Puget Soundkeeper

Water quality in Puget Sound is deteriorating and many species that call Puget Sound home are in trouble. The Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is an organization working to protect and preserve Puget Sound by tracking down and stopping the discharge of toxic pollutants into its waters. The goal of the Alliance is a simple one: to prevent pollution. The Alliance is the only organization that actively monitors and patrols the waters of Puget Sound to detect and document sources of illegal pollution. Sue Joerger is the Puget Soundkeeper patrolling Elliot Bay and the Duwamish River in her boat every week looking for pollution entering the Sound from outfall pipes, oil spills and air pollution. Once the pollution is discovered, the Alliance works directly with the source responsible for the pollution, collaborates with government agencies to resolve the problem, and if necessary will take citizen enforcement action to stop the pollution. The visible presence of the Soundkeeper boat on the water not only finds polluters, but also acts as a deterrent to potential polluters. The nonprofit Puget Soundkeeper Alliance was formed in 1984 and in 1990 they joined a national coalition of water pollution watchdogs,the Waterkeeper Alliance. The Waterkeeper Alliance was founded in the 1960s on New York's Hudson River by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.