The Special Port Meeting to address Master Plan proposals of expansion of our airport was, in many ways, a disaster, to a populace that is getting sick and tired of being excluded and co-opted by officials when we have told them for many decades that we don't want unlimited growth at the expense of our rural character, culture, vision, lifestyle, and environment. People are finally questioning politicians' and developers' (who used to be called planners) reasoning, and the politicians and officials are scared of us and our (rightful) anger and frustration. They should be. They have harmed us and the lands and waters that sustain us, in so many egregious ways. They have eroded and betrayed Public Trust time and time again. What is needed is for we the people to step up, take the lead, and take back what is rightfully ours; care and stewardship of all we hold dear about this island we love - honoring the tranquil beauty and warm community that brought us here in the first place.
Mistakes were made by the Port commissioners present, the fire chief, who yelled at the people he turned away (as if it was their fault for coming!) and the Port manager. We would like to see all of those mistakes rectified. People came from off-island to attend this meeting; some from as far away as Portland and California. Some of them didn't even make it in the door. Elders were forced to stand. Some stood in the hall, defying the fire chief. Others stood in the scorching western sun on one of the hottest days of the year, so they could stand by the open door to the sweltering room (no fans) and hear. This is unacceptable. Some signed up to speak and were never heard, because the meeting agenda derailed and never got back on track.
This derailment was unfortunate for both the Port and for the 140 -150+ people who took time (and expense) from their days and their lives to attend this very important meeting. Notably absent due to the 3:30 time; working people and young people except for a few shining examples who attended and who not only asked incisive and intelligent questions, but who also offered solutions.
There was, at times, outright hostility toward some of the people in that room asking questions, sharing concerns, offering much cheaper and simpler solutions that would not require the Port taking opiate-laced candy from the Feds and State. The majority of people who came, seemed to not want expansion, or simply wanted their questions answered clearly, so they could decide for themselves. Many questions were not answered, were skirted, ignored, or diverted to something else entirely.
Most people came away with a general sense of unease and betrayal, of feeling un-heard, disrespected, their ideas disregarded or even ridiculed. We were treated like mere civilians; children. We were told that this is not a democratic process; an insult to our intelligence, passion and caring for our island, and the way of life we cherish.
This can be rectified in only one way - a DO-OVER of that meeting; this time, a listening meeting. More below. Comment period to DOWL engineering on proposed alternatives so far, is due on the 3rd of this month. Alternative 1 - no build, is the only viable and feasible option at this time.
To their credit, the Port and Tony Simpson gave us an extended comment time and this meeting because many of us were concerned enough to demand it. I think it surprised them that suddenly, someone wanted to know. It was the word "expansion" that caught our attention - and the map drawings put out in June.
We should demand more from the Port, since they grievously fell short of their obligation as a Public entity. When the Port manager has already made the decision on which plan is the "preferred" plan, the Public process is broken. This needs rectification, and listening to us with intent to seriously consider other options would go a long way toward that.
The Port and Port manager are not the enemy - although they are acting like we are the enemy. What we want and desire is for real dialogue and listening to our concerns and desires, and consideration of our ideas and solutions - that maybe there is a win-win for them and for us if we all work together.
Tony Simpson says he would meet with us and would listen. I don't want to believe that these people are our enemy - but we still need to hold them accountable and call out what parts of their story about what they need to do to comply, may not be entirely true or as inflexible as they believe. And more; we are not going to believe their scare tactics to make us think this expansion has to be a "done deal." It doesn't. There are options not being presented, so we will present them and even pursue them if the Port won't. One thing's sure; we need to be a presence with the Port from now on, and go to their meetings and involve ourselves with this process; or we'll get what we don't want.
Our goals for the meeting and after, as concerns the Expansion are:
1) listen to everyone's best thoughts about how to go forward effectively.
2) Inspire a groundswell of actions that might include: letters to the Port stating our dissatisfaction and insistence on a "do-over" meeting; task groups or people to take on some of the daunting and time-consuming research, letters to other entities such as DOE, the Friends, etc;
3) Make our comments to DOWL; keep a dated copy for our records - deadline Friday. Ask for another comment period extension to September in our comments. The Port and DOWL are moving ahead with the process; they should be taking and weighing comments throughout their entire master plan process.
orcasmasterplan@dowl.com
include in the cc:
council@sanjuanco.com, randy gaylord, kevin ranker, maria cantwell, patty murray, rick larsen, etc
4) Gather more volunteers who are willing to take the above-mentioned actions and help us be as effective and cohesive as we can, while looking for common ground. We need more people willing to take on tasks and commit to following through with them, if we are to succeed. Even one task helps tremendously. We're early enough in this process that we can make a difference. Let's Make It So.
We're having a public, citizen-led and driven meeting tonight; there will be a follow-up post about the outcome. We'll be listing actions people can take and providing links to make it as easy as possible.
We are calling ourselves Orcas Citizens' Forum - this is all inclusive, where we are all equals. We expect moles and sabateurs and maybe even some attackers, but we have nothing to hide; they do!
mail chimp sign up link for Orcas Citizens' Forum -Airport Expansion:
http://eepurl.com/dCvUwD
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Questions, Musings, Observations
Written in January, 2014
I went to a celebration for Martin Luther King last night. This is not about that. But I can't help but think of a quote that Sharon Abreu quoted (paraphrased): "Cynicism is the intellectual face of despair." Yup. Count me among the despairing when it comes to the County, with its inner workings of... is it corruption? Greed? in Community Development and (not) Planning, Council, and Public works.
Questions Un-answered:
Why is commercial development still being allowed in Eastsound, when there are empty commercial spaces all throughout Eastsound? Why are more trees getting cut? Why is there allowance for a 40 unit building on a quarter acre of property in Eastsound Basin? Why are only vacay rentals and air b &b's and luxury condos being built while homelessness is continually on the rise - who are they for?
Do the residents of Eastsound UGA know what's coming down the pike?
