As a former employee of People For Puget Sound I heard this was coming, but I'm not here to try to make excuses for them or gloss over problems. People For Puget Sound's internal problems are like those faced by ANY nonprofit, business or public agency when they reach a certain age. The dynamics of a group of people trying to work together toward a broad, long term goal is not a reflection on the capabilities of the individuals -- all of whom are in some way outstanding in their areas of expertise.
Now the team will be broken up, with some landing at other groups. People For Puget Sound as a brand and its most important policy programs will live on at WEC, with restoration work (there are on-the-ground projects all over the region to be maintained or completed, e.g. wetland restoration) moving to EarthCorps.
A larger issue is raised by a Daniel Jack Chasan piece at Crosscut, which asks "Has the Puget Sound fallen out of political favor?"
The way society decides to protect and restore Puget Sound manifests as public policy, which means it only remains as strong as the public momentum behind it. When the public's interest declines or shifts to other issues deemed more pressing, support for long running programs can lag. This has happened before -- read Chasan, there's no reason for me to show off my knowledge of the policy history.
The aftereffects of the Bush Recession have made the quest for jobs paramount in the public mind -- or at least in the political arena. If Puget Sound isn't your number one issue, it's understandable that everything not jobs fades into the background.
Even an issue like coal ports having an obviously environmental component is being framed, firstly, as being about whether or not we want those jobs, and secondly, will the coal trains be bad for local traffic.
Jay Inslee has only made quiet noises about environmental impacts of coal trains in his race for governor against Rob McKenna; and we can guess McKenna is going to use education as a club to beat down the opposition to cuts to every other part of the state budget. And Rick Larsen has made jobs more important than the environment as well. This is a troubling alignment, since we need a governor to work with the Congressional delegation to stop coal trains at the federal level; once a corporation decides to ship its coal to Washington on another corporation's trains, I doubt the state could stop it unilaterally due to interstate commerce.
Whatever happened to Green Jobs?
With People For Puget Sound going away, and arguably toothless for at least the past year, it's up to the remaining environmental organizations -- which aren't solely water-focused -- to pick up the slack yesterday.
To put a positive face on this transition, I hope all the members of People For Puget Sound's team see a chance to look at Puget Sound protection with fresh eyes, and find ways to shake up the activism paradigm. Rebuild the momentum, and never let it dip again.
Also:
Olympian: The mission is adrift
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