Puget Sound Partnership

The Puget Sound Partnership is a Washington State agency, focused on the restoration of The Puget Sound. It coordinates other state agencies by providing them with common sustainability goals, directing investments, and developing empirically supported strategies in technocratic cooperation with organizational and academic partners. It employs 72 people and utilizes a $61.25 million budget that supplements a $19.5 million state appropriation with funds from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and grants from Washington's Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration fund. It also funds and maintains the Puget Sound Vital Signs Survey.

It is provisioned for by RCW 90.71.210, and was created in 2007.

Organization

The Puget Sound Partnership reports to the Governor of Washington through an executive and seven member leadership council appointed directly; an advisory Ecosystem Coordination Board drawn from associated governments, businesses, and environmental organizations; a science panel and a salmon recovery council, both chosen by the leadership council directly.

These advisory boards oversee external operations, ecosystem recovery, science and evaluation, and internal operations.

The Leadership council develops policy and planning capacity, enunciated in its periodic action agenda. The Science Council cooperates with outside organizations to maintain and interpret the Puget Sound Vital Signs survey. The Ecosystem Coordination board provides advisory capacity to the PSP, as it disseminates PSP's recommendations to the external organizations where members hold positions. And the Salmon Recovery council tracks legislative activity and implements policy to oversee regional salmon recovery efforts, environmental regulation, urban development, and other strategic goals outlined in the action agenda.

Strategy, Goals, and Tactics.

The 2022-2026 Action agenda names five goals of note, The development of a healthy human population; sustainability in human quality of life; cultivation of a thriving food web; integrity and function of estuary habitat; and healthier water quality. It then lays out five benchmarks that signify success in these goals: Increase in the resident Orca population; Chinook Salmon population count; water contaminant level; eelgrass area; commercial shellfish acres; and swimming tourism.

To achieve this goals, and meet these benchmarks, the action agenda names 26 Strategies of cooperation with relevant agencies.

1. Smart Growth: Setting and developing urban development standards.
2. Working Lands: Agricultural regulation and carbon markets.
3. Healthy Shorelines: To regulate zoning, infrastructure, and construction standards.
4. Riparian Areas: To manage woodlands surrounding fish habitat, with a goal of carbon sequestration.
5. Floodplains and Estuaries: To preserve and restore wetlands, in cooperation with tribal and federal authorities.
6. Fish Passage Barriers: To reestablish salmon runs by removing hydropower dams, regulating culverts and drainways, and promoting alternative energy.
7. Freshwater Availability: To restore streamflow and manage potable water supply.
8. Toxic Chemical Pollution: To promote the development of new materials, and phase out consumption of toxic chemicals through regulation.
9. Water Pollution Source Identification and Correction: To control fecal contamination levels from animal and human sources, primarily agriculture and homelessness.
10. Stormwater Runoff and Legacy Contamination: Manages infrastructure retrofitting, redevelopment of highly polluted sites, and watershed planning.
11. Wastewater Systems: Regulates sewer, septic, and stormwater drainage together with wastewater treatment facilities.
12. Working Lands runoff: Reduces runoff pollution in agricultural and timber production sites.
13. Oil Spills: Manages compliance with the Northwest Area Contingency Plan in coordination with the US Coast Guard. Regulates maritime shipping.
14. Invasive Species: Tracks and coordinates response to nonnative species population growth.
15. Harvest Hatchery and Adaptive Management of Salmon Recovery: Coordinates native tribes, the NOAA, and the WDFW to maintain hatchery population and fisheries.
16. Submerged Aquatic Vegetation: Monitors diversity and volume of marine plant life, limits kelp harvesting.
17. Responsible Boating: Educates and regulates recreational vessel owners and operators.
18. Awareness of Effects of Climate Change: Funds research, provides education to target populations and businesses, coordinates private efforts to combat climate change.
19. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Carbon Sequestration: Develops regulations regarding gas emissions, evaluates carbon sequestration in forests, marine vegetation, and habitat restoration projects.
20. Climate Adaptation and Resilience: Updates Growth Management Act reports and promotes sustainable development goals.
21. Place attachment: Integrates mental health into the Vital Signs Survey, oversees protection of geographic sites.
22. Outdoor Recreation and Stewardship: Promotes and directs recreational activities, in collaboration with tourism organizations and tribal entities.
23. Good Governance: Increases engagement with minority populations, holds advisory meetings with community groups.
24. Cultural Practices and Local Foods: Educates underserved populations on harvesting practices.
25. Economic Benefits: Promotes environmentally friendly business practices, develops restoration projects to achieve equitable job creation.
26. Human health: Directs investment and research to reduce pollution exposure in underserved areas.

To achieve the above goals, the implementation plan lays out Five strategic interventions:

1. Funding: Aiming to diversify funding sources and maximize existing funds, the PSP engages in environmental advocacy, develops cross organizational pilot projects, and produces economic reports. The Water 100 Project is a program exemplary of this strategy.
2. Strategic Leadership and Collaboration: Coordinates leadership conferences across the Salish Sea region, with special consideration for indigenous tribes inhabiting the US and Canada. Drafts environmental policy for the WA State Governor. Ensures Diversity Equity and Inclusion integration with partner agencies.
3. Research and Monitoring: Generates and directs funding for scientific research in the fields of adaptive management, climate change, interdisciplinary development strategies, and other relevant fields. Links tribal research foundations to other environmental science programs.
4. Education Partnerships: Links prek-16 education to climate action networks and develops curriculum, to mold the workforce in support of a clean energy transition.
5. Stewardship and Motivating Action: Utilizing a public health approach, the PSP monitors the Sound Behavior Index and engages in behavior change policymaking, to study and alter sociocultural relations to environmental action.

References

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