Right now, a vessel sits at a dock under I-5 in Seattle's U-District.

In a perfect world, it would be filled with researchers, out studying Puget Sound.

But the boat doesn't go out until the money comes in.

University of Washington researcher Jan Newton heads up a project to study fish kills in the Hood Canal.

"There has to be dollars for action, as well as research, as well as outreach to the public, because as you say, it is easy to look out at Puget Sound and say everything is beautiful," said Newton.

Her work has found high nitrogen levels caused by people's septic systems are killing the fish. She's also found that those same high levels can be created by our native Alderwood trees. And as dramatic as video of dead fish is, she feels there are far more dramatic things happening with the ecosystem.

"We really need to know, not just these riveting fish kill events, but how it is affecting the food web," said Newton.

Newton believes at the end of the day that the work they've done so far is only the tip of the iceberg, and the more research they can do, the more they can know about what is really going on.

But research costs money, and there are a lot of other groups out there fighting for the same funding.

Like the Northwest Straits Commission that is picking up abandoned fishing nets off the floor of Puget Sound -- nets that kill over 110 species of wildlife.

Ginny Broadhurst, spokesman for the Northwest Straits Commission, says they'd be able to clean up the 4,000 abandoned nets by 2010 if they could get $4.5 million in funding.

"Often they have structures set up specifically for salmon recovery, or specifically for species by species. We are dealing with an issue that is an ecosystem-wide problem. We haven't figured out how to fund things at the ecosystem level," said Broadhurst.

She expressed some frustration at the amount of red tape they have to cut through, along with all the old rotted gill nets.

Broadhurst is hopeful that a group the Governor formed called the Puget Sound Partnership can help coordinate cleanup and research efforts, while at the same time helping groups tap into funding.

In just a few days the Partnership will present an Action Agenda to the state legislature, but with the economy in a mess, and state and local budgets in turmoil, the question is, what can the Partnership really get done?

Whale researcher Ken Balcomb believes the Puget Sound Partnership may be the Orcas' last best hope for survival.

"Well, unfortunately, a lot of what we have seen in the past has just been more paperwork and futzing around, but I think that their role will be as educators of the public of the needs, and the pathways to recovering Puget Sound. And, lobbying our governments forcefully as putting these as top priorities," said Balcomb.

If not, our native whales could be done breeding within 10 to 20 years, and then, gone forever from Puget Sound.

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