but increasing, puget sound cas are being closely studie by scitists as a barometer of the health of d. to see what scientists a learni, i headed out with brad hanson, a teameader with noaa, the national oceanic and atmospheric adminiration. >> over there! >> park it over here? >> yep. >> smith: hanson and his colleagues have be studying the orca populatiofor several year why studthese whal? >> they' the top predator in the food cha, so they're sentially accumulating all t contaminants. they're e last stop in the food chain. and so... >> smith: so ty're a laboratory, in aay. >> well, sure. >> smith: a laboratory tt tells us what's going on ithe ole ecosystem. yes. >> smith: the ca story is troubling. in o year, seven local orcas died. their population is now wn to 86so low that, in 2005, noaa listed puget snd orcas as an endangered species. to figure t why the orca population is in decline, haon's team goes out after biological sames. u get up pretty close to the whales in ordeto take samples, at some pot, right? >> we get to about four orive meters. >> smith: four or fi meters-- so,

into puget sound by srm water run off is equal to theil spill in prince william sound that the "xon . evertwo years, the storm water in puget snd carrieshat volume ooil into puget sound. >> smith: the hearof the problem is concret asphalt, street sidewalks, buildings, shoppingenters, suburban housing, rooftops-- rd surfaceswhat scientis call imrvious surfaces, that block the downpour of rain fro naturallsinking into the ground. >> how the land is develop, how intensely, wilhave a direct impacon the quality of storm water. you takeown a forested area and replace itith pavement or a rooftop. and instead almost all of t water slowlyoving through the forest canopand down to the ground a infiltrating down into groundwater where it wi move slowly. that wer, the day it lands within minutes of ititting the groundit's going to be gone. >> smith: and so, scientis, environmentalis and regulators all y that combating pollution is n just a matter of gulating industry. t the key to storm water runoff is nd use, how we develop and usour land. king county, i learned, s become a labatory for testing

this is a puget sound king crab, this is a puget sound king crab, very rare, protected. not supposed to be catching them. the net doesn't know that. this got pulled out of the net. we are going to put it back in the water now. >> reporter: by restoring the environment, the divers are also earning a wage. the netss removal project will create 40 new jobs. >> we know we have days of work anyway. >> reporter: many of them for fishermen who sold sea cucumbers and urchins to japan. that exotic market employed several hundred people on these waters. work now gone with the economic decline. >> these are blue-collar divers who taught themselves this profession. they depend on their own abilities to earn a living. and this is exactly the place the money ought to get spent. it's going to stay in the local community and support these families. >> reporter: your tax dollars at work, underwater. patrick ottman, cnn, puget sound, washington. >> a really diverse set of uses for all right money. crazy all the different things they are doing. and getting people to work. that's the whole

. >> killer whales, in washington state's puget sound. now they in the unique eco system are about to benefit from the federal stimulus money. i am about to find out how. 16 miles from oak harbor, meeting with a local group that has $5 million in stimulus money to recover lost fishing nets. >> reporter: fishing nets? a much bigger problem than you would think. the northwest rate marine conservation initiative struggled for years for funding. it says the stimulus will help recover an estimated 3,000 fishing nets discarded or lost in puget sound. >> taking something out of the water that will no longer kill fish, birds or pose danger to humans. >> if this is such a big problem how come it took till now to clean it up. >> imagine if you had nets along the streets catching bunny rabbits and squirrels. we wouldn't be discussing it. it would have been immediate. when the threats are down under water, it is so much harder to know what kind of impact they're having. >> reporter: diver kenny woodside takes to the water. 80 feet below he begins the

there are some larger co-ops, one in the puget sound area in the pacific northwest.f it was such a great idea, they would have been expanding all over the country. it's not that it's a bad idea, it doesn't provide the scale, at least it hasn't done offer the last 40 or 50 years to make a meaningful difference to solve people's problems. >> let's talk about the public option. i heard a lot about it on the sunday talks and as i was out. the public option is just a sliver of the proposal. there is no bill, just a wish list the president has given, there are proposals out there. it's just a sliver. the idea is that this public option is going to rule out everything, just going to be single pay. that's what people think, this is going to move everything to a single-pay. we're hearing that is not the truth. i will let mr. bluemerger and then mr. burgess go to you. >> in the house bill, there is a provision for a public option, non-profit set up by the government to provide some meaningful competition. in 25 states, there is only one company that has 50% or more in the vast

