Puget Soundkeeper Alliance

History

The Puget Soundkeeper Alliance was founded in 1984 as the Puget Sound Alliance. It was the sixth licensed Waterkeeper program in the country and was a founding member of the Waterkeeper Alliance. The organization was renamed in 1992 to Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. ¹

Projects

Monitoring and Enforcement

The Puget Soundkeeper Alliance has conducted over 1,600 patrols of the Puget Sound waterways since 1984 to monitor for violations of the Clean Water Act. ¹

Litigation

The Puget Soundkeeper Alliance sues companies and other groups it deems are in violation of the Clean Water Act of 1972. Achieving enforcement through litigation is characteristic of the Waterkeeper Alliance, of which Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is a member. The Waterkeeper Alliance was headed for many years by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and has been criticized as an attempt by trial lawyers to secure large payouts while suing companies, governments, and individuals for violating environmental laws. ²

Funding

Funding for the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance comes from its litigation efforts and the resulting settlements and from foundations such as the Russell Family Foundation, which donated $50,000 to the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance in 2022 for “The Puget Sound Leadership, Clean Water Regulation and Enforcement Project.” ³ Total revenues for the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance in 2022 were $1.25 million. ⁴

Created in a joint effort by the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, Puget Sound Stewardship and Mitigation Fund provides grants for environmental projects conducted by outside groups. The Puget Sound Stewardship and Mitigation Fund began as the result of a landmark settlement between the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and BNSF Railway, formerly the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. Using the Clean Water Act, which allowed for citizen lawsuits against violators of the act, the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance sued in 2009 to oppose BNSF’s “discharges of polluted stormwater” into the Puget Sound. The resulting consent decree in 2011 ordered BNSF to pay $1.5 million to the new mitigation fund, providing initial funding for the organization. ⁵

The Puget Sound Stewardship and Mitigation Fund since 2012 has awarded grants to third-party groups for environmental projects related to the Puget Sound area. Funding comes from settlements reached by Puget Soundkeeper Alliance’s ongoing litigation against alleged violators of the Clean Water Act. ⁶

People

The executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is Sean Dixon. Dixon is the former chief of staff for the New England branch office of the Environmental Protection Agency. He was also previously the senior attorney at Hudson Riverkeeper. ⁷ He is the co-founder of the Village Fishmonger, a “NYC-based sustainable seafood start-up.” ⁸

Patricia Baird is president of the board at Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. She works as a massage therapist and acupuncturist at Advanced Therapeutics Group in Seattle, Washington. ^{9 10}

Allan Chartrand, vice president of the board at the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, has a bachelor’s degree in entomology and pesticide toxicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s in public health and toxicology from UCLA. ⁹ Chartrand is the principle environmental scientist at Chartrand Environmental LLC. ¹¹