Topic Forum Issue Papers

6/19 Action Agenda Update:

The Partnership has secure additional funding and time for developing the Action Agenda. The deadline has been extendd 3 months to December 1, 2008. An additional $23.9 million has been obtained for state agencies to work on Puget Sound recovery.

Topic forums
As part of the Action Agenda process, five topic forums were scheduled from April 22 to May 5. These meetings aimed to consolidate available knowledge of the issues and the related management systems being used today. They further aimed to discuss the guiding principles and benchmarks needed to implement guiding strategies. Each topic forum was led by an expert selected by the Partnership and assisted by a team of scientists and policy experts.

The topic forums discussed five topic papers developed by the Partnership. These topic papers have been reviewed by members of the Puget Sound Environmental Caucus and summarized below in PDF format for downloading.

Action Area Profiles
In each of the seven Action Areas, a core working group is preparing an "Action Area Profile" to synthesize information generated from the first round of public workshops in early March that will help summarize the various indicators that are being used to determine the health of the Sound, what data and studies are available, what criteria should be used to prioritize actions, and what might the priority actions be. Each Acton Area is unique with its geography, its population densities, its shorelines, its problems, and potential solutions. The Action Area Profiles will be prominently incorporated into the Action Agenda.

Action Area Workshops
The Partnership is organizing its work in part by dividing Puget Sound into 7 distinct Action Areas. These are: Hood Canal, North Central Puget Sound, San Juan/Whatcom, South Central Puget Sound, South Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Whidbey Basin. For each action area, they are developing specific proposed local actions to improve the health of the Sound. They are going to release draft plans, followed by public meetings in each of the areas in July.