Dear Editor at South Whidbey Record,
Island County Planning and the Planning Commission met Dec 11th to consider comments submitted from the public by Nov 30th on draft Wetlands Regulations that is a part of a Critical Area Ordnance -CAO. Their goal is to submit for approval to the County Commissioners the final draft on December 18th. I hope that the goal is to incorporate the extensive, valid and professional comments received, into the final regulations that as written lack adequate protections for Wetlands.
The draft Comprehensive Plan says: “No regulation will make any parcel of land unusable.” This is representative of the draft regulations, to make Island County a developer’s dream come true, rather than protecting Critical Areas, Wetlands and Puget Sound. We need a CAO that is legal, understandable and protects these vital areas.
Why it should matter that this draft is not adopted as written is a very probable future where wells fail, the sole source aquifer is depleted, saving Puget Sound is defeated and life here becomes impossible. Because we have no rivers our water comes from rain recharging our ground water through Critical Areas. Wetlands and forests are necessary for this to happen. Oak Harbor doesn’t have enough ground water for its population so their water is piped in from the Skagit River. Central, South Whidbey and Camano Island will not have access to that resource if population development exceeds shrinking Critical Areas and Wetland systems capability to recharge our vital ground water systems.
We have paved over, filled in and eliminated a large percentage of the Wetlands that were here 200 years ago. No one knows what the tipping point passed which our ground water resources will fail to meet the growing human demands. The draft regulations are so complicated and the need to address and incorporate the comments submitted so important that the goal should be changed from adoption by year’s end to next year to allow time to write a CAO where there is no Net Loss. An advocate for preserving Wetlands should be a part of the process of formulating the regulations as that goal is not apparent in the draft or from the staff in the Planning Department. As written it favors those landowners (i.e. developers) who can pay a lawyer to get exactly all that they want.
Experience says that our Planning Department and Commissioners believe that development at any cost is beneficial. This is not so, as value of a wetland and infrastructure costs among other factors are not considered. It can take over a hundred years, if ever, to restore a wetland once it is destroyed or compromised.
The proposed regulations are similar to the County’s Plan to Preserve and Protect Salmon. The responsibility to achieve this is given to land owners. There is no system in place to inform the landowner of neither this great responsibility nor the budget to educate as to how specifically it can be achieved. The Salmon Plan is set up to fail as are the draft wetlands regulations.
A native of Washington State, as the wife of a relative of Mahatma Gandhi, I spent the 1980s meeting internationally with world leaders discussing Global Survival. I have been an advocate for healthy salmon habitat, pure drinking water and the long view in planning for decades. This was why I worked so hard for five years to get the use of herbicides on our roadsides eliminated in the County and reduced in the State. Major corporations are buying up water resources and systems worldwide because of the importance of this vital resource. With major portions of the U.S. in severe drought we are blessed with rain. In the past we too have seen drought years and need to preserve with adequate regulations our aquifer recharge systems. The draft regulations fall far short of this goal.
There are too many benefits from viable Wetlands to list them all in this letter. My comments on Wetlands and Salmon are posted on my blog on my web page, www.tmgandhi.com. Please communicate to the Planning Department Jefft@co.island.wa.us; for the Planning Commissioners via Paulab@co.island.wa.us and your County Commissioners Phil Bakke District1@co.island.wa.us; Mac McDowell District2@co.island.wa.us; and John Dean District3@co.island.wa.us –who will have final say; how very important it is to rewrite the Critical Areas Wetlands Regulations with the County’s resident citizen experts at the table working to incorporate their extensive comments submitted so that the CAO would protect and preserve our Critical Areas and Wetlands that are vital parts of our Commons.
Speaking Common Sense for Our Seventh Generation,
Theresa Marie K. Gandhi
Who am I?
I am a northwest native Activist Poet who speaks with a drumbeat at Rockhoppers in Clinton on occasion. The formulation of public policy effecting forests, salmon, Puget Sound and its Critical Areas has been a major focus in my life since 1975 when a co-written grant funded Town Hall Meetings throughout Washington State discussing “Should women have proportional power in public policy formulation”.
Web page with blog: www.tmgandhi.com turtle8@whidbey.net.
Theresa Marie Kothari Gandhi
Monday, December 10, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Comments on Island County's Wetlands Regulations
November 30, 2007
To: the Island County Planning Commission
P.O. Box 5000, Coupeville, WA 98239
Commissioners: Mike Jocelyn, Ray Gabelein, Jr., Val Hillers, Bill Massey,
Sheilah Crider, Alan Schell, Scott Yonkman, Wayne Havens and Deb Eidness.
From: Theresa Marie Gandhi, P.O. Box 437, Clinton, WA 98236
Regarding: Comments on Wetlands Update within the Island County Critical Areas Ordinance. (Numbers relate to Comprehensive Plan numbers.)
Who I am and why I am qualified to submit comments.