as we know with the cooperative in puget sound they have in excess of 500,000-600,000 members.at's important because you need that many people in your risk pool to spread around the risk. what we're talking about is a good balance of young, healthy, old, sick -- you name it -- people brought into the pool so that you kind of share those costs around. the other interesting thing about this, glenn, is that there might be something cultural going on here with these -- there might be certain parts of our country that are more accustomed to operating this day, like the idea of local consumers kind of organizing and running something that may not necessarily be as good a fit in other parts of the country. >> when you hear comparisons to things like rural electrical co-ops or land o lakes it's not necessarily comparable to the complicated effort it would take to get health care equivalently. >> absolutely. it also requires doctors and nurses and other health care practitioners to work in a different way than many of them now operate. here in the washington, d.c. region we have a lot o

i was up in this island where we live in the puget sound writing a syndicated column.d i didn't have very many papers but among them was one of the seattle papers. so i'd heard about maureen dowd and then forgot her name and picked up the paper and read a column by gail collins and then wrote my column that week and said maureen dowd is the best columnist in the country. [laughter] >> and then i can't remember the name of the p.i. -- what does that stand for "seattle post-intelligence post-intelligencer", yeah, they fired me that week and picked up maureen dowd. [laughter] >> there's a compliment in there for you somewhere. [laughter] >> thank the booksellers. [laughter] >> you know, here's where this once led. sophomore year of high school when i had this science class we're supposed to have a project, you know, a whole quarter's project. the night before i went outside and dug up a spade of dirt, got 11 earthworms out of that and put them in a little scrapbook and scotch tape. and i called it nature's string beans. [laughter] >> this guy wanted to get real technical

and i have one of the songs -- the easy street is empty and the silence of the sound "that's the puget sound i wrote them all accept for one. and you probably get into it. >> well, the first piece i wrote, i woke up from a dream and it ended up being on the record. and i liked fallout boys and boys like girls and i was like, well, i've never written one, so the inspiration strikes. >> save it. we'll toss it to beak and when we return, you'll sing i >> thank you. >> after the break, stay with us. explain. oh y, well for 6 months, customers get all three: oh, all right, see... you're just moving your fingers, aren't you? i gotta cut my nails. (announcer) now get three amazing fios services for the price of two. tv, internet, and phone for only... for the first 6 months. it all adds up to one incredible deal from fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800.974.6006 tty/v unlike cable, fios brings 100% fiber optics straight to your home, for razor sharp tv, america's top rated internet-- now even faster, and crystal clear phone servic all for just... for 6 months. it's l

you may not know that the puget sound health alliance is a regional organization endorsed by starbucksnd boeing health plans and other providers in the area. the publicly report through their report card on the quality of clinical care against a series of specific measures. group health care providers on 15 different measures most recently were rated no. 1 on 11 of those. there are all sorts of evidence that demonstrates that this is not your ishmo. this is a model that is working in this marketplace -- this is not your grandmother's hmo. host: that is one of the many voices on health care there. that segment at 10:00 p.m. eastern. a couple more minutes on this story. the cia officer discipline for alleged gun use in interrogations. bush officials filed no charges over tactics. looking toward a cia report to be released tomorrow. georgia, on the republican line. caller: in contrast to the last caller who turned this into a large diatribe of generalities, let's talk about the specific of the story you are reading this morning. we have a cia officer -- and by the way this was not a suspe

light rain around the puget sound. down towards new mexico, look at the tread dee stretch of rain through the south. now it's beginning to develop on the strong side and falling shy of al occur key. those are the counties shaded in dark green. the reason why? two to four inches of rainfall and watch it going on later this afternoon. to the east we go. this is tropical depression number five. towards puerto rico and espanol. look out because there's a good chance of it becoming a depression and tropical storm. that's what we're going to be watching over the next couple of days. high pressure is dominating across the northwest. not so nice across the north northeast. minneapolis and wisconsin, the line dripping towards the east, through chicago and des moines, stretching all the way back towards omaha and eastern nebraska decent day for the northwest. if you're traveling out here for the week. high today, 88 degrees and mostly sunny skies at nyc. that's in the northern and east side. and in washington d.c., whoa, it look

>> well, the co-op plan is based to the ones like in puget sound, washington.new insurance company, really state by state, or region by region, electedly not controlling it. the truth is -- allegedly not controlling it. the truth is costs have spiraled out of control with many co-op plans, including in the state of washington, and since the great depression co-op plans have not been a successful model of the united states. brian: the idea is if you get a bunch of groups together it drives down the rates they pay for insurance because so many people have been involved in it. >> and typically co-op plans have been set up by private insurance programs' capital. here the government is saying we are not going to have a public option but financial a quasi-public option. gretchen: so what a lot of people want to know is am i going to be able to keep my same physician? and under this co-op plan, will president obama still be able to say that? jl, the president has said -- >> well, the president has said repeatedly, you can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor. i di