With Puget Sound in the background, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law at Des Moines Beach Park on May 7 legislation designed to protect and restore this prominent estuary.

Gregoire also announced the appointment of Bill Ruckelshaus, former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Nixon and Reagan administrations, as chairman of leadership council of the Puget Sound Partnership.

He headed a task force that preceded the partnership.

The group will oversee the work of state, local and federal governments to clean up and restore the Sound's environmental health by 2020.

State Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, who spearheaded the legislation in the House of Representatives, recalled at the signing ceremony his parents taking him to Burien's Seahurst Park.

"I want my four-year-old niece to have the same benefits I did." Upthegrove said of his childhood experiences playing on the beach and fishing from the Des Moines Marina pier.

Before signing the package of Puget Sound bills, Gregoire observed that Washington residents "are fortunate to be blessed with breathtaking natural beauty and an unparalleled quality of life.

"If we want to keep it that way, we have more work to do to protect the jewel of the Northwest-Puget Sound. Today, it looks gorgeous on the surface but people don't understand that beneath the surface, it is sick and in some places dying."

Noting that earlier in the day Puget Sound steelhead had been listed as an endangered species, she declared, "It's time to act."

The governor likened the Sound to a big bathtub without a drain.

In one day, Gregoire said, sewage equal to about 265 swimming pools comes out of tanks with much of it draining into the Sound.

Des Moines Mayor Bob Sheckler commented that signing the Sound cleanup bill "is truly fitting in the Waterland City."

The ceremony brought other political dignitaries to Des Moines including U.S. Congressman Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, and state Department of Natural Resources director Doug Sutherland.

Dicks recalled that 50 years ago Lake Washington was so polluted that people could not fish or swim in it, but now has been restored.