I returned to the Northwest and Whidbey Island in 2000 after a decade as the wife of a relative of Mahatma Gandhi. As the official Mrs. Gandhi in five countries I attended Global Survival Conferences in Oxford and Moscow, met the Gorbachevs, Mother Teresa, and the President in the Oval Office, and was on National television in India, walked across America in a Gandhi Salt March, developed and presented non-violent conflict resolution ways and means.
After moving here I learned that the sole source aquifer was being polluted with herbicides by the County and State. I used my public relations, research, writing abilities and organizational skills to bring together a coalition of organizations to work to stop the County from using herbicides for roadside vegetation control. Work the coalition did in this regard resulted in significant reductions state wide by the Washington State Department of Transportation. In each case I was commenting on protecting water quality and the storm water runoff that adversely impacts salmon and other marine life.
I submitted comments to the Island County Salmon Plan for WIRA 6 concluding it was a plan set up to fail as it left the landowner the one responsible for saving salmon with out telling them this or how specifically to do so.
I submitted comments to the Puget Sound Partnership and wrote about the importance of not polluting storm water runoff and of maintaining the viability of the wetlands and associated systems of water recharge on islands with sole source aquifers.
I submitted comments to the Department of Natural Resources draft plan to spray herbicides on over one million acres in twelve western states speaking to the same issues of water quality and the various species that depend upon healthy wetlands, streams, creeks, lakes and rivers.
In every instance there was enough turn around time from receiving the notice that comments would be accepted and the due date. It would have been appreciated if Island County Planning had allowed more time between releasing Island County’s Wetlands update draft and all the departments that various parts of the plan would be found. Enabling some of these plans to be filed within the “secret” Farm Plans does not uphold the principle of a Land Constitution.
As part of the Growth Management Act, the Critical Areas Ordnance and Wetlands regulations are a part of a Land Use Constitution and needs to be respected and created with the input of the population that will be impacted by the regulations. There are those of us who think that planning should be for protecting the Commons that support life here. More people would have contributed to the process by speaking on behalf of our islands’ system of trees, native plants and species that are dependent upon us. We are stewards of the systems that provide us all with drinking water from a rechargeable aquifer. Each part; trees, plants and especially wetlands are necessary to recharge our wells and contributes to the water that quality of life depends upon.
Given the way that the draft proposal is written it is obvious that the Planning Department can not be considered to be protecting the future viability of our sole source aquifer and all of the species, vegetation (plants, aquatic life and trees) and water systems that make up the whole web of life. It seems that Planning is all about development and enabling it at the cost of a sustainable, usable aquifer for our seventh generation.
The following are my comments on Island County’s wetlands draft Comprehensive Plan and Critical Areas Ordinance.
Goal. There is confusion in the comp plan and in the ordinance between Critical Areas and Wetlands. This needs to be resolved. The document needs to reflect the intention to protect non-human species, both on land and in Puget Sound. A goal of “no net loss” of wetland area is missing any intention to increase either wetland function or area.
4. The definitions in 17.02B.030 are so elastic as to be useless. There is no way to measure or predict what constitutes “Reasonable and Practical”.
5. Mitigation sequencing stops short of denying a permit in the event the proposal has immitigable impacts. Use of the term “Reasonable and Practical” negates the entire statement and does not say No in these cases.
6. Restoration after damage to wetland and /or buffers is allowed. Success in this regard is not “Reasonable nor Practical” but is problematic and usually fails. The result is a net loss of wetland, both in functions and in area. Restoration can take more than the length of a human life and the original parts making up the wetland are lost with its destruction.
9. a. One sentence says it all. “Under no circumstance will a permit be denied to protect a wetland or make the land unusable.” There may be a fee in lieu, but the project, however damaging, will go forward. The position of Island County that development for human uses will always take precedence over maintenance of a functional ecosystem – which in fact supports continued human life.
9. b. Needed public facilities and services are not defined but this provision encourages the purchase of land containing wetland because such lands will cost less, in the knowledge that “needed public facilities” will trump the need to protect the wetland. This could include cell towers and at its worst, as in North and South Carolina, commercial hog farms with hundreds of thousands of hogs and their waste.
9. c. This ordinance guarantees that there will be a net loss of wetlands.
9. e. What is this supposed to mean?
10. When development plans are given precedence over all else, there will be no fairness or equitability for downstream/downhill landowners. (An example is the current cement plant expansion proposal in Greenbank that will impact all down hill with toxic to life run off.) The ordinance as written is so flexible that there is no predictability.
Wetlands Overlay – Goal: Missing from the goal is “to prevent a net loss in area of wetlands”. Then three policies have been stricken: 1) “avoid land development that causes loss of wetland functions”; 2) “mitigation projects that add to existing wetlands or increase function and values of degraded wetlands are preferred over efforts to create wetlands from no-wetland are preferred over efforts to create wetland from non-wetland areas and should remain subject to wetland area regulations.” 3) “prohibit alteration of land that results in degradation of wetlands (with exception)…” Why were these removed and no policies that are comparable or speak to these issues replaced? The striking of these three items demonstrates a shift in intention. The original wetlands ordinance had a focus on protecting wetlands. The current ordinance shifts the focus to enabling development in instances where wetlands might limit it. This shift leads to guaranteed adverse impacts on individual wetland and on the entire functional ecosystem of Island County.