What is Public Works going to do with the remaining parcel across the trail from the future Eastsound Market Place or whateveritz going to be? Scary to think of the possibilities, since, with 9 engineers, their penchant for spending grant monies by making up things to do is stupendous. As are the damages when their projects don't get maintained.
Observations of the world around us (through a glass, darkly):
I used to see bats all the time in summer behind where I live. I haven't seen a bat - not one - for at least two years. Where did the bats go? What killed or repelled them? Ditto with Swallows. They used to fly around here; now NONE. Since the Lavender Hollow and the Christian School are weed -whacking all the tall grasses, not ONE red wing blackbird do I see or hear anymore. In our quest for "tidiness" we are killing off and repelling the beneficial birds and wildlife.
The Mount Property Constructed Wetland has all the SAME noxious weeds that was the justification for removing 260 10-yard ump trucks full of hydric soil - effectively ruining the wetland (part of Eastsound Swale - no matter what the "experts" tell you that it's not. It is. Or was. until they removed the hydric soil and now it can't recover.)
Eastsound and surround are in the Pacific Flyway migratory bird route. The San Juans are in that flyway. Light pollution is one of the biggest causes of bird deaths. The birds get confused and fly in circles in the light beams - and die of exhaustion. Now, they want streetlights in Eastsound Village and the new lights are blinding LED. Light pollution is already a serious problem in Eastsound; hence contributing to bird deaths. The birds get confused, think it's daytime, become diurnal. They're easy meals for predators - cats, owls, etc.
Musings (Not A-musing)
Stormwater control - GIANT FAIL. Eastsound is flooding. The September floods never should have happened. Public Works had not cleaned out the storm drains in YEARS. There's more. Public Works's solution to stormwater? Keep cutting down wetland trees. Put roads through wetlands; then never clean debris or silt out of the culverts. That's how most of the trees in Eastsound Swale by Enchanted Road got killed - drowned. Haul away all hydric soil so a natural wetland can't recover. Kill off beneficial amphibian populations. DO NOTHING to address stormwater running down from the tops of hills two miles away that all roar into Eastsound Basin through the ditches so deep that your car is automatically totalled if you happen to be unlucky enough to get your car in one. Putting in landscape designs destined to fail and then wiggle out of maintaining them, or anything else they engineer or build? (Actually, the workers do fix the potholes with some regularity.) A road is planned to go through the community garden in the heart of town. That is the short list.
There's talk of putting the road through and connecting Orion Lane with A Street. Right next to a SCHOOL and apartment complex where kids play in the street - there's no place else to play. Or they want to put A Street or Fern Street through Eastsound Swale to Lovers Lane. All of these ideas are disastrous for Eastsound Swale and any trees in the way of their idea of "progress."
One of the last horrifying things I witnessed/ overheard/observed at an "open house" last October;
the minions of Eastsound Sewer. The three men were: Greg Ayers (who thankfully was NOT elected as a County Councilor), Paul Kamin (head of Eastsound Water Users), and Dan Vekved - engineer at Public Works. They were all jubilantly entertaining the notion of joining forces into a Utility District. Can you say Monopoly and Total Control of the populace? The poorest people would pay the money to support the lifestyles of the rich! I swear they were licking their licivious craven lips - No, No, NO!
Possible Ways to Go:
What Public Works could do - if coerced by public opinion - is to fire 6 engineers at least - and hire more laborers to keep up with their Granted Projects. Instead, what gets bankrupted is Eastsound Swale, Fishing Bay, and President's Channel - not to mention narrow land bridge between the two parts of the Salish Sea. Hiring more regular workers would insure success of more of their projects. Having less "specialized "engineers means each engineer left would actually need to be a generalist and study details pertaining to a project - ie educated.
"Cynicism is the intellectual face of despair." Somebody, please help me. I have tried and tried. I can't get through to the county. I feel so heartbroken and negative, I can't get through to the people to incite them to ACT on their own behalf and on behalf of the environment before it's too late. It probably is too late, but something (stubbornness? denial? "optimism?") compels me to keep trying, keep acting. If I let myself feel the despair on this micro-cosmic level, at what a hash we've made of our lovely wetland basin, I won't have a way left to even get out of bed. Most days, thinking about all of this makes me want to cry. And cry. And cry. I write instead; about swallows, bats, destructive rabbits. I need to offer some solutions to the People. ATM i have none, except to advise people to get educated and let your county officials know what you think and feel about the plan to sacrifice Eastsound for the gain of a few realtors, developers, and mercenaries.
I went to a celebration for Martin Luther King last night. This is not about that. But I can't help but think of a quote that Sharon Abreu quoted (paraphrased): "Cynicism is the intellectual face of despair." Yup. Count me among the despairing when it comes to the County, with its inner workings of... is it corruption? Greed? in Community Development and (not) Planning, Council, and Public works.
Questions Un-answered:
Why is commercial development still being allowed in Eastsound, when there are empty commercial spaces all throughout Eastsound? Why are more trees getting cut? Why is there allowance for a 40 unit building on a quarter acre of property in Eastsound Basin? Why are only vacay rentals and air b &b's and luxury condos being built while homelessness is continually on the rise - who are they for?
Do the residents of Eastsound UGA know what's coming down the pike?
What is Public Works going to do with the remaining parcel across the trail from the future Eastsound Market Place or whateveritz going to be? Scary to think of the possibilities, since, with 9 engineers, their penchant for spending grant monies by making up things to do is stupendous. As are the damages when their projects don't get maintained.
Observations of the world around us (through a glass, darkly):
I used to see bats all the time in summer behind where I live. I haven't seen a bat - not one - for at least two years. Where did the bats go? What killed or repelled them? Ditto with Swallows. They used to fly around here; now NONE. Since the Lavender Hollow and the Christian School are weed -whacking all the tall grasses, not ONE red wing blackbird do I see or hear anymore. In our quest for "tidiness" we are killing off and repelling the beneficial birds and wildlife.
The Mount Property Constructed Wetland has all the SAME noxious weeds that was the justification for removing 260 10-yard ump trucks full of hydric soil - effectively ruining the wetland (part of Eastsound Swale - no matter what the "experts" tell you that it's not. It is. Or was. until they removed the hydric soil and now it can't recover.)
