State's Puget Sound Partnership Launches Education Campaign
Kitsap Sun - September 16, 2009
by Christopher Dunagan

“Puget Sound Starts Here” is the title for an educational campaign launched Wednesday by the Puget Sound Partnership in concert with more than 300 organizations, businesses and public agencies.

“What we’re trying to do is take a complicated issue and show simple actions that will keep Puget Sound clean,” said Paul Bergman, communications director for the partnership.

Getting 4 million people to do one simple thing would make far more difference for Puget Sound’s health than expensive cleanup programs, he said.

On an average day, 140,000 pounds of toxic chemicals enter Puget Sound, according to calculations by the Washington Department of Ecology. About three-fourths of that pollution results from tiny spills that could be avoided or cleaned up.

A six-week media blitz on cable television will address common actions that pollute stormwater, streams and eventually Puget Sound. The $200,000 ad campaign will encourage people to:

• Use commercial carwashes to keep dirty, soapy water from going into a storm drain;
• Fix car leaks or use cardboard to catch oil drips;
• Put compost on lawns to reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides;
• And pick up pet waste with a plastic bag and place it in the trash.

While the messages may be overly simplified for some viewers, the commercials will encourage people to visit a new Web site, www.pugetsoundstartshere.org

to delve more deeply into the problems and potential solutions, Bergman said.

If this fall’s television commercials are successful, another round of ads will be scheduled next spring, Bergman said.

David Dicks, director of the Puget Sound Partnership, said the declining health of Puget Sound is threatening the regional economy and quality of life. For example, fishing and shellfish industries, valued at $147 million a year, are in decline, while the $9.5 billion tourism industry is threatened.

“Puget Sound is dying, and many of us don’t realize that our own actions are contributing to its decline,” Dicks said in a written statement. “The ‘Puget Sound Starts Here’ campaign illustrates the severity of the problem and explains how each of us can be part of the solution by changing a few everyday activities.”

While almost everyone cherishes Puget Sound for its beauty and natural resources, only about one-fourth of area residents realize the waterway is in serious trouble, he said. Many people believe stormwater gets treated somehow, but nearly all of it just flows into the nearest stream or waterway.

“Everyone can take action to help protect and restore Puget Sound,” said Jay Manning, a Kitsap native who heads the Washington Department of Ecology. “As we’ve shown with recycling, it simply means doing things differently than we did before.”

 

*This list compiled from a variety of sources. The PSCWA is not responsible for its accuracy.