1) These three policies are supplanted by non-regulatory protections with out a regulatory framework that would enable them to work.
2) Less protection for existing wetlands in favor of squeezing in one or two more houses in the development comes about when buffer averaging is used. Never mentioned is the “other technique” of leaving the wetland alone. It must be acknowledged that there are some areas that can not be developed without destroying them. Without this as a part of the ordinance we will continue to lose wetland areas and functions.
Policy C. In 17.02B.030 “Reasonable and Practical”, are defined in such a flexible way as to make it mean what ever one wants it to and thus makes the entire statement meaningless.
Policy E. is inconsistent with Critical Area goal 9.a. that says that regulation to protect critical areas should not make any existing parcel or lot unusable. Given this document was written by a developer for developers 9.a. will take precedence and the majority of the time a permit to do major damage to a wetland will be issued.
F. Because all enforcement is complaint driven and since the public cannot know the specific buffer assigned to a particular portion of an individual parcel because the ordinance is so convoluted it will be impossible to determine if a violation has occurred. This will result in ‘valid’ complaints greatly diminishing. This will allow new and continuing damage to occur to wetlands without any enforcement.
Since Senator Haugen pushed through a law making all Farm Management Plans secret documents no part of a Land Use Constitution should be allowed to be hidden within this system. As wetlands naturally occur on farm lands how will the County and Public have access to these plans to know if they are following the rules and regulations of the Critical Areas Ordinance -CAO, wetlands regulations and Growth Management Plan -GMP? Either remove reliance on these plans or demonstrate that the county will have access to them for review and that the public will have access to review the county’s determination.
Growing Season in a coastal area is the entire year and the definition needs to be corrected to reflect this.
(Comments on “Highly Erodible Soils” through Wetland Type are left out for lack of time.)
Wetland Functions needs to be rewritten to include the long list of beneficial functions performed by wetland in Island County.
(Comments from here through the end are not included as it is 3:28 AM and I want to submit this before your office opens December 3, 2007.)
My summary:
The draft proposed Wetlands Regulations within the Critical Areas Ordinance is obtuse, so long, complicated, involved, unreadable, not understandable and unworkable as to guarantee the destruction of the majority of wetland and thus Critical Areas. It is a developers plan written by a developer who had veto power over best available science as related to me by Dr. Adamus. The placement of Keith Dearborn as having the final say on what “best available science” would be allowed has contributed to the creation of proposed wetland regulations that favors development over the preservation of islands wide system critical to recharging our sole source aquifer.
If the draft ordinance and regulations are adopted as proposed it would be REASONABLE and PRACTABLE to assume that Island County’s sole source aquifer will be so depleted in the near future as to make drinking water unavailable and all property worthless.
The proposed wetland regulations are not REASONABLE or PRACTABLE. They are convoluted, unreadable (referencing 5 volumes of Hitchcock that requires a one day workshop to learn how to use). The regulations go in circles: if A then B, if B then A making all within the loop as null and void. This works for developers whose profit will be large enough to pay a lawyer to use all the huge number of built in loop holes.
The proposed regulations do not protect wetlands because they are so complicated it is impossible to understand or administer.
They rely on landowners (i.e. developers) to determine the size, shape and type of their own wetlands and buffers. The forty-five buffer possibilities make it too complicated and obtuse to be useful except for developers with lawyers. I can not say this enough as it is so obvious and contrary to the intent of having regulations in the first place.
Within the draft regulations is a statement that NO MATTER HOW HORRENDOUS “NO DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL WILL EVER BE DENIED TO PROTECT WETLANDS!”
Then hidden within is the worst of the lot in the Conservation District Secret Farm Plans. Taking advantage of this “Secret” place the County and Public cannot know what is being permitted to degrade wetlands that are almost always found on farm lands.
Many wetlands are being defined out of existence.
There are many scientific definitions that are incorrect.
The “reasonable use” exceptions passed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning “the taking of all economic use” of a property has been redefined completely so that the intent of the ruling has evaporated into thin air. Thus you can build whatever you want and deal with the wetlands after all the damage has been done.
The most unreasonable for the health of the wetland and the most practicable for the Developer is that they can just buy their way out of having to adhere to the CAO and Wetland’s Regulations.
Mosaic wetland provisions are flawed and unworkable. There are several problems with the interpretation and implementation of the provision and the numerical standards used. What is meant by the “average” distance “apart” and “upland area between the wetlands” and how they are to be measured is obscure. The definition and its practical application need to be clarified and the standard revised to include greater separation between individual wetlands in the mosaic.