Eastsound and surround are in the Pacific Flyway migratory bird route. The San Juans are in that flyway. Light pollution is one of the biggest causes of bird deaths. The birds get confused and fly in circles in the light beams - and die of exhaustion. Now, they want streetlights in Eastsound Village and the new lights are blinding LED. Light pollution is already a serious problem in Eastsound; hence contributing to bird deaths. The birds get confused, think it's daytime, become diurnal. They're easy meals for predators - cats, owls, etc.
Musings (Not A-musing)
Stormwater control - GIANT FAIL. Eastsound is flooding. The September floods never should have happened. Public Works had not cleaned out the storm drains in YEARS. There's more. Public Works's solution to stormwater? Keep cutting down wetland trees. Put roads through wetlands; then never clean debris or silt out of the culverts. That's how most of the trees in Eastsound Swale by Enchanted Road got killed - drowned. Haul away all hydric soil so a natural wetland can't recover. Kill off beneficial amphibian populations. DO NOTHING to address stormwater running down from the tops of hills two miles away that all roar into Eastsound Basin through the ditches so deep that your car is automatically totalled if you happen to be unlucky enough to get your car in one. Putting in landscape designs destined to fail and then wiggle out of maintaining them, or anything else they engineer or build? (Actually, the workers do fix the potholes with some regularity.) A road is planned to go through the community garden in the heart of town. That is the short list.
There's talk of putting the road through and connecting Orion Lane with A Street. Right next to a SCHOOL and apartment complex where kids play in the street - there's no place else to play. Or they want to put A Street or Fern Street through Eastsound Swale to Lovers Lane. All of these ideas are disastrous for Eastsound Swale and any trees in the way of their idea of "progress."
One of the last horrifying things I witnessed/ overheard/observed at an "open house" last October;
the minions of Eastsound Sewer. The three men were: Greg Ayers (who thankfully was NOT elected as a County Councilor), Paul Kamin (head of Eastsound Water Users), and Dan Vekved - engineer at Public Works. They were all jubilantly entertaining the notion of joining forces into a Utility District. Can you say Monopoly and Total Control of the populace? The poorest people would pay the money to support the lifestyles of the rich! I swear they were licking their licivious craven lips - No, No, NO!
Possible Ways to Go:
What Public Works could do - if coerced by public opinion - is to fire 6 engineers at least - and hire more laborers to keep up with their Granted Projects. Instead, what gets bankrupted is Eastsound Swale, Fishing Bay, and President's Channel - not to mention narrow land bridge between the two parts of the Salish Sea. Hiring more regular workers would insure success of more of their projects. Having less "specialized "engineers means each engineer left would actually need to be a generalist and study details pertaining to a project - ie educated.
"Cynicism is the intellectual face of despair." Somebody, please help me. I have tried and tried. I can't get through to the county. I feel so heartbroken and negative, I can't get through to the people to incite them to ACT on their own behalf and on behalf of the environment before it's too late. It probably is too late, but something (stubbornness? denial? "optimism?") compels me to keep trying, keep acting. If I let myself feel the despair on this micro-cosmic level, at what a hash we've made of our lovely wetland basin, I won't have a way left to even get out of bed. Most days, thinking about all of this makes me want to cry. And cry. And cry. I write instead; about swallows, bats, destructive rabbits. I need to offer some solutions to the People. ATM i have none, except to advise people to get educated and let your county officials know what you think and feel about the plan to sacrifice Eastsound for the gain of a few realtors, developers, and mercenaries.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Stormwater is the Issue that Needs Addressing
As more and more trees are removed in Eastsound Swale and all over the island, we are literally missing the forest for the trees. Eastsound Swale sits in a low valley surrounded by hills and rises. All water flows downhill. As more and more trees get bulldozed to make new developments and commercial buildings, there is less windbreak and tree root filtration. This causes twofold problems: flooding in the rainy season and drying out in our dryland summers. When you remove tree shade and roots, you remove the cooling shade for amphibians and fish. You remove the cooling effect and shade which keeps the soil more moistened. You remove habitat for migratory songbirds, amphibians, bats, and other beneficials.
The trees in Eastsound Swale are drowning, due to all this excess water roaring down the hills in winter, eroding silt into the wetland ecosystem, thus clogging Enchanted Forest Road culverts with silt and not letting the water drain through to the other side of the road. There is permanent ponding on one side of the road and drought on the other. More and more runoff and eroded silt is gushing into the Swale and clogging what used to be a moving seasonal waterway. More and more trees are dying. More and more road pollution runoff pollutes our critical aquifer and drinking water. Fallen trees and debris are not removed and thus, more blockages. While the Swale drowns, nothing is being done to address the stormwater problem. Permits are being given out like Get- out-of-Jail-Free cards in a crazy out-of-control monopoly game of greed. A few for-profit developers get richer while the rest of us lose our natural diversity and health of our waters - OUR riches.
For those of us for whom Eastsound is not just a Place to Shop, but Home, this is frustrating and sad - and maddening to watch the greed and blindness or worse, lack of care. It's take and take, and the rest of us are holding the garbage bag. We Chicken Little environmentalists really do feel that the sky - and a whole lot of other human debris - is falling - literally into Eastsound Swale and from there, spilling out into Fishing Bay and President's Channel.
The stormwater issue is the elephant in the living room and we need to take off our blindfolds and face the whole of the beast. An moratorium on tree cutting in Eastsound (without a permit and a proof of a darn good reason to cut) and outward for at least a mile in any direction would be a first step in the right direction. That, and abandoning the idea of incorporating Eastsound SubArea Plan into the county's Unified Development Codes.
