The Alliance for Puget Sound Shorelines

An opportunity to make a tangible and lasting difference – starting NOW

Puget Sound’s 2,500 miles of shoreline—bluffs, beaches, tidelands, and estuaries—are vital and vibrant. Ecologically, they’re key to the Sound’s overall health; those many miles provide a range of habitats and dynamic processes that support the Sound’s far-reaching web of life. The shorelines are also important to people, connecting us to an inland sea that is at the heart of the region’s cultural, social, and economic identity. However, Puget Sound’s shorelines have been in decline for years, with thousands of acres contaminated by toxins, 75 percent of the Sound’s salt marsh habitat destroyed, and one-third of the shoreline altered or engineered from its natural state. And only about 10 percent of the shoreline is open to the public.

This decline in habitat has had an impact on wildlife. Nine out of the 10 species federally listed as endangered or threatened with the Puget Sound region use or inhabit the nearshore environment. Even the health of the region’s beloved orca whales, declared endangered in February, is connected to shorelines, because the shorelines are the basis for a food web that feeds salmon and, ultimately, orcas. The region’s economy is also affected by the Sound’s decline. Since 1980, nearly 30,000 acres of commercial shellfish beds have closed due to contamination, and Hood Canal’s low oxygen levels resulted in a die-off of tens of thousands fish in 2004 alone.

But public inspiration to protect and restore the Sound is growing. From the Governor’s Puget Sound Partnership to the Corps of Engineers’ Nearshore Partnership, momentum is building, suggesting we have a remarkable opportunity to make a significant and lasting difference. The time to act is now.

Working with partners to protect and restore Washington’s remarkable inland sea

Because of this vital importance, three leading conservation groups—People For Puget Sound, The Trust for Public Land, and The Nature Conservancy— formed the Alliance for Puget Sound Shorelines, and launched the MudUp campaign to get more people out on the Sound, and actively care for our threatened environment.As a result, Puget Sounders are more engaged and active in ensuring the Sound will be restored to a safe, healthy and beautiful place into the future.

Our on-the-ground work depends on the work of many partners--including our legions of volunteers, supporters and donors, and the Puget Sound Partnership, a state agency charged with restoring the Sound to health by 2020. This collaboration will lay the groundwork for what could ultimately be a long-term, extensive campaign, putting the effort to save Puget Sound on par with other large-scale estuary restoration projects, such as those currently underway in the Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades.

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.
—Rachel Carson