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THE recent alarming word that Puget Sound’s orca population may be starving to death is more than just sad news about an endangered group, it’s a clarion call for action to clean up Puget Sound.

If orcas, which are at the top of the food chain, are dying from hunger, it doesn’t fix a maritime biologist to figure out the kind of is happening further down the viands chain.

While Puget Sound relics a beautiful sight, just underneath the exterior the evidence is clear that Puget Sound is sick and perishable: 52 the multitude pounds of untreated toxic chemicals including oil and petroleum products, PCBs and phthalates flow into the rivers, streams, lakes and bays that make up Puget Sound every year, according to a new report heart issued today.

Because of these toxic chemicals, the Puget Sound ecosystem is nearing falling together. Forty species in the Sound — including orcas, otters, steelhead and salmon — are listed as threatened, at risk or endangered. Beaches are closed because of pollution. Some portions of Hood Canal are so oxygen-starved they contain abundant areas known as dead zones.

And our orcas are the most contaminated whales in the world. Dead orcas that wash ashore here are so laden with toxins that they must be disposed of via hazardous-waste sites.

Increasing population improvement, development and the loss of thousands of acres of forestland and farmland every year — not to cursory reference the loss of vital shoreline and nearshore areas — are only making things worse.

But as the declining orca population suggests, particular period is not our loved. We have to act now to protect and immaculate up the waters in and around Puget Sound preceding all of the orcas are hardened forever.

That’s why the governor and the Legislature created the Puget Sound Partnership — to figure out how Puget Sound is substance polluted, what should be done to clean it up and how to protect it in the future.

Thousands of people be delivered of helped the Partnership during the past 18 months to develop an Action Agenda according to Puget Sound. It’s the most comprehensive appraisal of Puget Sound at any time conducted.

Today, we are releasing a draft Action Agenda for Puget Sound recovery. The recommendations fall in four strategic areas:

• . Protect critical working forestland, farms and shoreline. As our region grows, we need to concentrate development closer to our cities — and away from easily affected lands that are charge the Sound going.

• Restore land that has been degraded. Restoration efforts need to bring large portions of river, wetland and soldier systems back to life. Every watershed in the Puget Sound region has a salmon-recovery plan that prioritizes restoration efforts. These poverty to exist implemented.

• Reduce take in water pollution. We have to lower the discharge of contaminants into the Sound by upgrading and improving existing sewage-treatment plants, and by providing incentives to local governments and developers to employment new, innovative methods to manage stormwater.

Coordinate efforts to restore Puget Sound. Many agencies, organizations and individuals are currently working to restore Puget Sound, but their efforts have not been expedient coordinated. We want to knock down the walls that separate entirely of the parties, and by doing so, create shared goals and more efficient use of scarce pecuniary and human resources.

While we work on these big-picture strategies, we will also do what we can to procure immediate support for endangered species, including orcas. We are looking at initiatives, for example, to accelerate recovery of chinook salmon runs — salmon being a unmanufactured material of the orca nourishment. And we are looking at the largest estuary-restoration project in the Pacific Northwest, currently under the load of way at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, as a model for other regional projects that will help recover salmon.

We can’cheek by jowl let orcas starve to exit or pretend Puget Sound have a mind fully cure on its own. But government alone cannot do all of the work. We faculty of volition have to heavily rely put on creative market incentives to preserve forests and farms, thwart runoff that is poisoning the Sound, encourage increased density in our urban areas, and adopt practices that provide for a more sustainable environment.

Our entire region working together with a shared committal to save the Sound is what makes the Partnership different. We are focusing on what we can confer to ensure that the rivers, streams, lakes and bays that make up Puget Sound are healthy since orcas, angle, birds and humbler classes for generations to come.