In 2017, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance won 6 successful Clean Water Act settlements which included $2,500 from Steeler, $50,000 from Rainier Petroleum, $40,000 from Lakehaven Utility-Lakota Wastewater Treatment Plant, $10,000 from Ace Galvanizing, $450,000 from BNSF Railway Coal Trains, and $70,000 from City of Tacoma – Industrial Pretreatment Program. These settlements required compliance measures and also funded $572,500 for the environmental benefit projects listed below.
Adopt a Stream Foundation
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Squires Landing Park Restoration
Project Description: Squire’s Landing Park is a 42-acre undeveloped parcel of land owned by the City of Kenmore located in the lower Swamp Creek drainage at its confluence with the Sammamish River near its outlet into Lake Washington. In 2012, the Washington Department of Ecology found that Swamp Creek violated state and federal water quality standards for dissolved oxygen, pH, and temperature which can be attributed to urbanization in the watershed increasing impervious surfaces and reducing forest cover. This project, led by the Adopt a Stream Foundation, will increase native plant species diversity, remove invasive blackberry and reed canary grass, improve shade, water filtration, provide both cover and complex edge habitat for rearing juvenile and migrating adult Chinook and coho salmon. In particular, this grant will expand on the 2 acres of Squires Landing Park that have already been restored forming a 50 ft riparian buffer at the confluence of Swamp Creek and the Sammamish river by adding an additional acre on the south bank of Swamp Creek, 50 ft wide and extending 870 ft upstream from the previously planted area.
Citizens for a Healthy Bay
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Puyallup River Watershed Restoration & Microplastic Citizen Science
Project Description: The Student Stewardship Conservation Project (SSCP) is an immersive, comprehensive environmental education program designed to benefit both students and the natural environments they live in. Through a combination of education, scientific data collection and hands-on habitat restoration, 700 middle school students will work toward the study and protection of critical wetland and riparian habitat within the Puyallup River watershed. Participating students, primarily underserved rural students and students of color, will perform 2,800 hours of restoration work, including removing 1,500 square feet of invasive plants, planting 700 native plants and installing seven bird boxes at critical habitat sites. Students will also collect and analyze data to create an extensive freshwater microplastic dataset. This project will simultaneously empower youth environmental stewards, amass a substantial dataset on aquatic plastics, create recreational community resources and directly benefit local waters through restoration actions.
City of Blaine
Amount Awarded: $20,000
Focus: Marine Park Reconstruction and Naturalization Project
Project Description: The City of Blaine is requesting funds to finish design drawings and acquire permits for Phase II of the Marine Park Reconstruction and Naturalization project. The City completed Phase I in 2015 which removed concrete rubble, broken asphalt and garbage and debris leaking out on the public beach and marine waters of Semiahmoo Bay. The haphazard rubble impeded public access to the water’s edge which detracts from the beach-goers experience and contributes point source pollution to human and marine environments. The City, with the help of a $50,000 grant from Washington State Department of Ecology’s Coastal Protection Program, removed the rubbish, and then reconstructed and naturalized over 400 feet of shoreline by installing sand, gravel cobbles, boulders, LWD, and native plants. The result was a clean enhanced public shoreline where there are no other accessible public beaches in central Blaine due to the physical separation of the Burlington Northern Railway along our coastline. Through this funding, the city will capitalize on the momentum generated from completing Phase I of the project. The city conducted a broad public survey as part of the Blaine Economic Strategic Initiative and found that the reconstruction the Marine Park shoreline was the number one capital project as voted on by the citizenry. The City also constructed the Marine Park Playground Project, which is a regional nautical themed playground completed in 2015 located right above the same subject shoreline. Today hundreds of families and children visit the Marine Park Playground, and while they can look out over the water, there is no physical access to the water edge due to the vast amounts of broken concrete and debris, which creates an attractive hazard for those daring enough to climb down the jumble of debris.
Climate Solutions
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Petroleum Runoff
Project Description: Climate Solutions’ Puget Sound Clean Project is working to fight our region’s number one source of stormwater pollution: petroleum runoff from fossil fuel powered vehicles. The project is working to accelerate the rapid adoption of electric transportation which will result in significant reductions to pollution in the Puget Sound and other bodies of water throughout the Northwest. The project is part of Climate Solutions’ larger effort to transition the Northwest to 100% clean energy, faster than anywhere else in the nation, and to leverage our clean electrical grid to electrify as many energy uses that we can for the built environment, industry, and transportation, which will be significantly beneficial to the health of Puget Sound.
