In this issue:
Agreement on an Action Agenda to protect and restore Puget Sound is helping bring an influx of federal money to the effort, including a pending $50 million appropriation currently making its way through Congress.
Adoption of the Action Agenda has also caused other states to look to the Puget Sound Partnership as a model for how estuary restoration should be done.
Gov. Chris Gregoire, who has made the recovery of Puget Sound a cornerstone of her administration, applauded the funding and the recognition other states are giving the Partnership, whose creation she proposed.
“None of this would be happening without the leadership of Congressman Norm Dicks, who has been fighting for decades to put Puget Sound, the nation’s second-largest estuary, on par with the Chesapeake and the Great Lakes,” Gregoire said. “Thanks to his hard work, we are being viewed as a national model.”
Dicks, D-Belfair, is chair of the House Interior & Environment Appropriations Subcommittee that Wednesday approved the $50 million appropriation for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The funding is part of a $32 billion bill that has just begun working its way through Congress.
The EPA money is meant to be used for monitoring recovery of the Nisqually Estuary, cleaning up toxic waste in the Duwamish River and other sites throughout the Sound, and fighting stormwater, which has been identified as the largest threat to the health of Puget Sound.
In recent months, Puget Sound has also been the recipient of tens of millions of federal economic stimulus dollars. Projects supported by the stimulus money include $54 million for work necessary to remove the Elwha Dam, which will open up 70 miles of habitat along the Elwha River, as well as $3.6 million to remove dikes as part of the 762-acre Nisqually Estuary restoration process.
Gregoire and the Legislature also recently approved operating and capital budgets that include approximately $504 million for various state agencies to perform Puget Sound recovery projects, all of which are identified as priorities in the Action Agenda.
Thank you for working with us to protect and restore Puget Sound!
Please visit the Web site for more information. Comments and questions may be sent by replying to this e-mail or by contacting us directly at:
Puget Sound Partnership
P.O. Box 40900, Olympia, Washington 98504-0900
Toll-free: 800.54.SOUND
Phone: 360.725.5444
E-mail: actionagenda@psp.wa.gov
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