Rural Stewardship Plans (RSAs) are voluntary for retention of forest vegetation so are their durability over time is questionable. Without forest cover over major portions of the landscape, habitat generally and wetland habitat in particular will be degraded from fragmentation.
Best available science say deforestation is causal in watershed wetland habitat, and hydrological degradation.
The Island County Planning Department’s (i.e. Dearborn’s) proposal does not include effective mechanisms to prevent the above mentioned impacts. This is predictable given the minimum expected development in the next twenty years.
This means that the sole source aquifer we all depend upon for drinking water will dry up and living in Island County will end. The whole web of life staying healthy is necessary to support humans living here.
We have unique features not found else where in the Pacific Northwest including but not limited to: a coastal ancient forest, huge old growth red cedars, endangered lupine, rare western wetland plants and glacial kettles.
Creating wetland regulations that protect the systems that recharge our sole source aquifer make the islands livable. Implementing the proposed draft regulations on wetlands will facilitate the destruction of the interwoven systems that recharge the source of our drinking water. Failure to protect these systems threatens the viability of our sole source aquifer that makes life possible here. We live on islands that are different than the mainland and need more care than exists in the proposed regulations to protect our way of life from developers that would make their money, destroy our way of life and leave for other areas to profit from.
There is a comprehensive wetland plan written by professionals, submitted to the county and then filed away because it failed to provide profits above preservation. It exists and should be pulled out of the bottom drawer and used. The entire web of life would be well served if this discarded plan were brought out and considered as a viable alternative to the developers’ proposal currently under consideration. Please at the very least ask to see what the Planning Department has hidden.
Your approval of the proposed regulations will be your vote for the death of Island County as a desirable place to live. Please allow more time for public input.
To: the Island County Planning Commission
P.O. Box 5000, Coupeville, WA 98239
Commissioners: Mike Jocelyn, Ray Gabelein, Jr., Val Hillers, Bill Massey,
Sheilah Crider, Alan Schell, Scott Yonkman, Wayne Havens and Deb Eidness.
From: Theresa Marie Gandhi, P.O. Box 437, Clinton, WA 98236
Regarding: Comments on Wetlands Update within the Island County Critical Areas Ordinance. (Numbers relate to Comprehensive Plan numbers.)
Who I am and why I am qualified to submit comments.
I returned to the Northwest and Whidbey Island in 2000 after a decade as the wife of a relative of Mahatma Gandhi. As the official Mrs. Gandhi in five countries I attended Global Survival Conferences in Oxford and Moscow, met the Gorbachevs, Mother Teresa, and the President in the Oval Office, and was on National television in India, walked across America in a Gandhi Salt March, developed and presented non-violent conflict resolution ways and means.
After moving here I learned that the sole source aquifer was being polluted with herbicides by the County and State. I used my public relations, research, writing abilities and organizational skills to bring together a coalition of organizations to work to stop the County from using herbicides for roadside vegetation control. Work the coalition did in this regard resulted in significant reductions state wide by the Washington State Department of Transportation. In each case I was commenting on protecting water quality and the storm water runoff that adversely impacts salmon and other marine life.
I submitted comments to the Island County Salmon Plan for WIRA 6 concluding it was a plan set up to fail as it left the landowner the one responsible for saving salmon with out telling them this or how specifically to do so.
I submitted comments to the Puget Sound Partnership and wrote about the importance of not polluting storm water runoff and of maintaining the viability of the wetlands and associated systems of water recharge on islands with sole source aquifers.
I submitted comments to the Department of Natural Resources draft plan to spray herbicides on over one million acres in twelve western states speaking to the same issues of water quality and the various species that depend upon healthy wetlands, streams, creeks, lakes and rivers.
In every instance there was enough turn around time from receiving the notice that comments would be accepted and the due date. It would have been appreciated if Island County Planning had allowed more time between releasing Island County’s Wetlands update draft and all the departments that various parts of the plan would be found. Enabling some of these plans to be filed within the “secret” Farm Plans does not uphold the principle of a Land Constitution.
As part of the Growth Management Act, the Critical Areas Ordnance and Wetlands regulations are a part of a Land Use Constitution and needs to be respected and created with the input of the population that will be impacted by the regulations. There are those of us who think that planning should be for protecting the Commons that support life here. More people would have contributed to the process by speaking on behalf of our islands’ system of trees, native plants and species that are dependent upon us. We are stewards of the systems that provide us all with drinking water from a rechargeable aquifer. Each part; trees, plants and especially wetlands are necessary to recharge our wells and contributes to the water that quality of life depends upon.
Given the way that the draft proposal is written it is obvious that the Planning Department can not be considered to be protecting the future viability of our sole source aquifer and all of the species, vegetation (plants, aquatic life and trees) and water systems that make up the whole web of life. It seems that Planning is all about development and enabling it at the cost of a sustainable, usable aquifer for our seventh generation.