Conservation Northwest
Amount Awarded: $20,000
Focus: Government Meadows Restoration
Project Description: Conservation Northwest proposes to work in coordination with the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and diverse local stakeholder groups on the first phase of watershed restoration in a heavily used and degraded landscape in the headwaters of the Upper White River watershed, which drains into Puget Sound. With funding from your foundation and leveraged support, we aim to restore several miles of illegal user-created motorized trails in the Government Meadows area off of Highway 410 that natural resource specialists have identified as high priorities for closure and restoration through a recent environmental analysis and travel management decision for federal lands in this area. The Upper White River watershed has been rated by the Forest Service for its “poor” watershed function due to high road density, sedimentation levels in the water, high stream temperatures, and lack of woody debris; all while providing habitat for three fish species federally listed as threatened: Puget Sound Chinook salmon, Puget Sound steelhead, and bull trout, with the spring chinook being the only remaining spring Chinook stock in the South Sound. Our proposed work in complement to implementation of adjacent roadway improvements in the field season of 2018 engages diverse interests in shared stewardship of a legal and sustainable access system, improves watershed health and hydrologic function, restores native habitat, and builds momentum and critical relationships necessary towards our efforts to develop a larger blueprint for restoration in this priority Puget Sound watershed over the next 2 years.
Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Wetland Restoration and Stewardship
Project Description: This funding will support an ambitious project that engages the Delridge community in the preservation and restoration of a natural habitat in a highly urbanized setting that is undergoing tremendous change due to residential development. The project will restore a wetland and improve water quality entering Longfellow Creek at the former SCL transfer station site, now known as Delridge Neighborhood Development Association’s “Wetland Restoration and Stewardship” project. The 20,000 sq ft parcel has three distinct zones, the wetland (7,144 sq ft), the footprint of the transfer station (5.000 sq ft) and the green space between (7,856 sq ft). This project preserves green space in Delridge and 1) provides needed green infrastructure, 2) provides a learning landscape for experiential educational opportunities for local area children, and 3) expands urban agriculture opportunities for community members and will improve access to healthy fruits and vegetables for Delridge residents. The project will require investment in green stormwater infrastructure, installation of a bio-filtration swale with boardwalk for access and circulation and many additional features such as observation posts, gathering areas and garden beds to support quiet observation and experiential learning. Our project includes the development of an outdoor classroom such that students and classes visiting the site have a closeup look at a highly functioning wetland, multiple ecosystems and exposure to natural flora and fauna that the restored wetland will provide.
Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Focus: Deshutes River Watershed Restoration
Project Description: Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team (DERT) is the only education and advocacy non-profit organization working on restoration of the Deschutes River watershed and its estuary. DERT’s efforts have to this day resulted in a significant raising of awareness to remove Olympia’s 5th Avenue dam at mouth of the Deschutes River and the necessity of restoring the Deschutes estuary to improve South Puget Sound water quality. For this funding request, DERT is asking for $10,000 to continue work on education and outreach projects the most important being the Festival of the Steh-Chass (indigenous name for the Deschutes river estuary) to be held on September 1, 2018 at the site of the original Deschutes estuary. DERT is partnering with the Squaxin Island Tribe and Salmon Defense in this effort.
Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
Amount Awarded: $22,500
Focus: San Juan Island Wetland Restoration
Project Description: Ducks Unlimited (DU) will provide technical support to our partners, the Skagit and San Juan Preservation Trust to enhance wetlands in the San Juan Islands. These enhancements will improve water quality, recharge aquifers and improve habitat at Richardson Marsh on Lopez Island (approximately 74 acres) and Guemes Valley on Guemes Island (approximately 36 acres). At both sites, DU will design wetland features to increase seasonal freshwater storage, and improve water quality for humans, fish, waterfowl and other wildlife.
Duwamish Alive! Coalition
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Focus: Duwamish Alive: Watershed Habitat Restoration, Water Quality Improvement and Community Stewardship
Project Description: Duwamish Alive Coalition events restore critical native habitat and improve water quality for the recovery of 5 salmon species in the Duwamish Watershed while providing community education and engagement about important environmental issues in the highly urbanized Duwamish Watershed which is made up of underserved communities of diversity. Comprehensive information is provided, educating community members to the many challenges being faced and providing ways individuals can make a positive impact on the watershed. Our goal is to expand the number of habitat sites and activities which improve water quality, increase volunteers by engaging more community members as stewards, providing mentorship and resources to community groups establishing new restoration sites and provides community outreach connecting the various efforts into a unified whole which emphasizes healthy environment – clean water, air and open spaces.
