By Rosette Royale
Real Change
January 10, 2007
Every morning, LeeAnne Beres performs the same ritual: She walks along the shores of Alki Beach. Occasionally, she’ll be gazing out to the water when the head of a sea otter breaks the waves. Or perhaps it will be a sea lion, or the dorsal fin of a dolphin. “It renews my soul,” says Beres, executive director of Earth Ministry, an organization that mobilizes the Christian community to play an important role in creating a just, sustainable future.
But the renewal comes from what is visible to her, on the surface. Below the waves, she’s aware, is a body of water in trouble, with sea life — orcas, octopi, eelgrass, eels, and more — succumbing to pollutants and toxins.
It’s this dual vision of the Puget Sound — of rejuvenating fount, of poisoned well — that’s leading Beres and her Earth Ministry, composed of 150 congregations statewide, to commit resources to help protect the Sound. Says Beres, “Many people of faith want to do the right thing.”
When it comes to caring for the Sound, they are not alone. Earth Ministry is one of 21 organizations that make up the Washington Environmental Council, a coalition of groups intent on assessing and improving the state’s physical fitness. Together, the council has crafted what it calls Priorities for a Healthy Washington 2007, a list of four commonly agreed upon legislative proposals focusing on environmental protections: saving the Sound; eliminating toxic flame retardants; pursuing energy independence through the creation of new biofuel feedstocks and reduction of fuel consumption and costs for state fleets; and a $100 million, two-year investment for the preservation of 133 places for parks and wildlife. With this legislative session still in its infancy, the priorities will be presented to a legislature that’s being viewed as more favorable to environmental issues than in the past.
For the Sound, the group wants the state to create an effective overseer and regulator that will hold culprits responsible for damaging the habitat’s health. Speaking of the council’s efforts to press for Sound-friendly legislation, Naki Stevens, director of programs for People for Puget Sound, says, “What we need is an agency with some teeth.”
Stevens says that there are already a good number of state laws, for example, that control stormwater runoff. Even so, she says, the state has yet to gain any true handle on runoff and, as a result, the populations of some fish species are declining and precious habitat is being destroyed. No agency, she laments, really takes it upon itself to enforce laws already on the books. “No wonder the Sound is going down the tubes,” says Stevens.
Cleaning up the Sound has been on the Washington Environmental Council’s radar for some time. Last year, the council jump-started an effort to bring greater overall health to the Northwest estuary, an area stretching from the waters off Whidbey Island down to Olympia, where sea- and freshwater intermingle in a tidal dance.
The council’s legislative mettle was proven last November, with their work in helping to defeat I-933 — a proposal that would have rolled back a decade’s worth of environmental protections — and the passage of I-937, a clean-energy initiative.
The Sound’s health has also been on Gov. Christine Gregoire’s mind, too. As part of her current budget proposal, the governor wants to earmark $220 million over the next two years for eradicating toxins, restoring damaged shorelines, upgrading septic systems, and, yes, reducing stormwater runoff. The funds, which will also go toward creating a new governance system to ensure greater accountability, are being seen as an investment in revitalizing the Sound by 2020.
Looking at and determining the viability of the Sound in 2007 means viewing the entire area as an ecosystem, says Jan Newton, principal oceanographer of the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington. In any ecosystem, she notes, you can’t merely identify one of its interlocking parts. When considering the Sound’s fitness, she says it’s worth taking into account species habitat loss, lingering toxins from past industrial build-up, and deforestation, not to mention the exploitation of species’ stocks, which snips away at the entire food web, from orcas on down. Newton says the vigor of the Sound is akin to human health, with both indicating, in their own respects, the vitality of a certain body. “It’s not just one thing that makes you healthy,” she says. “It’s many things.”
And it’s the pairing of the ethical and moral, says Beres, that’s led Earth Ministry to support environmental priorities for Sound protection. Caring for all of Creation is an attitude she says any person can get behind.
“If you can see [the Sound] as something sacred,” says Beres, “you’re much more likely to take care of it.”
[Learn More]
To find out more about the Washington Environmental Council, check out their website: www.wecprotects.org
[Get Involved]
There will be a Healthy Washington Lobby Day coming up on Feb. 14, all day, in Olympia. To find out how to participate, visit www.pugetsound.org/lobbyday or contact Rein Attemann at (206)382-7007.