The trees in Eastsound Swale are drowning, due to all this excess water roaring down the hills in winter, eroding silt into the wetland ecosystem, thus clogging Enchanted Forest Road culverts with silt and not letting the water drain through to the other side of the road. There is permanent ponding on one side of the road and drought on the other. More and more runoff and eroded silt is gushing into the Swale and clogging what used to be a moving seasonal waterway. More and more trees are dying. More and more road pollution runoff pollutes our critical aquifer and drinking water. Fallen trees and debris are not removed and thus, more blockages. While the Swale drowns, nothing is being done to address the stormwater problem. Permits are being given out like Get- out-of-Jail-Free cards in a crazy out-of-control monopoly game of greed. A few for-profit developers get richer while the rest of us lose our natural diversity and health of our waters - OUR riches.
For those of us for whom Eastsound is not just a Place to Shop, but Home, this is frustrating and sad - and maddening to watch the greed and blindness or worse, lack of care. It's take and take, and the rest of us are holding the garbage bag. We Chicken Little environmentalists really do feel that the sky - and a whole lot of other human debris - is falling - literally into Eastsound Swale and from there, spilling out into Fishing Bay and President's Channel.
The stormwater issue is the elephant in the living room and we need to take off our blindfolds and face the whole of the beast. An moratorium on tree cutting in Eastsound (without a permit and a proof of a darn good reason to cut) and outward for at least a mile in any direction would be a first step in the right direction. That, and abandoning the idea of incorporating Eastsound SubArea Plan into the county's Unified Development Codes.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Who is Trojan Heron?
I found out. He is Ed Kilduff, trained wetlands "expert." He won't reveal his real name or affiliations. Instead, said person hangs posters on community bulletin boards in Eastsound, and maybe on other islands in the San Juans. What are the connecting affiliations, once you start reading the blog, watching the youtube videos, and reading the posters accusing Friends of the San Juans and environmentalists in general, of attacking the very fiber of our community? Is Trojan Heron another deep- pocket or one of their (often unwitting) tools, seeing to it that the people are duped, misled and confused, and incited into an angry irrational froth? Or is Trojan Heron a concerned citizen just trying to do the right thing? Who knows? The blog, from what I've read, is divisive. In using spin and truth-bending, it is doing the very thing it accuses the accused of doing.
In connecting the dots for Trojan Heron's possible affiliations, they lead indirectly and directly to CAPR (with several chapters in Ca. and 12 in Wa), and , Resources Coalition, Olympic Stewardship Foundation, Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners, Freedom Foundation, Eagle Forum, Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, Heartland Institute, American Crossroads, Koch Brothers, Bradley Foundation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and many more private foundations and corporations and CEOs. Most of the big guns that could be affiliates, or influences on Trojan Heron, probably have some ties to, or have bought votes and membership in ALEC. (American Legislative Exchange Council).
Don't know what ALEC is? Learning about ALEC might be one of the most important things you can learn. The corporations and 1%ers belonging to ALEC are the true puppetmasters, and are buying votes (and legislators) and writing the laws the legislators pass; laws that attack the environment, deny climate change, dissolve public education funding and privatize schools, eliminate social programs, medicare, health care, unions, womens' rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, whistle-blowing rights,ability to assemble in peaceful protest, ad nauseum.
The goal of ALEC's puppetmasters? More land grab and exploitation of resources and Critical Areas for "free enterprise." For them. Meanwhile, tactics of front groups divert our attention while the chain saws rip and more gang-bangers develop and destroy our forests, oceans, and Critical Areas. Maximum development in throwaway UGAs prevails over stewardship and sustainable long-term planning to protect our Critical Areas.
If Trojan Heron cares about community as he states, wouldn't he be asking some profound questions about Critical Areas, and making some observations based on that caring, leading to heartfelt dialogue and sincere attempts to join with environmentalists in educating people to want to protect critical areas because it's good for their grandchildren to do so? Because intact critical areas are a wealth you can't buy? Because if we knew and understood what they are and what they do, and wanted to, we wouldn't need laws that no one obeys or enforces anyway? And yes, something does need to be done about repeat violators who know exactly what they're doing, and get a hand slap from the corrupt CD&P's Rene Beliveau, while poorer landowners are put through the wringer.
When the accusers twist and turn facts into arguments "proving" that environmentalists and CD&P (Shireene Hale specifically), County Council, Dept. of Ecology and any other group trying to protect Critical Areas, are the villains driving the wedge and inciting us against each other, how is that helping to bring our community together?
I have watched 30 years of many of the same old players (and some new ones) stalling, and stopping outright, any lasting or effective protections of our Critical Areas while certain land-grabbers trade their revolving-door chameleon-like LLCs and continue degrading wetlands and shoreline habitat with large scale for-profit developments.
Our hearts are sore at this destruction, whether we know it or not. We know deep down that we are destroying ourselves by destroying the earth, and the closer to home it is, the more it affects us - consciously or unconsciously. Not just our physical selves, but the very best in ourselves. The Earth's body is as ours. When we poison her waters, we poison our bodies and brains. We try to numb our heartbreak and outrage with misdirected anger or palliatives. But we have to face the truth of this heartbreak and mind-fuck if we are going to get on with creating a better, more just world for all.
No matter what Trojan Heron or his people say, using spin-doctoring front group tactics to incite the populace against environmentalists - a tactic used by "free enterprise" rapists, pillagers, and land-grabbers ever since humanity began - is a grave and unjust error. It's time to start de-constructing and exposing the myths and erroneous thinking on all sides, and come together, ready to listen to each other and work for the common good of generations to come who will inherit the earth, and who might like to have clean drinking water and forests and beneficial creatures and who might want a different world than the one we've created so far.
In connecting the dots for Trojan Heron's possible affiliations, they lead indirectly and directly to CAPR (with several chapters in Ca. and 12 in Wa), and , Resources Coalition, Olympic Stewardship Foundation, Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners, Freedom Foundation, Eagle Forum, Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, Heartland Institute, American Crossroads, Koch Brothers, Bradley Foundation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and many more private foundations and corporations and CEOs. Most of the big guns that could be affiliates, or influences on Trojan Heron, probably have some ties to, or have bought votes and membership in ALEC. (American Legislative Exchange Council).