Earth Ministry
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Mobilizing Against Fossil Fuel Expansion
Project Description: Earth Ministry’s Faithful Action for Puget Sound project will help religious communities understand that protecting watersheds and water quality is a central tenet of their faith, which will provide the moral grounding for people of faith to become involved in shaping public policy for the health of the Sound. Earth Ministry will build capacity in faith communities in the Puget Sound region for civic engagement on fossil fuel projects that directly impact water quality, and on land use regulations that implement long-term protection for vulnerable watersheds. There is a need for water advocacy that is not only innovative and scientifically sound, but also hopeful and morally articulate. Earth Ministry is uniquely positioned to meet this pressing need by educating and mobilizing religious leaders to call for a permanent moratorium on new and expanded fossil fuel projects in two key areas of Puget Sound: Whatcom County and Tacoma. To engage this under-represented constituency, Earth Ministry will use a values-based framework to train, empower, and provide opportunities for people of faith to take action on key land use decisions affecting Puget Sound water quality.
EarthCorps
Amount Awarded: $20,000
Focus: Puget Sound Stewards – Duwamish and Beyond
Project Description: The Puget Sound Stewards Program activates community members to steward specific parks and natural areas along the Duwamish River that enhance water quality, wildlife habitat, and community recreation. With support and on-going training from a professional EarthCorps staff member, the stewards plan and carry out critical management actions to ensure that their site can continue to flourish. They learn to lead volunteer work parties, and to engage neighbors in transforming their river! With a shining 10+ year track record of success, this program is poised to expand to more Stewards and additional sites along the industrial Duwamish and lower Green River from the Port of Seattle to Tukwila.
ECOSS
Amount Award: $25,000
Focus: New Arrival Environmental Orientation
Project Description: Over the last three years ECOSS has hired and trained community coordinators from the Bhutanese and Burmese new arrival groups to recruit, engage and educate their respective communities on core environmental basics. In the first year of the program, both new arrival groups identified water resources, access to local parks and fishing and shellfish gathering opportunities in our region as topics of most interest. To date, more than 400 youth and families have participated in organized trips to the Cedar River Watershed, community led and organized education dinners, youth performances related to water resources, and field trips to the Duwamish River, Hood Canal and Lake Washington for fishing and volunteer restoration events. With the support of the Rose Foundation, our vision is to integrate meaningful water quality and restoration activities for the purpose of enhancing ongoing environmental education programs and to expand the number of communities that we currently are able to serve.
Everett Community College Foundation
Amount Awarded: $21,000
Project Title: Tales of Puget Sound: Training the Next Generation of Researchers
Project Description: This ecological research and education project builds upon a 10-year foundation of students studying Physical Geography at Everett Community College (EvCC) using field data collected in salt- and freshwater environments throughout in Snohomish County, Washington. The funding supports the purchase of scientific equipment needed to improve the accuracy of water quality and sediment sample data so that it can better contribute to the work of regional scientists, researchers and environmental advocates. In addition to learning about coastal geosystems, students will publish their data as “Story Maps,” gaining a deeper understanding of the science behind the interventions and mitigation efforts aimed at protecting Puget Sound.
Friends of North Creek Forest
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: North Creek Forest Restoration & Community Engagement
Project Description: The mission of Friends of North Creek Forest is to maintain and improve the ecological function of North Creek Forest through education, stewardship, and conservation in perpetuity. This 64 acre mature forest in Bothell helps to improve the water quality in nearby North Creek, a Chinook salmon bearing stream, by naturally filtering runoff from upland neighborhoods and protecting the steep slope from erosion. We request funding to support our Stewardship Program, which focuses on restoring North Creek Forest, while simultaneously engaging the community to participate in its care. We increase ecological literacy by engaging, supporting, training and inspiring volunteers of all ages, including college students and school children, to learn how to restore and protect North Creek Forest and beyond. Thank you for considering this proposal.
Your support will help us continue to provide meaningful forest experiences and education for generations to come.
