The Puget Sound Partnership issued its first “State of the Sound” report today, but it leaves a critical question unanswered: are we on track to restore the Sound to health by the year 2020?

There’s good news—like secure funding for the rescue tug at Neah Bay, and restoring the salt marshes of the Nisqually Delta—and bad news—like the continued disappearance of eelgrass beds, forests and farms. There’s a description of a bunch of state money being spent on Puget Sound protection and restoration. And this undoubtedly true statement, “to achieve recovery by the 2020 deadline, additional resources will be needed.”

Hopefully there will be even more good news to report when the legislature wraps up this session—the “Working for Clean Water” bill has a good shot at coming up with significant new dollars to control stormwater pollution, Puget Sound’s #1 problem.

But we need to know where we stand. If we aren’t on track yet to restore the Sound to health by 2020, and I don’t think we are, we need to get on track. One tough thing about saving Puget Sound is that we are still allowing more damage even as we try to clean up the mistakes of the past. A lesson from Chesapeake is that you can spend a lot of money and effort doing good things, but still lose ground overall. Sad to say, that’s been our story here in Puget Sound too.

This is why we have the Puget Sound Partnership. This is why the law that created them is so heavy on “accountability.” Will the Partnership get the job done? I sure hope so, because Puget Sound is running out of time.