The first step is to increase awareness that there really is trouble in paradise - despite the sparkling waters, tumbling streams, leaping killer whales and salmon.

"We've got to convey that this is doable ... that we can have it all," said state Ecology Director Jay Manning.

"This is our time, this is our challenge, we have to do it," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash. and one of the partners. "And to not do what's necessary to preserve it would be a real failure of leadership on our generation's part."

Part of the problem is that many area residents look at beautiful, sparkling Puget Sound and don't see a problem. The waters are not visibly tainted, floating toxins are not catching fire, dead fish don't litter the surface.

But pollution and runoff - growing along with the region's population - are undermining the 90-mile-long heart of the Northwest lifestyle and economy, even as the incomparable setting draws growing numbers of people and businesses.

"We're going to have to come up with something extraordinary," said Kathy Fletcher of People for Puget Sound, the lone environmental group represented in the 15-member partnership.

This is not the first attempt to clean up the sound.

"The progress that has been made has been almost overwhelmed by population growth," Governor Chris Gregoire said. While the state has made dramatic advancements against industrial pollution, the key issue now is population growth.

"We have seen the enemy and it is us," Gregoire said. "My greatest fear is that we're going to wait until it's too late."

Top-down oversight can reduce industrial pollution, but isn't as effective against thousands of tiny sources.

"We each have to say, 'It's ours and we're not going to let somebody else ruin it.' We each have to step up and protect it," Gregoire said.

The cleanup of Lake Washington, which began in 1963 with diversion of treated sewage waste, shows what the region can do, Gregoire said.

Quality of life is always one of the top three reasons businesses relocate here, Gregoire said.

"I've always said that our economy and the environment are married, and we shouldn't be pitting the two against each other," she said.

In addition to a full-on public-awareness campaign to make the problem common knowledge, the partnership will suggest ways that citizens can make a difference. Small changes can be huge if they're made by large numbers of people.

Along with trying to reduce the impact of cars - by using them less often, disposing of waste oil properly, keeping emissions down - household changes can help, such as turning off the water while brushing teeth, accepting a brown lawn during the dry summer months, recycling, and pulling weeds instead of attacking them with pesticides.

Local water-quality councils will have an important role in the effort, Manning said, because people are attached to their local bays and rivers.

Dicks said the partners - many of whom represent industries with roles in the sound's decline over the past 150 years - are united in their mission.

"We're there because we care about Puget Sound, we recognize it's in decline, we realize we need to do more about it - and all sectors are going to have to be part of the solution," he said.

When the partnership outlines its recommendations in November, Dicks said he believes industry will want to be part of the solution.

"A lot of companies are still dumping things into rivers, lakes and the sound. They're going to have to do a better job, there's going to have to be better enforcement by EPA and Ecology in protecting Puget Sound and the estuaries and the rivers and the lakes."

The partnership's task covers all waters between the Cascades and the Olympics.

The driving concerns are population growth and, less directly, global warming. Federal "endangered" listings of salmon runs and killer whales add pressure.

"The species declines we're seeing right now are unprecedented," Manning said. "Some bird populations are down 90 percent."

"When you have all this development and ... don't have significant ways to deal with it, to me this is a huge challenge," Dicks said. "Even if we can solve it, there will be the problem of monitoring it."

Fletcher agreed.

"There's really very little accountability in the system and very little courage on the part of the agencies that are supposed to force the laws - and they don't have the money and staff to do it right, either," she said. "There's a lot of dissatisfaction that nobody's really in charge of making sure the sound is healthy, no one's held accountable for success or failure."

Spotty enforcement can exacerbate things.

"People see inequities everywhere they look. They feel they're doing the right thing and they see the guy next door getting away with murder," she said.

The partnership also must define its own role, Fletcher said.

"One of the questions the governor asked us was how to sustain the effort ... what role would there be for a public-private partnership over time," Fletcher said.

Another partner, Jim Darling of the Port of Bellingham, is optimistic.

"I think the governor and all the participants ... want to find a pathway forward to resolve some of the issues that we've identified," he said. "It would be an incredible legacy."