Friends of the Earth
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Puget Sound Marine Conservation & Oil Transportation Safety Campaign
Project Description: For two decades, Friends of the Earth (FoE) has worked with federal, state, tribal and local partners leading efforts to protect Puget Sound communities and marine life from ship-sourced pollution, including oil spills as well as air and water discharges from cruise ships, cargo ships and oil tankers. Funding will enhance oil spill prevention and response capabilities of barges and other smaller oil carriers not subject to safety measures required of large oil tankers transiting Puget Sound. In particular, we will focus on vessels transporting diluted bitumen (dilbit) from Burnaby, BC through Puget Sound to the US Oil refinery in Tacoma – Washington’s primary destination for this uniquely challenging oil to clean up. FoE’s groundbreaking report published last spring spotlighted this previously unknown shipping of dilbit via unescorted barge and articulated tug-barges (ATBs) to Puget Sound refineries. The report also documented for the first time that between 2011-2014 crude oil has been exported from oil refinery tanker terminals. Department of Ecology (Ecology) data from 2015-2016 are now available to update this report to establish trends in this trade and serve to advance new protection efforts. The urgency of this project is underscored by Canada’s approval to triple the Kinder Morgan pipeline that will result in a 700% increase in dilbit tankers, and potentially more barges, traveling into Puget Sound. State rulemaking will begin in late 2017 to update oil spill response requirements for ships that will need to address new research showing dilbit’s propensity to sink, thereby requiring specialized spill response equipment. FoE’s participation in that rulemaking is essential to ensure the highest level of protection for Puget Sound. This grant will assist FoE in hiring a policy analyst to aid our 20-year veteran Northwest maritime safety consultant to ensure that state laws adequately address these emerging risks
Garden Green
Amount Awarded: $6,000
Focus: Garden Green Pesticide Reduction
Project Description: Garden Green’s project goals are to eliminate the use of toxic pesticides on Vashon Island. We have been working on this effort for 10 years, and are making progress with both the retailers and the public. We educate both groups on the hazards of toxic pesticides and nontoxic alternatives.
Green River Coalition
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: General Support
Project Description: Grant funding will be used to hire a part-time staff person who will take over many of the oversight responsibilities of our ongoing projects, and work on securing new grants which will support our vision of improving the condition of the Green/Duwamish River watershed. In the past, Green River Coalition (GRC) has operated without paid staff and has managed its projects solely with volunteer participation. The combined effects of our recent successes in (1) starting up an intern program with the Natural Resources Department at Green River College, (2) being awarded a joint grant with Mid-Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group to conduct a streambank restoration project, (3) acquiring a support role in an EPA grant for restoration and education activities in the Covington, Washington vicinity and (4) being awarded a support role in an outreach program for streambank protection along the Newaukum Creek tributary to the Green River have raised our workload to the level that our all-volunteer participation has reached its capacity to support it all.
Green River College Foundation
Amount Awarded: $17,000
Focus: Improving Environmental Restoration with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Technology
Project Description: Funds will to supply the necessary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or “UAV” (i.e., drone) hardware and software to supply Green River College Natural Resources Department students with the necessary tools to pilot new restoration monitoring and information accrual methods to efficiently inform future restoration and conservation land management actions. The proposed project is novel in that it will integrate the use of UAV technology within the scope of a higher education curriculum to enhance the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of environmental restoration at four established restoration sites within the Green/Duwamish Watershed. Students will get real-world experience gathering and assessing the data and deliverables to inform these sites’ short- and long-term environmental restoration goals. This project will also explore the utility and scalability of drone technology at restoration sites within the Green/Duwamish Watershed, as an alternative to traditional surveying methods which are too expensive for frequent data collection by grassroots organizations.
Killer Whale Tales
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Focus: Killer Whale Tales: Kids Making a Difference Now/Stormwater Busters, Deep Dive
Project Description: Killer Whale Tale’s overarching goal is to promote the conservation of the Puget Sound waters and the orca population that depends upon it, by providing a high quality environmental education program for 2nd through 6th grade students, at no-cost to the participating schools.
Our innovative curriculum uses the endangered Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW) population, a species with complex individual and social behaviors, to capture children’s attention and imaginations and inspire them to become Puget Sound stewards. Students are fascinated by orcas’ complex communication systems and matriarchal pods. When they learn about the species, they naturally begin to care about it and are eager to learn what they and their families can do to mitigate local marine pollution.