Don't know what ALEC is? Learning about ALEC might be one of the most important things you can learn. The corporations and 1%ers belonging to ALEC are the true puppetmasters, and are buying votes (and legislators) and writing the laws the legislators pass; laws that attack the environment, deny climate change, dissolve public education funding and privatize schools, eliminate social programs, medicare, health care, unions, womens' rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, whistle-blowing rights,ability to assemble in peaceful protest, ad nauseum.
The goal of ALEC's puppetmasters? More land grab and exploitation of resources and Critical Areas for "free enterprise." For them. Meanwhile, tactics of front groups divert our attention while the chain saws rip and more gang-bangers develop and destroy our forests, oceans, and Critical Areas. Maximum development in throwaway UGAs prevails over stewardship and sustainable long-term planning to protect our Critical Areas.
If Trojan Heron cares about community as he states, wouldn't he be asking some profound questions about Critical Areas, and making some observations based on that caring, leading to heartfelt dialogue and sincere attempts to join with environmentalists in educating people to want to protect critical areas because it's good for their grandchildren to do so? Because intact critical areas are a wealth you can't buy? Because if we knew and understood what they are and what they do, and wanted to, we wouldn't need laws that no one obeys or enforces anyway? And yes, something does need to be done about repeat violators who know exactly what they're doing, and get a hand slap from the corrupt CD&P's Rene Beliveau, while poorer landowners are put through the wringer.
When the accusers twist and turn facts into arguments "proving" that environmentalists and CD&P (Shireene Hale specifically), County Council, Dept. of Ecology and any other group trying to protect Critical Areas, are the villains driving the wedge and inciting us against each other, how is that helping to bring our community together?
I have watched 30 years of many of the same old players (and some new ones) stalling, and stopping outright, any lasting or effective protections of our Critical Areas while certain land-grabbers trade their revolving-door chameleon-like LLCs and continue degrading wetlands and shoreline habitat with large scale for-profit developments.
Our hearts are sore at this destruction, whether we know it or not. We know deep down that we are destroying ourselves by destroying the earth, and the closer to home it is, the more it affects us - consciously or unconsciously. Not just our physical selves, but the very best in ourselves. The Earth's body is as ours. When we poison her waters, we poison our bodies and brains. We try to numb our heartbreak and outrage with misdirected anger or palliatives. But we have to face the truth of this heartbreak and mind-fuck if we are going to get on with creating a better, more just world for all.
No matter what Trojan Heron or his people say, using spin-doctoring front group tactics to incite the populace against environmentalists - a tactic used by "free enterprise" rapists, pillagers, and land-grabbers ever since humanity began - is a grave and unjust error. It's time to start de-constructing and exposing the myths and erroneous thinking on all sides, and come together, ready to listen to each other and work for the common good of generations to come who will inherit the earth, and who might like to have clean drinking water and forests and beneficial creatures and who might want a different world than the one we've created so far.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Eastsound Swale is Dying
Dear Citizens;
Eastsound Swale, our beloved wetland, is dying. The trees are drowning. We need the trees! They are our filters, our lungs.
The realtors, developers, planners, and county officials are probably relieved to have gotten away with the tree genocide and land grab glut, and have almost completed the destruction. How do they feel, selling the dream while in reality, trampling the land and its inhabitants, fouling our waters?
Spin doctors are spinning lies and fear tactics - tripe such as this> " you won't be able to have a garden or even dig a hole with the new CAO regulations." Lies are being propogated in epidemic fashion, a cancer polluting the minds of the gullible and uneducated. The liars are saying that Eastsound Swale is man made. Hogwash! Don't believe them. They're all about the money and profit. They'll do anything to sell us down the river including poison us all and cut all of our trees. After all, who can afford to live in Eastsound? Just us poor and middle class folk. We're in the way anyway. Eastsound Village Proper used to be a community - now it is a Business District. Nobody but a few people actually LIVE there.
The County and Planning Dept. have thrown Eastsound and its inhabitants (human and non human) under the bus. Our own Eastsound Planning and Review Committee (EPRC) has thrown us under the bus. What a selfish short-sighted lot are these few filthy rich and greedy spin doctors! Gangsters one and all. **
**a clarification: i'm not saying that EPRC or the County or CD&P are gangsters - or filthy rich and greedy. I am saying that there are a few who are, and they generate lies and spin, sometimes through a few individuals in well positioned places. What I'm also saying is that excessive wealth and greed are a bad combination which produce gangster mentality and control, since the bottom line is profit at all cost. What I do notice about the EPRC is that there is not even ONE conservationist or environmentalist on the EPRC - not for a long time. Those who have tried to join have either not been appointed, or have given up early when they realized what was going on within the EPRC. But I sort of digress.
Even the citizens of Orcas have thrown us under the bus. Any and all of them could have come to bat for the Critical Areas in Eastsound. Where are they when we need them? Do any of them put themselves in our shoes? Try to imagine how it'd feel if it were them in our predicament?
In the Growth Management Act, because Eastound was designated an "urban growth area," over 50% of the total population must live in Eastsound, by mandate. Our commissioners of the past sold us down the river and made us into an Urban Growth Area. Up all the way through 2011, we had a chance to get out of this - something our bureaucrats wanted us not to know - and we didn't. So we lost the chance for any flexibility in that.
Now there is a plan afoot to incorporate the Eastsound SubArea Plan (the one thing that supposedly protects Eastsound Swale, which the County continues to ignore anyway!) into the County Unified Development Codes. This effectively, once and for all, removes any power of protection from the citizenry. The most rapacious and greedy developers have the most holdings here in our UGA, and have built so many illegal and exploitative developments in the past 20+ years it's sickening.
Not ONCE did the County recognize or honor our SubArea Plan or the Conservancy Overlay District (16.55.250) when it really would have counted to protect the Swale, nor did they use the Conservancy Overlay District to safeguard trees in Eastsound Swale slated for demolition - wetland trees. Instead, they passed every single permit - legal or not!
