Many factors threaten the clean water and air that is so essential to the region’s health and way of life. Pollution-driven climate change may be diminishing regional snowpacks and raising water temperatures, trends that could significantly hurt water supply as well as native salmon and other underwater creatures.
Growth brings more industrial operations, pesticides and human waste, all of which compromise water quality. Development destroys low-elevation forests that help cleanse water and air and prevent flooding. While some local air pollutants have decreased over the past decade, levels of particulate matter (from diesel, vehicle emissions and wood-burning) are still too high. Air pollutants hurt vegetation, ruin scenery and likely cause illnesses ranging from asthma to cancer. Furthermore, pollution is not evenly distributed. People who live around the region’s most polluted sites are disproportionately poor and minority.
- Highlight water quality, one of the environmental topics most likely to interest the average person, to engage people and organizations.
- Help neighborhoods with fewer political or financial resources protect themselves from toxic substances in the air, water and ground.
- Support programs that enforce existing rules about toxins through monitoring, detection and documentation.
- Support long-term, campaigns that promote comprehensive environmental solutions, rather than issue-by-issue approaches.
- Expand research and monitoring of the Puget Sound, especially projects that involve and inform citizens.
- The Environmental Coalition of South Seattle helps businesses and residents–many of whom are not native English-speakers–prevent pollution, conserve energy, manage hazardous wastes and clean up contaminated properties.
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Puget Soundkeeper Alliance tracks down and works to stop discharge of toxic pollutants in Puget Sound waters. It is the only organization that regularly monitors and patrols the Sound to detect and document sources of illegal pollution.
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The Washington Toxics Coalition is working, through education and advocacy, to establish a model statewide policy of eliminating an entire class of chemicals, instead of the traditional approach of tackling them one by one. |
