Puget Sound plan: $12 billion over 13 years

A panel appointed by Gov. Christine Gregoire has finalized its plan for a 13-year across-the-board effort to clean up Puget Sound, with stronger emphasis on storm runoff — a critical issue as rainfall washes toxins off hillside roads and rooftops into the Sound.

Perhaps more than any other issue faced by the region, stormwater runoff exemplifies the clash between environment and economy.

Population growth — an additional 1.4 million people are expected to move to the region by 2020 — means more roads, parking lots and housing developments.

That means more asphalt and concrete channeling untreated stormwater into the watersheds and the Sound.

The final report of the Puget Sound Partnership is being released today by partnership officials and Gregoire, who assigned them the task last year. It coincides with Gregoire's announcement today of her proposals for finding billions of dollars to mount the campaign and carry it through 2020.

The report from more than two dozen partners from the building trades; ports; environmentalists; city, state, federal and tribal governments estimates that restoring health to the Sound will take roughly $6 billion in new money at all levels of government through 2020. That's in addition to the approximately $6 billion expected over that period from ongoing programs.

Previous cleanup efforts have bogged down, but the partnership — and the governor — say they are determined to pioneer a cooperative approach that can restore health to the Sound even as new arrivals threaten by sheer numbers the beauty that draws them here.

"People are coming. We can't build a fence here," said Bill Ruckelshaus, the nation's first Environmental Protection Agency administrator and a co-chairman of the partnership along with Gregoire, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission leader Billy Frank Jr. and state Ecology Director Jay Manning.

The panel's October draft report came under fire from a group of scientists and engineers for its sketchy stormwater recommendations, an issue that continued to be contentious as the final report was prepared.

When the partnership proposed a task force to focus on the complexity and importance of dealing with runoff, there was last-minute scuffling over a perceived singling-out of the building industry. The outcome: a task force with a more general focus on water-quality issues.

Storm runoff carries chemicals, oil, garbage and even pharmaceuticals from homes, parking lots and highways into the Sound.

"It's the issue most closely linked to land use and population growth," said Kathy Fletcher of People for Puget Sound, the lone environmental activist on the panel.

"One thing we need to do to minimize the problem of stormwater is to minimize sprawl, and that's a biggie."