The first offenders to radically change Eastsound Swale for the worse were the Outlook Inn owners. The Inn sits at the South end of the Swale creek. The inn expansion diverted the natural (NOT man made) creek, cut many trees to make parking lots and roads. Water was piped, diverted. What was built to supposedly handle their stormwater were two ugly scummy algae-covered, mosquito-infested eyesore "ponds." The "treated" stormwater then dumps into non-flushing Fishing Bay, likely poisoning it and any fish left in there. The airport destroyed the North end of the Swale (along with the Ditch). That took out a category 1 peat bog swamp; irreplaceable.
Even today, dirty deals are being made by the same few players; LLC's are trading land back and forth, probably to avoid taxes and capital gains taxes. Then they develop the hell out of them and nobody is watching or if they are, they're too confused by the shell game. All of these exploited lands WERE the Swale, ARE still the Swale, no matter how unrecognizable or degraded. Local wetland "delineations" - hired out by charlatans who can pay enough to have anyone to say what they want them to say - never take into account the whole big picture of connectivity and interconnected wetlands How can something be declared "part of Eastsound Swale" in a wetland report and at the same time be downgraded and considered "not a part?" You tell me! So... the Swale gets chopped into little bitty pieces, then downgraded to "low value" wetlands and razed, raped, gutted, drained, filled, graded, plugged.
The Planners and Council are planning a whopping 6 years out - as if that is "long range planning" - while certain realtors and permittors who have conflicts- of-interest while "serving" on the planning commission and EPRC, continue to "sell the dream" and serve the town folks the Nightmare - and allow decimation of what few trees are left in town. They murder our songbirds, bats, frogs, salamanders, etc and destroy all their habitat. How many ways can you say "corrupt?"
Meanwhile, Eastsound gets colder and even more intensely windy, because there are no windbreak trees left. More get cut every day it seems. Stormwater rushes into the Swale at an alarming rate. Roads cut across it, damming the seasonal creek the First Nations used to use as a navigable waterway, and choking off its flow.
Eastsound Swale used to be a dark, dank, creepy, wild, mysterious, thick wooded area; it was huge, and wide and thick, and choked with willows, crabapples, alders, and old fruit trees from earlier farming days in the 1800s. The Swale was full of songbirds, muskrats, bats, and amphibians galore, including salamanders and newts. It was an oozing, croaking, stinking, singing place. It was cool and sheltering in summer, warm and protecting in winter. The creek was full in winter and then dried up a bit in summer. It always flowed. The trees filtered the water and allowed it to meander, not gush or pond. Now it is all a dead flood zone with a few trees here and there, all of them drowning. Invasives and noxious weeds have been introduced by chopping trees and degrading the buffer edges over and over and over again.
Stormwater from all the hills surrounding our Critical Aquifer basin rushes down in eroding rivulets, and dumps into the Swale, which was never meant to hold it all. Roads cut across it like handcuffs, like straitjackets, damming (damning) seasonal creek into permanent dead zone pools. Natural wetlands are never meant to be "stormwater treatment facilities." Stormwater is killing our Swale. Tree cutting is killing our Swale. Development is killing our Swale. Enchanted Forest Road is killing our Swale. Short sighted greed, stupidity, and corruption are killing our Swale. Apathy is killing our Swale.
Who will speak up for it before it is too late? Who will help plant trees to reforest it? Does anyone care anymore enough to get up off their behinds and DO something? If so, please get in touch - Let's do something! Let's put our heads and hearts together and stop the exploitative carnage. I have some ideas; I'll bet you have some, too. I've been gathering information for a long time. Some of it can help us legally. We have standing. I've also gathered some information on reforestation and restoration of wetlands. If the county won't do something, then it's up to the citizenry to take matters into its own hands. We need citizen watchdogs. I have a whole outline in place for a citizen watchdog group. I can't do this alone. Please come forward and help the trees. Help the beings who can't speak for themselves. Please.
Sincerely,
the Lorax
Who Will Speak
Eastsound Swale, our beloved wetland, is dying. The trees are drowning. We need the trees! They are our filters, our lungs.
The realtors, developers, planners, and county officials are probably relieved to have gotten away with the tree genocide and land grab glut, and have almost completed the destruction. How do they feel, selling the dream while in reality, trampling the land and its inhabitants, fouling our waters?
Spin doctors are spinning lies and fear tactics - tripe such as this> " you won't be able to have a garden or even dig a hole with the new CAO regulations." Lies are being propogated in epidemic fashion, a cancer polluting the minds of the gullible and uneducated. The liars are saying that Eastsound Swale is man made. Hogwash! Don't believe them. They're all about the money and profit. They'll do anything to sell us down the river including poison us all and cut all of our trees. After all, who can afford to live in Eastsound? Just us poor and middle class folk. We're in the way anyway. Eastsound Village Proper used to be a community - now it is a Business District. Nobody but a few people actually LIVE there.
The County and Planning Dept. have thrown Eastsound and its inhabitants (human and non human) under the bus. Our own Eastsound Planning and Review Committee (EPRC) has thrown us under the bus. What a selfish short-sighted lot are these few filthy rich and greedy spin doctors! Gangsters one and all. **
**a clarification: i'm not saying that EPRC or the County or CD&P are gangsters - or filthy rich and greedy. I am saying that there are a few who are, and they generate lies and spin, sometimes through a few individuals in well positioned places. What I'm also saying is that excessive wealth and greed are a bad combination which produce gangster mentality and control, since the bottom line is profit at all cost. What I do notice about the EPRC is that there is not even ONE conservationist or environmentalist on the EPRC - not for a long time. Those who have tried to join have either not been appointed, or have given up early when they realized what was going on within the EPRC. But I sort of digress.
Even the citizens of Orcas have thrown us under the bus. Any and all of them could have come to bat for the Critical Areas in Eastsound. Where are they when we need them? Do any of them put themselves in our shoes? Try to imagine how it'd feel if it were them in our predicament?
In the Growth Management Act, because Eastound was designated an "urban growth area," over 50% of the total population must live in Eastsound, by mandate. Our commissioners of the past sold us down the river and made us into an Urban Growth Area. Up all the way through 2011, we had a chance to get out of this - something our bureaucrats wanted us not to know - and we didn't. So we lost the chance for any flexibility in that.
