Governor Gregoire Attends Opening Ceremonies for the SAM Olympic Sculpture Park (As Written)

January 20, 2007

Thank you, Mimi. And thank you to the many people who brought this idea to fruition.

This park brings together natural beauty and art in a way that could only be done in the Pacific Northwest. Like the UW campus, which sets up a stunning view of Mount Rainier, this park offers a perfect vantage point for the Olympic Mountains.

Bringing together breathtaking architecture, the work of some of the finest sculptors of the 20th Century, as well as newly-commissioned projects and vibrant landscaping, the park will breathe life into downtown Seattle.

Not long ago this was a forgotten part of downtown. Kind of like Shel Silverstein�s book Where the Sidewalk Ends, this was �Where the Waterfront Ends.� 120,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil had to be removed and 4,900 gallons of oil products had to be taken from recovery wells. More than 28 million gallons of contaminated ground water has been collected and treated.

So many of you here today visualized something else for this location.

The Seattle Art Museum, the Museum Development Authority and the Department of Ecology teamed up to clean up this site and with the help of so many other agencies, groups and private citizens � we can now enjoy much more of Seattle�s waterfront.

This park is a fine example of how the public and private sectors can work together. Collaboration and contributions from federal, state, local and private interests have transformed a contaminated industrial site into something fresh and constructive � a nine-acre park that is free and accessible to the public.

The park is another sign of the vitality of this city and this region.

Congratulations to the Seattle Art Museum and a special thank you to Mimi Gates, Jon and Mary Shirley, Martha Wyckoff and Chris Rogers, as well as Ed Murray in the other Seattle legislators, for all their outstanding work to make this happen.

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