King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Newaukum Creek Restoration
Project Description: Newaukum Creek is one of the two largest tributaries in the Green/Duwamish River Watershed. The stream flows through an agricultural area where very little riparian vegetation protects the channel, resulting in a significant lack of shade (primarily between River Mile 4 and 10). Stream temperatures consistently exceed state standards for salmon spawning and incubation, and for juvenile rearing; salmon use is likely limited by these high temperatures (Ecology TMDL 2011). In addition, dissolved oxygen levels periodically violate state standards. King County proposes to spend $25,000 on revegetating a reach of Newaukum Creek on land recently acquired by the county.
Lake City Greenways
Amount Awarded: $3,500
Focus: Olympic Hills Pocket Park
Project Description: Funding provided will cover 60% of the design costs for restoration and planting of an undeveloped right-of-way in Lake City, Seattle, where a tributary to Thornton Creek flows through the Olympic Hills neighborhood. This former dump site has been cleaned up and beautified over the course of 3 years by 50+ volunteers. Residents worked with a professional design team to arrive at a design concept; we have completed the 30% design and construction drawings, and this funding will allow the project to proceed through the 60% phase.
Latino Community Fund
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Front and Centered: Engaging Communities of Color in Water Quality Issues
Project Description: The Front and Centered Latino Community Fund & Coalition will work to engage, involve and coalesce communities of color around issues pertaining to water quality and habitat protection throughout Puget Sound. Environmental degradation has a disproportionate impact on communities and low-income people, but these communities are rarely resourced to address core environmental issues like water quality. Front and Centered will conduct listening sessions, community meetings and educational forums and prepare and translate culturally appropriate informational materials on water quality issues on this issue with people of color around the Puget Sound. We will also work with our member organizations to mobilize communities of color to take action around emerging issues and specific opportunities for impact in local communities as well as on a state-wide basis.
Mid Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Green Duwamish Water Quality Improvement Youth Exchange
Project Description: This project is a multi partner effort to bring together diverse youth from throughout the Green-Duwamish watershed to plant at least 900 native trees and shrubs along streambanks in the Soos Creek basin and plant 40 trees to increase neighborhood tree canopy and improve water quality in the South Park community which is located next to the Lower Duwamish River. The “Re-green the Green” WRIA 9 salmon recovery strategy identified Soos Creek, which has a TMDL for temperature and dissolved oxygen, as a high priority area for revegetation to shade the stream. South Park is a highly urbanized community in Seattle with a large amount of impervious surfaces and polluted stormwater that drains into the Lower Duwamish River. Mid Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group will partner with the Green River Coalition, Green River College, the Institute for Community Leadership, Sustainability Ambassadors, the Duwamish Infrastructure Restoration Training Corps (DIRT Corps) and the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps to facilitate an exchange of youth leaders, expose the youth to a new part of their watershed, and to engage them in hands on work to improve water quality in their watershed.
Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust
Amount Awarded: $13,000
Focus: Student Engagement in Restoration
Project Description: The Mountains to Sound Greenway Education program seeks to engage and inspire the next generation of environmental stewards. Through hands-on, scientific inquiry, 4th – 12th grade students from schools across King County learn about forest ecosystems, healthy salmon habitat, biodiversity, and more. Students also have the opportunity to take action and make a positive impact on the landscape by participating in an ecological restoration project. We work with some of the nation’s most ethnically diverse school districts, and focus recruitment efforts on schools with a high free and reduced lunch rate to ensure the program reaches children with the greatest financial need.
Na’ah Illahee Fund
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Yahowt Native Women’s Circle
Project Description: Na’ah Illahee Fund’s Yahowt (Lushootseed Language “lift us up, together”) Circle of Native Women will design and implement an ecological restoration project of the water filtration ponds located on the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural land, improving water quality of runoff from Discovery Park that empties into Puget Sound. The 30-year old ponds will be redesigned to include silt cleanup, invasive species removal, and planting of both floating and submerged native plants. The enhanced area will create a healthy and welcoming environment for both teaching and practicing traditional Indigenous lifeways through plant harvesting for medicine and cultural arts.
