Jerry,

Reading the text of the message (which appears to be a state-mandated thing, i.e., a law), under the red heading "What's the alternative", it appears that there are viable options.

So, you can't scrub your boat in the water if you have soft bottom paint...just switch, no? I've only ever had hard bottom paint, and have had divers scrub my hull (and, frankly, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable having a diver scrub my boat if I had soft paint, knowing that lots of paint is coming off in the water...)

Surely it's a huge exaggeration to say, "Do they really want us to not have boats in Puget Sound??" Surely there are alternative paint/cleaning methods? I'm not sure why you'd consider it outrageous to not be able to scrub soft bottom paint in the water of a enclosed and heavily populated and industrialized area like Puget Sound? I'm no water engineer or ocean chemist, but surely it's more than just a conspiracy to annoy boat owners, and may have something to do with reducing the amount of toxic chemicals put into the waters...?

Wikipedia has a good entry, "Environmental Issues in Puget Sound" that I found interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_Puget_Sound It's a complex problem, to be sure, and recreational boats are only part of the issue.