The 2021 State of the Sound report shows our collective efforts to protect and restore Puget Sound have made a difference—but we still need to do more.

OLYMPIA — Today, the Puget Sound Partnership released its biennial State of the Sound report, which assesses the health of the Puget Sound ecosystem and progress towards its recovery. While Puget Sound is not doing well, there are signs we are making progress. “When tribal, federal, state, and local decision-makers work together to protect and restore Puget Sound, the ecosystem improves.” While the results of our collective recovery work give us hope, we must “…redouble our efforts to ensure the scale of our response matches the scale and urgency of the problem.” 

Global leaders are meeting this week in Glasgow for COP26 to discuss how to make real

commitments to address climate change. As the 2021 State of the Sound shows, changing climate and ocean conditions are already influencing the Puget Sound ecosystem and the economy, health, and wellbeing of communities here and around the world. The message is clear—we need to take action now.

“The 2021 State of the Sound shows that collaboration and partnership within the recovery community have made a difference for the ecosystem, particularly in areas where we have restored estuaries or floodplains or prevented the conversion of habitat,” said Laura Blackmore, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership. “But we need to do more. We have to take decisive action now and invest in salmon recovery, habitat restoration, and building the coalition necessary to achieve a healthy and resilient Puget Sound.”

In their letter within the 2021 State of the Sound, the Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council outlines five bold actions that we should take now to support a resilient Puget Sound ecosystem: 1) Work with the Governor’s Office to make Puget Sound and salmon recovery the cornerstone of Governor Inslee’s third term; 2) Establish a new funding source and increase funding for habitat restoration, road retrofits that reduce polluted runoff, and wastewater treatment systems; 3) Revise the State Growth Management Act and Shoreline Management Act with a Net Ecological Gain standard; 4) Broaden the coalition demanding a healthy Puget Sound; and 5) Implement systems of accountability to ensure our investments in Puget Sound recovery deliver the results we need.

As the report shows, most of the Puget Sound Vital Signs—measures of ecosystem health—are staying the same or getting worse, and few of them have reached the ecosystem recovery targets that the Partnership set for 2020. Only five Vital Sign indicators are near or at their 2020 recovery targets, with 23 indicators below their targets.

In the report, the Leadership Council presents key challenges that have hindered the progress of the recovery effort. The report also includes reasons why the Partnership is hopeful about the future of the recovery effort and our ability to solve difficult problems with collective action. These include the ongoing support of our federal delegation, the historic 2021 state legislative session, the collaboration shaping the 2022-2026 Action Agenda into a recovery plan responding to the scale of the challenge, and finally the passionate commitment we see across the recovery community. 

The State of the Sound’s call to action from the Leadership Council to the entire recovery community offers detailed actions that we can all take to accelerate the recovery of Puget Sound. The call to action emphasizes the ways in which we can do more to protect and restore habitat, clean up the water, cool our rivers and streams to improve salmon survival, and ensure there is local food to harvest. 

The Partnership has published the 2021 State of the Sound as a website that includes a downloadable version of the report with appendices. The State of the Sound website also features an accompanying video for the report.