The following are my comments on Island County’s wetlands draft Comprehensive Plan and Critical Areas Ordinance.
Goal. There is confusion in the comp plan and in the ordinance between Critical Areas and Wetlands. This needs to be resolved. The document needs to reflect the intention to protect non-human species, both on land and in Puget Sound. A goal of “no net loss” of wetland area is missing any intention to increase either wetland function or area.
4. The definitions in 17.02B.030 are so elastic as to be useless. There is no way to measure or predict what constitutes “Reasonable and Practical”.
5. Mitigation sequencing stops short of denying a permit in the event the proposal has immitigable impacts. Use of the term “Reasonable and Practical” negates the entire statement and does not say No in these cases.
6. Restoration after damage to wetland and /or buffers is allowed. Success in this regard is not “Reasonable nor Practical” but is problematic and usually fails. The result is a net loss of wetland, both in functions and in area. Restoration can take more than the length of a human life and the original parts making up the wetland are lost with its destruction.
9. a. One sentence says it all. “Under no circumstance will a permit be denied to protect a wetland or make the land unusable.” There may be a fee in lieu, but the project, however damaging, will go forward. The position of Island County that development for human uses will always take precedence over maintenance of a functional ecosystem – which in fact supports continued human life.
9. b. Needed public facilities and services are not defined but this provision encourages the purchase of land containing wetland because such lands will cost less, in the knowledge that “needed public facilities” will trump the need to protect the wetland. This could include cell towers and at its worst, as in North and South Carolina, commercial hog farms with hundreds of thousands of hogs and their waste.
9. c. This ordinance guarantees that there will be a net loss of wetlands.
9. e. What is this supposed to mean?
10. When development plans are given precedence over all else, there will be no fairness or equitability for downstream/downhill landowners. (An example is the current cement plant expansion proposal in Greenbank that will impact all down hill with toxic to life run off.) The ordinance as written is so flexible that there is no predictability.
Wetlands Overlay – Goal: Missing from the goal is “to prevent a net loss in area of wetlands”. Then three policies have been stricken: 1) “avoid land development that causes loss of wetland functions”; 2) “mitigation projects that add to existing wetlands or increase function and values of degraded wetlands are preferred over efforts to create wetlands from no-wetland are preferred over efforts to create wetland from non-wetland areas and should remain subject to wetland area regulations.” 3) “prohibit alteration of land that results in degradation of wetlands (with exception)…” Why were these removed and no policies that are comparable or speak to these issues replaced? The striking of these three items demonstrates a shift in intention. The original wetlands ordinance had a focus on protecting wetlands. The current ordinance shifts the focus to enabling development in instances where wetlands might limit it. This shift leads to guaranteed adverse impacts on individual wetland and on the entire functional ecosystem of Island County.
1) These three policies are supplanted by non-regulatory protections with out a regulatory framework that would enable them to work.
2) Less protection for existing wetlands in favor of squeezing in one or two more houses in the development comes about when buffer averaging is used. Never mentioned is the “other technique” of leaving the wetland alone. It must be acknowledged that there are some areas that can not be developed without destroying them. Without this as a part of the ordinance we will continue to lose wetland areas and functions.
Policy C. In 17.02B.030 “Reasonable and Practical”, are defined in such a flexible way as to make it mean what ever one wants it to and thus makes the entire statement meaningless.
Policy E. is inconsistent with Critical Area goal 9.a. that says that regulation to protect critical areas should not make any existing parcel or lot unusable. Given this document was written by a developer for developers 9.a. will take precedence and the majority of the time a permit to do major damage to a wetland will be issued.
F. Because all enforcement is complaint driven and since the public cannot know the specific buffer assigned to a particular portion of an individual parcel because the ordinance is so convoluted it will be impossible to determine if a violation has occurred. This will result in ‘valid’ complaints greatly diminishing. This will allow new and continuing damage to occur to wetlands without any enforcement.
Since Senator Haugen pushed through a law making all Farm Management Plans secret documents no part of a Land Use Constitution should be allowed to be hidden within this system. As wetlands naturally occur on farm lands how will the County and Public have access to these plans to know if they are following the rules and regulations of the Critical Areas Ordinance -CAO, wetlands regulations and Growth Management Plan -GMP? Either remove reliance on these plans or demonstrate that the county will have access to them for review and that the public will have access to review the county’s determination.
Growing Season in a coastal area is the entire year and the definition needs to be corrected to reflect this.
(Comments on “Highly Erodible Soils” through Wetland Type are left out for lack of time.)
Wetland Functions needs to be rewritten to include the long list of beneficial functions performed by wetland in Island County.
(Comments from here through the end are not included as it is 3:28 AM and I want to submit this before your office opens December 3, 2007.)
