Setting the agenda for estuarine water quality management: Lessons from Puget Sound

Abstract

In the Puget Sound region of Washington State, the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority has had agenda building as its primary mission. The consensus planning approach it has utilized has led to a plan with a high degree of popular support, though achieved in some cases through the abandonment of highly divisive issues. The Authority has become increasingly proactive however as it has moved from consolidating gains made in other state and federal water quality programs on behalf of Puget Sound to developing new initiatives aimed at water quality problems little addressed in the past. A variety of influences, generally consistent with behavioral theories of the dynamics of agenda building, have determined the management program now being promoted by the Authority. Although social conflict has been less of a factor than has been portrayed in the literature, recent events suggest that the consensus strategy pursued by the Authority may be leaving it vulnerable to attack from industry groups previously not heard from as the plan has developed. In estuarine water quality planning the goal-directed, comprehensive, synoptic approach implicit in many water quality planning models must adapt to strategic policy making. The agenda-building process will reflect the balance achieved between the two. This paper details the interplay between synoptic planning and strategic policy-making, as the comprehensive water quality management program now being implemented for Puget Sound has developed through the mid 1980s.