KOMO News - Feds Step Up Efforts to Protect Puget Sound Marine Life

News Article

By Matt Markovitch

Local political leaders are calling it "an historic agreement" to restore Puget Sound marine life.

President Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality announced on Tuesday a new memorandum of understanding that directs several federal agencies to devote resources and money to salmon recovery and protecting tribal treaty rights.

The memorandum creates a Puget Sound Federal Task Force to identify priorities for restoring one of the nation's largest estuaries.

"It's a great day for Puget Sound," declared Governor Jay Inslee at a press conference with federal, state and tribal officials.

"Today we can say, we are lining up the resources of America to preserve and protect America's most beautiful inland sea and that's Puget Sound," said Inslee.

Many echoed Inslee's feeling but, upon closer look, it was a "great day' because bureaucrats agreed to take action after years of inaction.

"When you look at the silos that many of our agencies work in, the inability to talk across their borders, this says they are going to do that" said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of President Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. "They are committed to working together to improve the quality of the Puget Sound."

In addition to the task force and the memorandum, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency announced more than $600 million in federal funding commitments for habitat restoration, storm water runoff, shellfish sustainability as well as improved fish passage on the White and Skokomish rivers.

"It's the first time we've had the top directors of the federal agencies sign an agreement, a binding agreement that they will develop an action plan that they will restore the Puget Sound," said Congressman Denny Heck of Olympia, who also co-chairs the Congressional Puget Sound Recovery Caucus. "We've never had that before."

"In order for us to reverse the tide of damage that's been going on in Puget Sound, we're going to need everybody," said Leonard Forsman, chairman of the Suquamish Tribe.

The task force has 90 days to come up with an action plan for Congress to act upon because not all the funds needed for the proposed projects have been allocated.

Source