My summary:
The draft proposed Wetlands Regulations within the Critical Areas Ordinance is obtuse, so long, complicated, involved, unreadable, not understandable and unworkable as to guarantee the destruction of the majority of wetland and thus Critical Areas. It is a developers plan written by a developer who had veto power over best available science as related to me by Dr. Adamus. The placement of Keith Dearborn as having the final say on what “best available science” would be allowed has contributed to the creation of proposed wetland regulations that favors development over the preservation of islands wide system critical to recharging our sole source aquifer.
If the draft ordinance and regulations are adopted as proposed it would be REASONABLE and PRACTABLE to assume that Island County’s sole source aquifer will be so depleted in the near future as to make drinking water unavailable and all property worthless.
The proposed wetland regulations are not REASONABLE or PRACTABLE. They are convoluted, unreadable (referencing 5 volumes of Hitchcock that requires a one day workshop to learn how to use). The regulations go in circles: if A then B, if B then A making all within the loop as null and void. This works for developers whose profit will be large enough to pay a lawyer to use all the huge number of built in loop holes.
The proposed regulations do not protect wetlands because they are so complicated it is impossible to understand or administer.
They rely on landowners (i.e. developers) to determine the size, shape and type of their own wetlands and buffers. The forty-five buffer possibilities make it too complicated and obtuse to be useful except for developers with lawyers. I can not say this enough as it is so obvious and contrary to the intent of having regulations in the first place.
Within the draft regulations is a statement that NO MATTER HOW HORRENDOUS “NO DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL WILL EVER BE DENIED TO PROTECT WETLANDS!”
Then hidden within is the worst of the lot in the Conservation District Secret Farm Plans. Taking advantage of this “Secret” place the County and Public cannot know what is being permitted to degrade wetlands that are almost always found on farm lands.
Many wetlands are being defined out of existence.
There are many scientific definitions that are incorrect.
The “reasonable use” exceptions passed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning “the taking of all economic use” of a property has been redefined completely so that the intent of the ruling has evaporated into thin air. Thus you can build whatever you want and deal with the wetlands after all the damage has been done.
The most unreasonable for the health of the wetland and the most practicable for the Developer is that they can just buy their way out of having to adhere to the CAO and Wetland’s Regulations.
Mosaic wetland provisions are flawed and unworkable. There are several problems with the interpretation and implementation of the provision and the numerical standards used. What is meant by the “average” distance “apart” and “upland area between the wetlands” and how they are to be measured is obscure. The definition and its practical application need to be clarified and the standard revised to include greater separation between individual wetlands in the mosaic.
Rural Stewardship Plans (RSAs) are voluntary for retention of forest vegetation so are their durability over time is questionable. Without forest cover over major portions of the landscape, habitat generally and wetland habitat in particular will be degraded from fragmentation.
Best available science say deforestation is causal in watershed wetland habitat, and hydrological degradation.
The Island County Planning Department’s (i.e. Dearborn’s) proposal does not include effective mechanisms to prevent the above mentioned impacts. This is predictable given the minimum expected development in the next twenty years.
This means that the sole source aquifer we all depend upon for drinking water will dry up and living in Island County will end. The whole web of life staying healthy is necessary to support humans living here.
We have unique features not found else where in the Pacific Northwest including but not limited to: a coastal ancient forest, huge old growth red cedars, endangered lupine, rare western wetland plants and glacial kettles.
Creating wetland regulations that protect the systems that recharge our sole source aquifer make the islands livable. Implementing the proposed draft regulations on wetlands will facilitate the destruction of the interwoven systems that recharge the source of our drinking water. Failure to protect these systems threatens the viability of our sole source aquifer that makes life possible here. We live on islands that are different than the mainland and need more care than exists in the proposed regulations to protect our way of life from developers that would make their money, destroy our way of life and leave for other areas to profit from.
There is a comprehensive wetland plan written by professionals, submitted to the county and then filed away because it failed to provide profits above preservation. It exists and should be pulled out of the bottom drawer and used. The entire web of life would be well served if this discarded plan were brought out and considered as a viable alternative to the developers’ proposal currently under consideration. Please at the very least ask to see what the Planning Department has hidden.
Your approval of the proposed regulations will be your vote for the death of Island County as a desirable place to live. Please allow more time for public input.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Growth Management Act in Island County
WEAN – Growth Management Act - Critical Areas and Farm Plans History
In 1990 the Legislature passed the Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) because they found that uncoordinated and unplanned growth posed a threat to the environment, sustainable economic development, and the quality of life in Washington. The GMA was built on Washington's strong traditions of local government control and regional diversity. It established state goals, set deadlines for compliance, offered direction on how to prepare local comprehensive plans and regulations and set forth requirements for early and continuous public participation. The comprehensive plan called for by the law would become the County’s version of a Land Use Constitution.
In 1992 the Hearing Boards were established and in 1993 people were appointed to hear and determine allegations of non-compliance with the GMA. The shared mission of the three Growth Management Hearings Boards is to help local governments manage growth and to serve the citizens of the State of Washington. They do so by making informed decisions on appeals arising from the implementation or non-implementation of the Growth Management Act in a clear, consistent, timely and impartial manner that recognizes the diversity of the three board jurisdictional regions.