Olympia Coalition for Ecosystems Preservation
Amount Awarded: $13,000
Focus: West Bay Wood Rain Garden
Project Description: In 2016, Olympia Coalition for Ecosystems Preservation constructed a 2000 sq. ft. rain garden at the entrance of the West Bay Woods conservation area with funding from the Rose Foundation. This year, we propose to build a second rain garden in the same area, which is unserviced by City stormwater infrastructure, and where a City outfall dumps untreated stormwater into the woods and has caused significant erosion. Construction this year will be more complicated both because the flows are more substantial and because the area touches on City right of way. The entire area is an upland shoreline forest at Budd Inlet. This work is particularly pressing as the woods are just upland of some of the most contaminated shoreline in Thurston County. Moreover, the shoreline is predicted to be underwater by 2050 due to sea-level rise. Our long-term goal is to conserve and restore the shoreline to benefit water quality in Budd Inlet and to build resilience into the shoreline. The shoreline is visible from and abuts the forest. Thus, restoration work not only serves to improve filtration in the forest and water quality on the shoreline, but also serves as motivational work to enable the community to see the shoreline/forest/riparian corridor as an integrated ecosystem worth preserving and restoring. We are also asking for modest support for operations.
Port Townsend Marine Science Center
Amount Awarded: $10,690
Focus: Be a Toxic Free Zone Workshops
Project Description: The Port Townsend Marine Science Center (PTMSC) will motivate people to reduce toxics in their lives and their impact on Puget Sound water quality through fourteen 2-3 hour workshops customized to suit audiences with different needs. The workshops are adapted from a 6-week program that covers topics ranging from toxics in the home, garden, personal care products, and the food supply. We will lead people to take “the next step” in personal/collective action to reduce toxics that can enter the marine environment.
Save Habitat and Diversity of Wetlands
Amount Awarded: $20,000
Focus: SHADOW Lake Nature Preserve: Extend the Bog Tour
Project Description: Rapid urbanization in South King County and the lack of environmental education in the area pose a threat to the health of the Puget Sound. SHADOW Lake Nature Preserve’s historic wetland system and education programming are uniquely equipped to address this threat at the community level. In order to effectively scale the impact of these resources SHADOW will need use these funds to support for staff time spent on community outreach, extend the boardwalk trail system, and strengthen web-based educational materials.
Seattle Tilth
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus:
Project Description: Soil and Water Stewards (SWS) was piloted last year with the support of The Rose Foundation, Cascade Water Alliance and King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division. The goal of SWS is to train a diverse cohort of volunteers who will lead water quality improvement projects and serve as watershed ambassadors to communities in King County outside of Seattle. Further support from the Rose Foundation will enable Tilth Alliance to focus on providing the majority of programming in high-need traditionally underserved communities. Additional funding will fuel targeted outreach and on-the-ground project in East and South King County, and within immigrant and refugee communities, low-income neighborhoods, senior centers, and schools serving high-poverty populations. With the Rose Foundation’s support, the pilot year of Soil and Water Stewards has been a tremendous success. Already, 40 volunteers have completed the training and volunteers have logged over 550 hours. Projects completed by volunteers in recent months include: community-based water quality improvement demonstration projects, and educational workshops that encourage residents to adopt natural yard care practices, better manage runoff, and install a spectrum of green stormwater infrastructure.
Skagit County Public Works
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Trumpeter Creek Restoration
Project Description: Trumpeter Creek is located in the Nookachamps basin in Skagit County, WA. The property was historically agriculture, resulting in Trumpeter Creek being straightened, confined, and devoid of riparian vegetation. These actions have limited fish habitat and caused potential impacts to water quality from run-off and cattle fenced very closely to the stream. Skagit Land Trust purchased the property and using partnerships with Skagit County, Ducks Unlimited, and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, have started restoration of the property including a re-route of over 2,700 linear feet of Trumpeter Creek to a more naturally configured channel, the installation of large woody debris, daylighting approximately 600 linear feet of currently tight-lined tributary, and planting a 150 foot buffer on both sides.
Sno-King Watershed Council
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: General Capacity
Project Description: The water quality of Puget Sound is threatened by the many land-disturbing development projects underway, especially those which do not comply with applicable codes, particularly relating to water quality, storm water flow control, wetland delineation, and wetland and stream buffer widths. We have found that agencies and jurisdictions charged with reviewing applications and enforcing codes do not in fact use due diligence and often approve projects which under closer scrutiny don’t meet the code requirements. Expert members of the Sno-King Watershed Council have been reviewing permit submittals, engineering diagrams and calculations, wetland and critical area drawings and reports, offering comments, and filing appeals as appropriate. As a result of our reviews, comments, and appeals, we have been successful in protecting streams and wetlands, getting better water quality and flow control designs enacted, and obtained settlements which have been used for construction of rain gardens and other projects to benefit the water quality of Puget Sound. In addition to the direct benefit of these reviews and appeals, they also set precedents, our goal being better subsequent review processes by enforcement agencies. We rely primarily on volunteer work for civil engineers and stormwater expertise, but also use paid consultants as needed including wetlands biologists and lawyers. We partner with affected downstream jurisdictions and other non-profits. With increased funding and capacity, we could increase the amount of work that we do in this vitally important area. With this proposal, we seek to increase our capacity in the area of project reviews and appeals.
