ECOLOGY

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Viaduct has become unsafe and must be removed. This offers us an incredible opportunity: to stop harming and start to nurture a significant chunk of Puget Sound shoreline. Elliott Bay is one of the most scenic bodies of water on the planet: like the larger Chesapeake and San Francisco Bays, the health of Elliott Bay is integral to the economic vitality of the region, and its health is terrible. Regional growth has devastated near-shore habitat, as bulkheads replaced functioning intertidal zones. Streets, highways, parking lots, industrial yards and even back yards and driveways are the biggest continual source of pollution to our water. Exhaust settles on the ground and is washed over impervious concrete into our waters: every vehicle trip contributes to a particular threat to threatened salmon. Protecting and restoring a functioning shoreline is a key step toward Elliott Bay's recovery. Without healthy shores, the food chain in Puget Sound collapses.

THE HEART OF THE REGION

Puget Sound's wild salmon stocks have been at the center of human life in this region for ten thousand years. They are our true heritage, and their decline, nearly complete, is as tragic as the disappearance of the buffalo. We believe that greater, immediate contact with the bay and its creatures will instill a deeper, broader understanding of our ecology, and how it might be cared for by the public. A new aquarium will be the centerpiece of our new downtown waterfront: not only a tourist attraction, but a center for preservation and environmental education, where we can viscerally feel our connection to the water and learn about our responsibilities to it. The Seattle Strand plan illustrates how we could make Seattle a model of sustainable city-building by recreating a functioning ecology on the waterfront.