To: Dow Constantine, King County Executive

Help the Duwamish River

Make Seattle’s Only River Clean Enough to Fish In

Why is this important?

We are a 4th grade class in Seattle, Washington. We are petitioning Dow Constantine, King County Executive, to give enough money for the Duwamish River to be clean enough for the tribes and other citizens to be able to fish safely, because the Duwamish River is one of the most polluted rivers in the US and the only river in Seattle.

The Duwamish River is affecting people’s health. Residents who live closer to the river die 13 years younger than others who live in Laurelhurst. As a matter of fact, there are three tribes that eat fish from the river. It's in the tribes' culture to fish in the Duwamish and we shouldn't take that away from them. So we want King County to give enough money so that people can know it is OK to eat the fish without the risk of getting really sick.

The EPA has already released a $342 million, 17 year-long cleanup plan to help. However, it is not removing enough toxins so that locals can fish from the Duwamish safely. Although it will cost King County a lot of money and time, people and animals around the Duwamish will be saved.

There are 3 things that you can do to help:
1. sign this petition,
2. spread the word about this problem, and
3. share this petition with others.

Our goal is 3,000 signatures by June 1, 2015. June 2 we will be holding a protest and presenting our petition signatures. If you sign it, it will really make a difference to the people and animals that live or fish in the Duwamish River.

UPDATE (6/5/15):
Guess what happened after our march on 6/2/15 for the Duwamish River? We met with Dow Constantine and talked to him about the problem and some possible solutions. After our discussion about the Duwamish River, we asked him to sign the petition and he did! Dow told us he supports cleaning up the Duwamish River and said that he already has his own plan: the Green-Duwamish River Watershed Cleanup Plan that cleans the area around the Duwamish.

As of June 3, 2015, we had a total 2798 petition signatures (719 paper and 2079 online). All of them were collected in just 5 weeks, with people from 8 countries and 38 states!.

Although we succeeded with getting Dow Constantine to sign our petition, we still have other PRP’s (Potentially Responsible Parties) to convince. The EPA has identified over 100 PRP’s, but the 4 major ones are King County, Port of Seattle, Boeing and City of Seattle. If you keep showing support and help get these other PRP’s to join in their support, we will achieve our goal. We will share our petition results with all four PRP’s.

From,

Miss Margie’s 4th grade class