Whidbey Environmental Action Network – WEAN, in reading the law knew from experience that Island County was out of compliance with the GMA law. Experience had shown that the County Commissioners had no intention of stopping uncoordinated and unplanned growth that posed a threat to our common resources so necessary for quality of life that so many of us treasure. Resources like clean water in our wells, healthy wetlands that maintain our aquifers, rare and endangered native species of plants and fish and sustainable habitats for these species.
WEAN worked through the decade of the 1990's to get a GMA compliant comprehensive plan for Island County. The County Commissioners’ response was to hire a former Executive Director of Building Contractors of Washington State for $60,000 in 1997 to write a Land Developer’s version of a comprehensive plan. The amount paid by County taxpayers grew to $1.5 million dollars paid to Attorney Keith Dearborn. Dearborn used a 1984 Wetland Ordinance in 1998. As long as this ordinance remained unchanged he could claim it was grandfathered because if any changes were made it would have to meet the new Best Available Science standard. The fifteen now twenty year old plan was used by the County to address the Critical Areas requirement of the GMA.
The County attempted to meet the GMA law by adopting Agricultural Best Management Practices –AG-BMP. In 1998 WEAN stipulated that the County could meet their Critical Area protection obligations in using the AG-BMP in the Commercial AG and Rural AG zones. WEAN went to the Hearings Board when the County claimed that the AG-BMP was good enough to apply in all zones. The Hearings Board upheld the WEAN claim that AG-BMP plan did not replace a Critical Areas Plan.
Then the Commissioners went Judge shopping and found a winning one in Whatcom County that did not bother to read the record, gave no findings of fact and ruled on a topic not even a part of the court case. This judge’s rulings were overturned when WEAN took the County before the Court of Appeals. A Court panel of three judges upheld legal arguments submitted by WEAN, the County asked for reconsideration and the Court of Appeals did reconsider and slammed the County even harder. The County then took the Court of Appeals proceedings to the Supreme Court and was refused a hearing of the case, making the Court of Appeals action finding Island County out of compliance with the law, the last legal recourse.
The Farms Plans came into contention when the County Commissioners claimed that the very existence of a Farm Plan demonstrated that Critical Areas were being protected on that property. WEAN asked how they could know this, since the Commissioners had never seen a Farm Plan. WEAN asked to see the Farm Plans, not to torture farmers but to verify the statements of the County Commissioners and to determine if Farm Plans really do protect Critical Areas as required by law under the GMA.
The County Commissions having established their commitment to unregulated development over fifteen years, having exhausted all legal recourse and having spent $2 million + in fighting the legal implementation of the Growth Management Act rather than working to create Island County’s version of a Land Use Constitution there was only one thing to do, get even.
The County Commissioners started a divide to conquer and slander campaign against WEAN. They sent out press releases and questionnaires obviously written in the heat of angst, slandering WEAN and telling farmers that WEAN was out to put them out of business. Mike Shelton bragged he knew where “WEAN is Commie” t-shirts could be bought. Public statements and quotes given to the press and printed as fact made WEAN out to be the bad guy.
WEAN is dedicated to preservation and restoration of native biological diversity of Whidbey Island and the Pacific Northwest. The County’s slander that WEAN is out to put farmers out of business is untrue. Founding members are also founding members of Whidbey Island’s Tilth and 2nd generation Whidbey Island farmers. WEAN would never have requested the Farm Plans if the County had not used the AG-BMP to avoid coming into compliance with the Growth Management Act. This was just another obstruction thrown up to keep Island County a development profiteers’ haven.
Why after the Growth Management Act Hearings Board, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court ruled that Island County is out of compliance with the law and subject to the state withholding taxes have the County Commissioners not done as court ordered? If the County would not have spent the $1.5 million + fighting the GMA but instead spent the money and time implementing the Growth Management Act they could have saved the taxpayers a lot of money and contributed to our quality of life instead of the opposite.
For our seventh generation,
Theresa Marie Gandhi
In 1990 the Legislature passed the Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) because they found that uncoordinated and unplanned growth posed a threat to the environment, sustainable economic development, and the quality of life in Washington. The GMA was built on Washington's strong traditions of local government control and regional diversity. It established state goals, set deadlines for compliance, offered direction on how to prepare local comprehensive plans and regulations and set forth requirements for early and continuous public participation. The comprehensive plan called for by the law would become the County’s version of a Land Use Constitution.
In 1992 the Hearing Boards were established and in 1993 people were appointed to hear and determine allegations of non-compliance with the GMA. The shared mission of the three Growth Management Hearings Boards is to help local governments manage growth and to serve the citizens of the State of Washington. They do so by making informed decisions on appeals arising from the implementation or non-implementation of the Growth Management Act in a clear, consistent, timely and impartial manner that recognizes the diversity of the three board jurisdictional regions.
