from Gregoire takes first swipe at huge Sound cleanup, by Warren Cornwall, Seattle Times, 14 dec 06

“… in releasing a $220 million, two-year proposal for cleaning up the Sound, Gregoire made a cautious step toward what she has said is a top initiative in her administration. It’s a plan calculated to build momentum for a broader cleanup in coming years while also winning over a public that appears lukewarm to ambitious and costly efforts.

Creosote logs are an easy target - old piers and rail platforms - but are now, and have been for decades, environments of marine life and birds. Seeing the gulls gather for an evening as they swoop in low and stall for the updraft to a creosote piling, as at Quilcene by the dozens, does little to urge that they be removed by other than natural causes - unless you are a barge and towboat contractor (but beware to burn drift in your campfire). - JF

“The money she wants to spend would be about a 17 percent increase compared to the two previous years, for a wide range of efforts from restoring an estuary of the Snohomish River to hauling creosote-soaked logs off beaches. But it represents a fraction of the estimated $18 billion to $27 billion it could cost to achieve Gregoire’s goal of completely restoring the Sound to health by 2020.

” ‘We have to show the public that, in fact, Puget Sound is sick,’ Gregoire told reporters Wednesday at a news conference in a building at Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park overlooking the Sound.

” … one of the divers, Mike Racine of Snoqualmie, offered Gregoire a graphic account of what he sees spilling into the Sound when he dives beneath the water around Seattle after a hard rain: all the debris and pollution washed off nearby streets and homes.”

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