South Sound Estuary Association
Amount Awarded: $12,150
Focus: South Puget Sound Environmental Education
Project Description: Our proposal is to educate students and visitors about water quality throughout the South Puget Sound community. The Puget Sound Estuarium will develop materials for a new exhibit at the facility and develop STEM and common core aligned water quality lesson plans. We will incorporate this lesson plan and water quality activities through an On the Water field trip, curriculum kits that get loaned out to schools, and as an option during Estuarium field trips. Our organization specifically targets K-12 students that are disadvantaged, disabled, or English is their second language.
Sustainability Ambassadors
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Environmental Education
Project Description: The Green-Duwamish Project Design Lab is an exciting expansion of the Bog to Bay Project from three individual schools in Seattle to two more school districts upriver in the Green/Duwamish Watershed. Through our Lab we will strengthen curriculum connections and community impact mapping at the secondary level by supporting problem-based learning that meets academic standard in context of solving community problems. Classroom/community problem-solving will include green stormwater infrastructure stewardship actions, outdoor classrooms, field investigations and adopt-a-site salmon habitat restoration events. All projects will be organized around the shared policy framework of King County’s Green/Duwamish Strategic Plan. With lessons learned from the Bog to Bay Project, this project will produce a case study for new Lab partners to replicate.
Sustainable Seattle
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Depave the Duwamish
Project Description: Sustainable Seattle’s Depave Program is entering the second year of its “Depave the Duwamish” project. Depave projects replace asphalt with green infrastructure that reduces storm water pollution, ameliorates heat islands and builds climate resilience, and improves community health. Seattle’s lower Duwamish River Valley is comprised of more than 20,000 acres of highly industrialized hardscape that releases over 1.5 billion gallons/year of polluted storm water into the Duwamish River – a federal Superfund cleanup site. The Duwamish Valley has among the lowest green space acreage and tree canopy citywide, and is home to the low-income and highly diverse neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown, which suffer from multiple environmental health disparities, including childhood asthma, heart disease, and a life expectancy seven years shorter than the city average. Year 1 of Sustainable Seattle’s Depave the Duwamish project produced a basin-wide map identifying potential Depave sites on industrial lands. Year 2 of the project will construct three demonstration Depave projects representing a variety of land ownerships and regulatory structures (e.g., private, city, school), and Year 3 will utilize lessons learned to develop a larger-scale Depave project through a public-private-community partnership that can serve as a model for a citywide Depave Program.
Vashon Nature Center LLC
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Focus: Scientists in School Program
Project Description: Vashon Nature Center’s Scientists in Schools program connects students with scientists through direct participation in research on water quality and watershed health. Students, alongside scientists, monitor fresh and marine water health through stream invertebrate studies and marine mussel monitoring. They also conduct salmon surveys, sea star wasting disease surveys, and forage fish surveys, and monitor nearshore restoration projects at shoreline armoring removal sites. Scientists in Schools has been highly effective in improving our island water quality and in the prevention of further system degradation. Whereas our community volunteers are self-selected individuals who value environmental conservation, student populations hold a much wider value set. Over the past two years, we have found that when students bring their educational experiences home, the opportunity to shift world views is much greater than in any of our other volunteer-based programs. For this reason, we invite continued support from the Rose Foundation to expand the capacity of current programs, increase the number of school classes we engage, and diversify research opportunities to include additional opportunities for students which are currently only available to the community.
Washington Physicians for Social Responsiblity
Amount Awarded: $24,000
Focus: Tacoma Tideflats Advocacy
Project Description: In Washington State, Tacoma’s industrial Tideflats, an area which includes the Port of Tacoma, has been an ongoing target of many new fossil fuel-based projects that threaten the health of Commencement Bay and all of Puget Sound. Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR) has an urgent, timely opportunity to join the movement underway to protect this area from additional dirty energy projects. With support from the Rose Foundation, WPSR will collaborate with partners in the Tacoma area to educate and train a cadre of health professionals to vocally advocate against the siting of new fossil fuel industries in the Tacoma Tideflats. This grant will enable growing WPSR’s network in Tacoma and mobilize the trusted voices of doctors, nurses, and other health professionals to help chart a new course for a healthier Puget Sound now and into the future.
