NOAA has been in the hot seat on a huge range of issues during her reign. I don’t blame her, it’s a sprawling agency with a huge range of people in middle and lower ranks. Many of whom were likely put there during the anti-environmental legacy of George Bush II. But she has faced controversy with issues she has championed. Locally, NOAA is seen as both hero and villain, from both sides of the environmental spectrum. NOAA has championed turning Puget Sound into a fish farm, with their insistence that Puget Sound is the best place in North America to do aquaculture, which our Governor and DOE has followed through on, regardless of scientifically based concerns by environmental groups. It’s all a crazy quilt of who is really protecting the environment in the Salish Sea. Sometimes it’s damn hard to tell.
But there is no reason to blame Ms. Lubchenko. She is a highly regarded scientist and educator. I doubt we could get a better person in the role. But we’ll have an opportunity to see.