Oak Harbor has launched a major public education effort on the issue of stormwater runoff that should pay dividends down the road.

Even the mayor is personally involved, doing public service commercials on the town TV channel. On a more substantive level, the city hired the knowledgeable and enthusiastic Maribeth Crandell as its new environmental educator and she hit the ground running with enough ideas to float a ship.

This is all a good faith effort to comply with tighter federal and state restrictions on runoff, and to better make a case to acquire a necessary new stormwater permit from the Department of Ecology.

Education is a crucial element in stormwater management because so many of the pollutants contained in runoff come from the driveways and rooftops of individual homeowners, as well as the roads and parking lots we all use on a daily basis. Even walking your dog is polluting if you don’t pick up after it and properly dispose of the waste. Cleaning up Puget Sound is a responsibility we all share, both on a community and individual basis.

The city to its credit is facing up to the fact that it has to improve its stormwater cleanup efforts to comply with new laws and obtain new permits. This is far preferable to stonewalling and griping about new “unfunded mandates.” The city needs to stay on the good side of federal and state regulators and enthusiastically lead the effort to purify our runoff. That way, when grants and low interest loans for stormwater systems and sewer plants are handed out, Oak Harbor will be in the front of the line of deserving communities.