Founded in 1984 as the Puget Sound Alliance (PSA), Soundkeeper was the first grassroots organization to focus exclusively on protecting the marine environment of Puget Sound.
Initially, PSA fought successfully for secondary wastewater treatment at West Point in Seattle and a Puget Sound Management Plan. After rebranding as Puget Soundkeeper Alliance several years later, the organization hired Ken Moser as its first Soundkeeper in 1990 and began patrolling the waters of the Sound by boat.
Founding Board Member Tom Putnam—still a member of the Soundkeeper Board of Directors—speaks with Puget Soundkeeper about the early years. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Puget Soundkeeper: I’ve heard people describe the successful push to implement secondary wastewater treatment at the West Point water treatment facility (in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle) as Puget Soundkeeper’s first big “win.” Is that where it all started? What led up to that victory?
Tom Putnam: I’ll go back to the original days of what was then the Puget Sound Alliance. In 1982, a local environmentalist named Kathy Fletcher was interested in getting political and public support to increase Puget Sound advocacy. She wanted to have a state agency that directly addressed problems in the Sound, and she formed a group called Puget Sound Alliance. It consisted of about 60 board members who represented mostly environmental groups and agencies. I represented Audobon at that point.
The stated goal of the Puget Sound Alliance at the time was to gain secondary treatment at West Point. The facility was still using primary treatment and there was a big political push to get it to secondary treatment.[i] That was achieved, eventually, along with the treatment of dredge spoils[ii] and the establishment of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority as an entity housed in the governor’s office.
PSK: What happened to Puget Sound Alliance after the formation of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority?
TP: Kathy was appointed the head of PSWQA and brought her best people to the government authority. We were left with a skeleton crew, though Polly Dyer served as PSA’s president at the time. She helped establish North Cascades National Park, and added Shi Shi Beach to Olympic National Park, during her lifetime of conservation work. Then, one of our board members, Ken Pritchard, learned about Hudson Riverkeeper. That was the first of the Waterkeepers, hired by Hudson River fishermen.
PSK: What about Hudson Riverkeeper stood out to you at the time?
TP: We saw that the model was based on the Clean Water Act and we hadn’t focused on, or thought much about, the Act at the time. We flew out Long Island Soundkeeper Terry Backer and Hudson Riverkeeper John Cronin, and they gave us a presentation on their program. We were convinced, and hired the first Soundkeeper in about 1990, with almost no budget and no staff. We tried to reinvent PSA as Puget Soundkeeper. And we did it.
PSK: When did you feel like Puget Soundkeeper was standing on its own feet?
TP: We bought a patrol boat, and we started litigating. We won our first two cases with the help of Bobby Kennedy and the Sierra Club legal defense fund (now known as Earthjustice)[iii]. Sierra Club was one of the only lawyer teams working on environmental issues at the time. That was the real beginning of the Soundkeeper program.
PSK: What keeps you passionate about the Soundkeeper approach to saving the Sound?
TP: Puget Sound holds immense ecological significance and the Soundkeeper approach to litigation is a pivotal tool for protecting our unique marine ecosystem. The Clean Water Act helps us protect the entire watershed by holding polluters accountable for the damage they cause.
[i] In 1986, Puget Sound Alliance successfully pushed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology to require secondary treatment at municipal sewage treatment facilities in Puget Sound. The facilities were required to come into compliance by 1991.
[ii] In 1989, Puget Sound Alliance and six other environmental groups reached an out-of-court agreement with the U.S. Navy on the proposed Everett Navy Homeport. The agreement required the Navy use a less risky approach for removing toxic sediments and required tests for long-term effects on marine organisms.
[iii] Puget Soundkeeper reached a consent decree with the U.S. Navy’s Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which had been in violation of its pollution discharge permits since 1988. PSNS was required to implement best management practices and minimize pollution entering the impaired waterway.