For Immediate Release

February 9, 2004

Gov. Gary Locke, U.S. Congressman Norm Dicks
Join Forces to Help Hood Canal

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Gov. Gary Locke and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks today pledged to help combat the worsening environmental problems in Hood Canal.

            Locke and Dicks were joined at a news conference in Olympia by state legislators and representatives of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Keyport, the Skokomish Tribe, the U.S. Geological Survey, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, Mason County, the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, and Hood Canal Watershed Implementation Committee, and the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group.

            Locke's supplemental budget includes $100,000 to bolster actions to reduce nutrient pollution entering Hood Canal. This pollution contributes to the dangerously low levels of dissolved oxygen, which has killed fish and octopi and closed much of the canal to fishing.

            "I urge our state Legislature to support this funding so we can work with communities on Hood Canal to reduce, if not reverse, key causes of this critical environmental problem," Locke said. "No one wants to see Hood Canal become a dead sea."

            In late 2003, Dicks secured $350,000 for the U.S. Geological Survey to continue studying the various causes of the low-dissolved oxygen problem and to help scientists and managers address this issue. In late January, in a federal appropriations bill, Dicks garnered $500,000 for the Puget Sound Action Team to start taking specific steps to help Hood Canal.

            "Hood Canal is on life support and we need to begin treatment now to start reviving it," Dicks said. "The scientists working on this urgent problem may not fully understand the relationship between the various causes of the low oxygen levels, but we know that actions we take on the land are contributing to the problem. We need to act now to minimize these impacts."

            The U.S. Navy also announced today that it would help gather more and better information about the quality of water in Hood Canal.

            The treatment plan for Hood Canal will be developed by April 1, when the Puget Sound Action Team completes a "corrective actions plan" requested by Locke.  The $500,000 federal funding and potential $100,000 state funding will be directed toward projects along the canal identified in the corrective actions plan, which will focus on sources from the land that people can manage to help stabilize or reduce the low-levels of oxygen.

            Nutrients from human and pet waste, stormwater runoff and fertilizers cause plankton and algae to grow. When the algae dies and decomposes, it robs oxygen from the water that fish need to survive.

            The Puget Sound Action Team is working jointly with the Hood Canal Coordinating Committee, a body made up of tribal and local government officials from around the canal, to produce the plan.  Federal, tribal and state governments are also participating in the formation of the plan, as well as other local groups.

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