Whidbey Environmental Action Network – WEAN, in reading the law knew from experience that Island County was out of compliance with the GMA law. Experience had shown that the County Commissioners had no intention of stopping uncoordinated and unplanned growth that posed a threat to our common resources so necessary for quality of life that so many of us treasure. Resources like clean water in our wells, healthy wetlands that maintain our aquifers, rare and endangered native species of plants and fish and sustainable habitats for these species.
WEAN worked through the decade of the 1990's to get a GMA compliant comprehensive plan for Island County. The County Commissioners’ response was to hire a former Executive Director of Building Contractors of Washington State for $60,000 in 1997 to write a Land Developer’s version of a comprehensive plan. The amount paid by County taxpayers grew to $1.5 million dollars paid to Attorney Keith Dearborn. Dearborn used a 1984 Wetland Ordinance in 1998. As long as this ordinance remained unchanged he could claim it was grandfathered because if any changes were made it would have to meet the new Best Available Science standard. The fifteen now twenty year old plan was used by the County to address the Critical Areas requirement of the GMA.
The County attempted to meet the GMA law by adopting Agricultural Best Management Practices –AG-BMP. In 1998 WEAN stipulated that the County could meet their Critical Area protection obligations in using the AG-BMP in the Commercial AG and Rural AG zones. WEAN went to the Hearings Board when the County claimed that the AG-BMP was good enough to apply in all zones. The Hearings Board upheld the WEAN claim that AG-BMP plan did not replace a Critical Areas Plan.
Then the Commissioners went Judge shopping and found a winning one in Whatcom County that did not bother to read the record, gave no findings of fact and ruled on a topic not even a part of the court case. This judge’s rulings were overturned when WEAN took the County before the Court of Appeals. A Court panel of three judges upheld legal arguments submitted by WEAN, the County asked for reconsideration and the Court of Appeals did reconsider and slammed the County even harder. The County then took the Court of Appeals proceedings to the Supreme Court and was refused a hearing of the case, making the Court of Appeals action finding Island County out of compliance with the law, the last legal recourse.
The Farms Plans came into contention when the County Commissioners claimed that the very existence of a Farm Plan demonstrated that Critical Areas were being protected on that property. WEAN asked how they could know this, since the Commissioners had never seen a Farm Plan. WEAN asked to see the Farm Plans, not to torture farmers but to verify the statements of the County Commissioners and to determine if Farm Plans really do protect Critical Areas as required by law under the GMA.
The County Commissions having established their commitment to unregulated development over fifteen years, having exhausted all legal recourse and having spent $2 million + in fighting the legal implementation of the Growth Management Act rather than working to create Island County’s version of a Land Use Constitution there was only one thing to do, get even.
The County Commissioners started a divide to conquer and slander campaign against WEAN. They sent out press releases and questionnaires obviously written in the heat of angst, slandering WEAN and telling farmers that WEAN was out to put them out of business. Mike Shelton bragged he knew where “WEAN is Commie” t-shirts could be bought. Public statements and quotes given to the press and printed as fact made WEAN out to be the bad guy.
WEAN is dedicated to preservation and restoration of native biological diversity of Whidbey Island and the Pacific Northwest. The County’s slander that WEAN is out to put farmers out of business is untrue. Founding members are also founding members of Whidbey Island’s Tilth and 2nd generation Whidbey Island farmers. WEAN would never have requested the Farm Plans if the County had not used the AG-BMP to avoid coming into compliance with the Growth Management Act. This was just another obstruction thrown up to keep Island County a development profiteers’ haven.
Why after the Growth Management Act Hearings Board, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court ruled that Island County is out of compliance with the law and subject to the state withholding taxes have the County Commissioners not done as court ordered? If the County would not have spent the $1.5 million + fighting the GMA but instead spent the money and time implementing the Growth Management Act they could have saved the taxpayers a lot of money and contributed to our quality of life instead of the opposite.
For our seventh generation,
Theresa Marie Gandhi
Crossing the Rubicon - a book review
Crossing the Rubicon: The decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil is a must read that gets to the innermost core of the 9/11 attacks. Michael Ruppert spent two and a half years researching and writing this book. Key points are: Vice President Richard Cheney is the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11, on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superseding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room. May 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all war game, field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. It also shows that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks.” Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of HUD under Bush-1 wrote the forward that tells about $500 billions in fraud at US Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) used to buy elections, banks and control of multiple media outlets.
With 39 pages of endnotes it is a great factual detective story. Truth needs to be told about the end of oil that so many more will not have to die and that we may make wise decisions for our future.
A truth seeker, Theresa Marie Gandhi
October 2004 letter to the editor
With 39 pages of endnotes it is a great factual detective story. Truth needs to be told about the end of oil that so many more will not have to die and that we may make wise decisions for our future.
A truth seeker, Theresa Marie Gandhi
October 2004 letter to the editor
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