The Seattle Times

by Warren Cornwall

How much is Puget Sound worth?

At least $7 billion to $62 billion a year, according to a team of economists.

Trying to put a price tag on the Sound's ecosystem, including the forests, wetlands and mountains surrounding it, might seem as fruitless as trying to sell the sun.

But that's exactly what a small but growing cadre of economists and environmentalists is doing.

A report issued Thursday by Earth Economics, a Seattle-based nonprofit, uses old-fashioned accounting to offer a ballpark estimate of Puget Sound's overall value. The authors used computerized maps to calculate how many acres of different kinds of land surround the Sound. They then took existing studies that put price tags on the values of certain things, such as the flood-controlling benefits from an acre of wetland.

Add it all up, and you get the estimate. The broad range is a result of differences in the various existing studies the economists used when calculating prices.

The aim of the report is to raise awareness that environmental protection and restoration isn't just an ideological issue but an economic one, and that damaging the natural world comes with financial costs.

The report's authors also hope their work can help policymakers find ways to harness economics to restore the Sound, or to decide which projects — such as rebuilding damaged rivers — make the most financial sense.

For the past century, this region has spent vast sums on man-made structures such as roads, buildings, sewer systems, dikes and dams, said David Batker, an economist and executive director of Earth Economics.

But the land, rivers and Sound also do lots of things that benefit us, and there is great expense when we damage them, Batker said: Wetlands soak up rainwater and diminish floods. Forests filter water we drink. Estuaries harbor young salmon that eventually grow big enough for us to eat. Beaches are magnets for recreation.

"We're well-endowed with great natural capital," he said. "We've taken it for granted to a large extent."

It's hard to know how accurate the price estimate is, said Bill Ruckelshaus, chair of the Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency now working on a recovery plan for the Sound.

"To me the value of it in Puget Sound is reminding people that we're not just talking about aesthetic values and environmental values when we talk about cleaning up Puget Sound," he said. "We're also talking about economics that affect them."

Read full Seattle Times article

Read Seattle PI article