EXECUTIVE ORDER  84-14

Establishing the Puget Sound Management Executive Directorate

Puget Sound is a national treasure. It has immense recreational, environmental, and economic value to the people of the state of Washington and the entire country.

Puget Sound is a major factor in the significant urban, industrial, and military growth that has occurred and continues to occur in the Puget Sound region. With growth comes increased potential for environmental degradation, which threatens the Sound.

A variety of toxic pollutants and related fish abnormalities have been discovered in urban industrial embayments from Tacoma to Bellingham. In recent years, there has also been an increasing incidence of shellfish bed closures in southern Puget Sound, to the point where the entire shellfish industry may be threatened.

These conditions are evidence of a serious threat to Puget Sound. This is a threat to some of our most precious natural resources, our recreational opportunities, and ultimately to the quality of life enjoyed by most of the people of western Washington.

The Puget Sound Water Quality Authority was established in 1983, under the authority of Chapter 90.70 RCW. It is directed to identify pollution- related threats to Puget Sound's resources, conduct risk assessments, and coordinate and report on information relating to Puget Sound water quality.

The state Department of Ecology is establishing a separate group within the Department that will be exclusively charged with Puget Sound water quality issues. We have asked for the Federal government to join the state in this effort.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, John Spellman, Governor of the state of Washington, do hereby order that:

1. There is established the Puget Sound Management Executive Directorate. The purpose of the directorate is to coordinate and direct the efforts of the state Department of Ecology, the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, to protect and upgrade the water quality of Puget Sound.

2. The membership of the Puget Sound Management Executive Directorate shall consist of the Director of the Department of Ecology, the Chairman of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, and the Administrator of Region X of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

3. State members of the Directorate shall oversee the efforts of the Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency so that there is a joint and coordinated effort to identify and correct both existing and future threats to the quality of the waters of Puget Sound.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set
my hand and caused the seal of the State of
Washington to be affixed at Olympia this
15th day of June A.D., Nineteen hundred and eighty-four.

John Spellman
Governor of Washington

BY THE GOVERNOR:



Deputy Secretary of State

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