Now there is a plan afoot to incorporate the Eastsound SubArea Plan (the one thing that supposedly protects Eastsound Swale, which the County continues to ignore anyway!) into the County Unified Development Codes. This effectively, once and for all, removes any power of protection from the citizenry. The most rapacious and greedy developers have the most holdings here in our UGA, and have built so many illegal and exploitative developments in the past 20+ years it's sickening.
Not ONCE did the County recognize or honor our SubArea Plan or the Conservancy Overlay District (16.55.250) when it really would have counted to protect the Swale, nor did they use the Conservancy Overlay District to safeguard trees in Eastsound Swale slated for demolition - wetland trees. Instead, they passed every single permit - legal or not!
The first offenders to radically change Eastsound Swale for the worse were the Outlook Inn owners. The Inn sits at the South end of the Swale creek. The inn expansion diverted the natural (NOT man made) creek, cut many trees to make parking lots and roads. Water was piped, diverted. What was built to supposedly handle their stormwater were two ugly scummy algae-covered, mosquito-infested eyesore "ponds." The "treated" stormwater then dumps into non-flushing Fishing Bay, likely poisoning it and any fish left in there. The airport destroyed the North end of the Swale (along with the Ditch). That took out a category 1 peat bog swamp; irreplaceable.
Even today, dirty deals are being made by the same few players; LLC's are trading land back and forth, probably to avoid taxes and capital gains taxes. Then they develop the hell out of them and nobody is watching or if they are, they're too confused by the shell game. All of these exploited lands WERE the Swale, ARE still the Swale, no matter how unrecognizable or degraded. Local wetland "delineations" - hired out by charlatans who can pay enough to have anyone to say what they want them to say - never take into account the whole big picture of connectivity and interconnected wetlands How can something be declared "part of Eastsound Swale" in a wetland report and at the same time be downgraded and considered "not a part?" You tell me! So... the Swale gets chopped into little bitty pieces, then downgraded to "low value" wetlands and razed, raped, gutted, drained, filled, graded, plugged.
The Planners and Council are planning a whopping 6 years out - as if that is "long range planning" - while certain realtors and permittors who have conflicts- of-interest while "serving" on the planning commission and EPRC, continue to "sell the dream" and serve the town folks the Nightmare - and allow decimation of what few trees are left in town. They murder our songbirds, bats, frogs, salamanders, etc and destroy all their habitat. How many ways can you say "corrupt?"
Meanwhile, Eastsound gets colder and even more intensely windy, because there are no windbreak trees left. More get cut every day it seems. Stormwater rushes into the Swale at an alarming rate. Roads cut across it, damming the seasonal creek the First Nations used to use as a navigable waterway, and choking off its flow.
Eastsound Swale used to be a dark, dank, creepy, wild, mysterious, thick wooded area; it was huge, and wide and thick, and choked with willows, crabapples, alders, and old fruit trees from earlier farming days in the 1800s. The Swale was full of songbirds, muskrats, bats, and amphibians galore, including salamanders and newts. It was an oozing, croaking, stinking, singing place. It was cool and sheltering in summer, warm and protecting in winter. The creek was full in winter and then dried up a bit in summer. It always flowed. The trees filtered the water and allowed it to meander, not gush or pond. Now it is all a dead flood zone with a few trees here and there, all of them drowning. Invasives and noxious weeds have been introduced by chopping trees and degrading the buffer edges over and over and over again.
Stormwater from all the hills surrounding our Critical Aquifer basin rushes down in eroding rivulets, and dumps into the Swale, which was never meant to hold it all. Roads cut across it like handcuffs, like straitjackets, damming (damning) seasonal creek into permanent dead zone pools. Natural wetlands are never meant to be "stormwater treatment facilities." Stormwater is killing our Swale. Tree cutting is killing our Swale. Development is killing our Swale. Enchanted Forest Road is killing our Swale. Short sighted greed, stupidity, and corruption are killing our Swale. Apathy is killing our Swale.
Who will speak up for it before it is too late? Who will help plant trees to reforest it? Does anyone care anymore enough to get up off their behinds and DO something? If so, please get in touch - Let's do something! Let's put our heads and hearts together and stop the exploitative carnage. I have some ideas; I'll bet you have some, too. I've been gathering information for a long time. Some of it can help us legally. We have standing. I've also gathered some information on reforestation and restoration of wetlands. If the county won't do something, then it's up to the citizenry to take matters into its own hands. We need citizen watchdogs. I have a whole outline in place for a citizen watchdog group. I can't do this alone. Please come forward and help the trees. Help the beings who can't speak for themselves. Please.
Sincerely,
the Lorax
Who Will Speak
Who will speak on behalf of trees
to stay saw’s bite, blade’s slash and sting?
Can the heart hold what the eye sees?
Home to eagles, quetzals, chickadees
chattering to down-fuzzed nestlings –
Who will speak on behalf of trees?
Gifts of plums and almonds, reddened leaves
melting into soil with winter’s wetting –
Can the heart hold what the eye sees?
Sheltering under lush green canopies –
do we thank the Amazon for rain it brings?
Who will speak on behalf of trees?
Frost-kissed leaf skeleton filagrees,
arboreal trilling, squawking, croaking, singing-
Can the heart hold what the eye sees?
Bare-boned stark windswept effigies,
spring blossomed crowns, bee- beckoning;
who will speak on behalf of trees?
Can the heart hold what the eye sees? 2011
Sunday, January 15, 2012
It sucks being a canary -- Skip if you can't handle anger and lengthy rants
I haven't written since August, because... what can I possibly say that isn't going to end up a rant or a wail? As I watch the Critical Areas in Eastsound be bulldozed, raped, logged, paved, destroyed - illegally and legally, with no repercussions for the violators, I can feel the pain of it in my own feminine body. It hurts more than I can say, and believe me, I've tried to express it more articulately than the hash I'm making of it right now. I can feel the earth's agony. Can't you? Maybe that sounds melodramatic but I no longer care how it sounds. It is so beautiful; all we've been given - and we throw it away. All we've been born into, been priviliged to have in our lives; don't our kids deserve at least as well? Don't they deserve to know the peace and beauty we have known? Don't they deserve our protection and stewardship of the lands we borrow from this Earth? Isn't the real wealth in our supporting lands, waters, and the community that comes together to honor and protect them?
