Local Integrating Organization (LIO) Current Priorities
About the Action Agenda
The Puget Sound Action Agenda charts the course to recovery of our nation's largest estuary. It complements and incorporates the work of many partners about Puget Sound to describe regional strategies and specific actions needed to recover Puget Sound. First produced in 2008, the Action Agenda identifies priorities and opportunities for federal, state, local, tribal, and private entities to invest resources and coordinate recovery actions. The Puget Sound Action Agenda also serves as the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for estuaries of national significance.
2018-2022 Action Agenda
The most recent 2018-2022 Action Agenda focuses on three Strategic Initiatives: (1) prevent pollution from stormwater runoff, (2) protect and restore habitat, and (3) recover shellfish beds. The Sno-Stilly LIO contributed to the 2018 Action Agenda by submitting a list of local priority projects – called “near term actions,” or NTAs – aligned with the three Strategic Initiatives, providing local context to the regional priority approaches as part of the AA development, and submitting comments on the draft AA.
The Sno-Stilly LIO reviewed and tiered over 100 NTAs (including local and regional). The NTAs reviewed by the Sno-Stilly LIO can be found here by selecting "Snohomish-Stillaguamish" in the "Local Areas" column.
On December 5, 2018, the Leadership Council adopted the 2018-2022 Action Agenda. A formal launch of the Action Agenda occurred in early 2019.
2022-2026 Action Agenda Update
The Puget Sound Partnership (PSP), the state agency that leads the region’s recovery efforts, is working to update the current Action Agenda to be approved and finalized in 2022. The PSP is working with partners and stakeholders to determine priority outcomes for reducing ecosystem stressors that will guide the remainder of the Action Agenda update process. A workshop was held in October 2020 and is summarized here.
Partnership staff are working with representatives of Local Integrating Organizations, tribes, strategic initiatives, and the Environmental Protection Agency to incorporate feedback on the ecosystem stressor groupings and to identify draft outcomes from existing plans associated with each grouping.
Five-Year Ecosystem Recovery Plan
In March 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10, announced a new funding distribution model for National Estuary Program (NEP) funds supporting Puget Sound recovery. The timeline for this model aligned with the 2016 Puget Sound Action Agenda update. Under the model, funding streams for local projects were consolidated through the LIOs and the LIOs were required to complete a Five-Year Ecosystem Recovery Plan for their local watersheds. The plans guide improvements to local ecosystems as well as contribute to the overall recovery of Puget Sound. There is also regional funding to support Near Term Actions (NTAs) that address habitat, stormwater and shellfish.
The Snohomish-Stillaguamish LIO submitted their Final Ecosystem Recovery Plan (PDF) to Puget Sound Partnership on June 30, 2017.