound is critical to King County's quality of life. The Sound is part of our transportation system and our ecosystem; it is part of our economy, and a resource that brings money, jobs and tremendous pleasure to the citizens of King County. It is what defines our region and our County.

Cleaning up Puget Sound is our responsibility. We cannot run from this challenge, we cannot wait for others to lead the way. We must act now on this challenge.

Most of you in this room know that we have faced challenges of this type before. King County has been a leader since the clean up of Lake Washington 40 years ago. In fact, this October, we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Renton Treatment Plant which was a single project that made a massive difference in cleaning up the lake.

Five years ago, we stepped up to lead the salmon recovery partnership in the Puget Sound Region and have worked closely with Bill Ruckelshaus and Shared Strategy every since to reach a significant milestone in that effort this July with the submission of the Chinook salmon recovery plan to the federal government.

Now, King County seeks to be the catalyst to protect and restore Puget Sound, because a cleaner Sound is a common value that we all share.

Just as we did with salmon recovery, we will help lead the effort to unite a coalition of federal, state, university, local governments, utilities, tribes, environmental organizations and citizens to save a resource that is at the core of our quality of life.

In July, the Governor challenged us to be bold and action-oriented, and to that, we say; Governor, we are ready for that challenge. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that this is our generation's responsibility that we must act on now.

This will take a determined long term effort because Puget Sound is in trouble.

• The Sound now experiences reduced and unhealthy fish, bird, animal, and the Puget Sound orcas are the most contaminated whales in the world,
• the Hood Canal is running out of oxygen
• Puget Sound beaches are closed to shell fish harvest, for recreation, tribal use and commercial harvest that produces jobs
• A total of 37 animals occurring in Puget Sound are currently listed either federally or by the state as endangered, threatened, or a species of concern due to declines in abundance.
• Puget Sound has lost 70% of its estuarine habitat and there is an increased dominance of invasive (non-native) plants and animals.

These indicators all point to the Sound's declining health.

While an assemblage of non-profits, local, state and federal agencies are right now hard at work toward the study and protection of the Sound, our analysis points out one fundamental issue that must be addressed collectively, that we need to work together!

There is much good work by good people being done, but we are losing the battle.

There are too many independent and partially aligned efforts that, if connected, could achieve our common goal: a sustainable and protected Puget Sound.

We know what needs to be done and so many of you in this room are working on critical parts of these actions right now: The Puget Sound Action Team, The Nearshore Group, the University of Washington and many other state and federal agencies are making progress in determining what problems face the Sound. The studies tell us that we must:

• Conserve and restore salmon, marine fish, marine bird, and marine mammal populations.
• Coordinate Water Supply and Wastewater Operations.
• Mitigate Past and Present Shoreline Development.
• Modernize Storm water Management and Combined Sewer and Storm water Discharges.
• Update on-site Septic Systems.
• Clean up contaminated Sediment.
• Implement Oil Spills Measures.
• Stop Ship Discharges.
• Prevent the importation of Invasive Species.
• And evaluate the medium and long-term (20+ years) impacts on water resources from global warming/climate change.

As County Executive for 8 years, I have felt it was important to lead by example. To that end, King County government has the ability to directly impact many of the necessary actions for restoration of the Sound.

And, as I told the Governor, we are ready to outline detailed actions and tasks and to offer King County as a model for addressing our impacts on the Sound and our ability contribute aggressively to its recovery. Here is what we are already doing:

• We are building new treatment plants at Brightwater, Carnation, Vashon
• Our Existing treatment system continues to protect the Sound, keep Lake Washington clean and reuses energy and biosolids
• Our CAO takes the steps needed to protect our fish, wildlife, water quality and habitat
• King County's Storm water program is a model regionally and nationally and we look forwards to working with the Department of Ecology on making the next cycle stormwater permits more protective of Puget Sound and our rivers, lakes and streams.
• In a great partnership with the Department of Ecology we are taking a regional leadership role in developing an updated Shoreline Master Program
• We are aggressively looking at methods to produce more reclaimed water and innovative ways to use it. We hope that statewide goals should be set for the beneficial use of water that is now being discharged into Puget Sound and other waters.
• We are leading a regional water supply planning effort that is critical to ensure that we have adequate water for our citizens and its use doesn't harm our streams, lakes rivers and groundwater
• We are a leader in contaminated sediment cleanup in Elliott Bay and Duwamish with our partners from the State, tribes, federal government and industry.
• We are prepared to serve as a pilot for mitigation optimization, a concept that if successfully implemented could mean that some of the millions we spend annually on mitigation for capital projects could contribute to restoring the Sound.
• Our regional Industrial and Household Hazardous waste programs have worked for years to keep pollutants out of our markets, our wastewater and our environment

But, as we will learn today from our colleagues from Michigan, Florida and Louisiana, leading nationally recognized recovery efforts, this requires action from many others outside local or regional government.

And, most importantly, we must build a campaign that galvanizes the public to see the Puget Sound recovery as an urgent issue worth directing public, private and personal resources and actions toward a single unified goal of a restored and protected Puget Sound.

Our campaign which might be called "Sound Forever" must:

• Define the problems facing the Puget Sound in a way that the public can understand;
• Develop a unified Puget Sound Recovery plan to address the problems with real and achievable outcomes; and
• Create a single entity responsible for and capable of implementing the recovery plan

The last point is critical. My friend Kathy Fletcher has described our efforts to date as "random acts of kindness." We need to move now towards a unified plan that leads to coordinated and prioritized acts restoration and protection.

I want to commend the Governor for her wisdom in tasking the talented and dedicated Bill Ruckelshaus to once more take on an enormous challenge for our community.

I also want to thank Bill again for his leadership and dedication to our State's environmental health. As the leader of Shared Strategy, which is itself a national model for environmental restoration, Bill is the perfect person to help bring a focus to Puget Sound recovery.

I want to also thank our delegation and particularly Congressman Norm Dicks who has included $2 million in the federal budget to get us started. We need to show Norm how that seed money can grow the groundswell for Puget Sound action. It is through the development of a credible plan of action that we will convince the Federal Government that our region is serious about restoring Puget Sound and that the nation should be as well.

Let's not be timid today, let's not be shy about talking about what needs to happen and who needs to do it. Let's be bold and challenge ourselves to leave today with the outline for action. Many of the right people are in the room to get a good start on where we go.

There are many distractions in today's complex world but the recovery of Puget Sound is one effort that we cannot be distracted from.

I am confident that with a clear plan for recovery that over time we will engender the type of support that has been directed to the Everglades, Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and the Louisiana Coastline.

I would like to commend the organizers of this forum for bringing in these national experts share their wisdom about the best methods to make this vision a reality.

More information: Salmon conservation and recovery in King County