Whale Scout
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Focus: Channeling Interest in Land-Based Whale Watching into Saving Puget Sound Drop-by-Drop
Project Description: Killer whales are among the most fascinating and charismatic species in Puget Sound, and while their popularity draws a lot of attention to their biology and delicate conservation status, the solutions for recovery are often mundane and overlooked. Whale Scout harnesses the admiration and energy of whale watchers and channels it towards native plants, streams, and our own homes, improving the water quality of Puget Sound for whales, salmon, and ourselves. We do this through educational experiences with volunteer naturalists on shorelines using “Save Orcas” brochures; direct salmon habitat restoration at “Helpin’ Out” events; and our new PodMatch program, connecting up to 500,000 whale watchers each year with salmon habitat restoration events near their homes, scaling up our efforts significantly and providing cool, clean, water free of toxins for Puget Sound. Saving orcas is intrinsically linked to the water quality of Puget Sound.
Whatcom Land Trust
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Estuarine Habitat Restoration
Project Description: This project will restore and protect in perpetuity 11.5 acres of estuarine habitat at the confluence of California Creek and Drayton Harbor near Blaine in northwest Washington State. This project will allow Whatcom Land Trust to: 1) improve 1,700 feet of freshwater and salt water frontage in order to restore and protect critical fish, wildlife, and tideland habitat; 2) restore and protect 6 acres of declining wetlands by restoring wetland hydrology, removing noxious weeks and re-establishing native plant; 3) remove a dilapidated house, foundations, outbuilding, concrete slabs and debris; 4) engage community members in citizen science monitoring; 5) provide year round public access for passive recreational, educational and stewardship opportunities highlighting the coastal wetland ecosystems of the northeast corner of the Salish Sea.
Wild Fish Conservancy
Amount Awarded: $22,000
Focus: WFC Strategic Initiative: Puget Sound Net Pens Pollution Reduction
Project Description: Piling on to threats to Puget Sound water quality, a foreign seafood company’s recent proposal to transform Puget Sound into an epicenter of net-pen farmed Atlantic salmon production will further degrade water quality and endanger the health of Puget Sound. In 2016, Cooke Aquaculture, a Canadian company with major salmon farm operations in Chile, Spain, Scotland, Canada, and Maine, purchased Icicle Seafoods, which owned and operated eight Atlantic salmon net pen facilities currently in Puget Sound. Following their purchase, Cooke Aquaculture unveiled an ambitious plan to dramatically expand their operation in Washington and transform Puget Sound into one of the largest industrial salmon farm operations in the world. Washington is the only state on the West Coast that has not forbidden Atlantic salmon net pens in its marine waters. Wild Fish Conservancy will consolidate and share the best available science about the environmental threats the Atlantic salmon net pen industry poses, build a broad-based coalition that will advocate against the expansion of this industry in Puget Sound, and use our scientific and legal expertise to demand accountability from the agencies that regulate the Atlantic salmon net pen industry in Washington.
Zero Waste Washington
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Focus: Phthalates Research and Education for Source Control, Duwamish River and Commencement Bay
Project Description: Phthalates are a family of industrial chemicals which cause reproductive impacts in humans and wildlife and are a major concern in the stormwater pathway causing recontamination of Superfund sediment sites in Puget Sound. In this project, Zero Waste Washington will develop an inventory of exterior-use products used by businesses and agencies in the Duwamish River and Commencement Bay Superfund source areas which may contain phthalates by interviewing staff at these entities and conducting exterior visual site assessments. Zero Waste Washington will then prioritize and analyze phthalates in those products as well as in environmental samples from publicly accessible locations and conduct analysis of alternative products. Finally, we will conduct outreach to businesses and agencies about the results and available low/no phthalate alternative products. The project will be overseen by an Advisory Committee of agencies who conduct source control activities in the two cleanup areas. The goals are to reduce phthalates input into stormwater and improve source control, reduce impacts to humans who use the products, and provide information that can be used locally and nationally as we move away from toxic chemicals in products which cause impacts both during use and at end of the life of those products.