I have wondered what my purpose is in writing these blogs. Who reads them? Who are they for? What do they really offer? Is it just mental masturbation, a journal written in the dark inside a crumbling coal mine as the oxygen runs out? How can I "just think positive," and then what - forget about it all and disassociate? Who even wants to know or ponder what we're doing to the planet, since pondering it hurts too much? Who is actually looking for being part of solutions, rather than just complaining, and who is willing to take the time to co-create them, implement them, and stand firm and hold steady against those who would destroy everything, and not give up or give in? Who in town (mostly moderate to low income people) even has the time or energy to do anything but survive and hope they can feed their kids from paycheck to paycheck?
I've wondered how to get people interested in sitting through arduously boring meetings that effect nothing, no matter how many times we tell the engineers and governmental officials that we don't want the trees cut, and have our offerings of other less hostile solutions for the land rejected in patronizing smiles. And what does "educating" people mean? It seems twofold. We have to be mindful of what is happening around us, and acknowledge the consequences of our thoughts, habits, and actions; ie our part in it. And if we then want to change those things to do least harm, we have to find ways to step outside the paradigm of this dysfunctional matrix and create something from the best of every one of us, and we have to want it really badly - so badly that we're willing to stop blaming our differences and learn to co-create and see them as a strength and an opportunity to have more creative ideas than if we were all alike. Easy to say, harder to do.
Then there's the whole white-male cultural rules: Men aren't supposed to be sad or feel the feminine inside them. (ie "no sissies."). Women aren't supposed to be angry ("bitches.") Everyone should just think positive and read a new self-help book, take more prozac, and go to a therapist or the latest motivational speaker or new age guru. Heh.
Even while understanding the historical moment we're in right now - the working class becoming a serf population, the hold the powerful few have on us all - I am frustrated by the lack of involvement locally. What will it take for Eastsound residents to be engaged with their own homeland? I am also disheartened that those outside of town with more acreage, time, and money - whose lands our sacrificial-lamb-the-Urban-Growth-Area, protect, turn away from our difficulties here. How can they look away? How can they not claim their connection with us and this land and these waters - in the heart, the hub, the most vulnerable geographic and geologic place in the island? In all the ferry islands, probably, due to our sea level location and narrow bridge of land which gets hammered by all the wind we get here, Eastsound is the most vulnerable.
Then there's the social ramifications: I am livid when someone moves to a place like Madrona Point and "loves" Madrona trees, then cuts down a bunch of them to build their "dream cottage" and complains about our dances at Oddfellows, the one joy many of us low-lifer blue collar workers have, while saws roar and trees fall around us. How can they call the cops on a fraternal organization that raises money for kids' scholarships and does all manner of good deeds for the community through rental of their hall for social events; here long before these new breeds who want closed gated communities for the rich with multiple homes, most not even willing to spend a winter here with just the locals? Who ARE these people?
Soon Eastsound area will feel the long-term effects of the latest onslaught by Public Works which dovetails nicely with their new excessively-monied grant program called "roadside hazard mitigation project."(more about that in another posting).
My frustration with Public Works is that they plan, engineer, seem sincere and probably are, but go about it backwards. First they apply and get the grant money. Then they spend some (plenty!) of that money planning and engineering. Then they have open houses, which are not really open houses, since they're "telling" us what they are going to do. It's frustrating to watch the engineers plan and then consistently run out of money for monitoring and maintenance; the very things that would make the new "constructions" work. The job goes to the lowest bidder; it has to by law. Never mind if they are skilled or ethically qualified to do the best job they can do. It's all about the dollars. There are too few Public Works "blue collar" crew to do the work of the white collar experts! Now, how is that?
And very soon Mount Baker Road, home of some longtime island families and friends, home to my own new garden (which will be 10 degrees colder when those trees are lost), and many other life-forms that can't speak up at "public" meetings and who depend on tree cover, will be irrevocably compromised in terrain where there are precious few trees left, and any new trees will have a terrible time growing, due to the almost continual buffeting winds and our new rabbit problem - people releasing domestic rabbits into "the wild" (illegal and destructive beyond belief).
In the vicinity of my new garden, built last spring/summer I have already seen cedar waxwings, anna's and rufous hummingbirds, goldfinches, western tanagers, garter snakes, tree frogs, all kinds and sizes of hawks, eagles, ospreys, pileated and downy woodpeckers, and much much more. I have heard several kinds of owls at night. Where will these creatures live without their homeland trees? What will hold stormwater and polluted road runoff from flooding in the lowlands, if not tree roots?
The Mount Baker Road Widening Project is at best, unnecessary. At worst, it's a long-term tragedy that will do immeasurable harm. Why is this being done? Supposedly, for safety and visibility on "dangerous" Mount Baker Road, which runs through a large category 1 and 2 wetland. Having lived here for 30 years, I can tell you that Mount Baker Road was a lot safer before Public Works's last project, the "truck bypass route" which many trucks don't use anyway. They made two promontory-type corners and don't have the manpower to maintain them so the visibility is terrible. There have been more serious accidents and fatalities, not less. The so-called trail is in a wetland and underwater most of the year; some parts all year long so people have to walk out in the shoulder-less roadway. Couldn't they have fixed the trail with a berm and flow pipes for a whole lot less money and carnage?
How does making this road into a highway where people can now do 70mph instead of 50, safer? Public Works refuses to acknowledge the part that excessive speeding, alcohol and drug impairment, and inappropriate cell phone use are the top contributors to accidents and fatalities. Their solution? Get state and EPA grants and keep the engineers employed and happy. SO... for the benefit of the few, the many must suffer. Same old tired song and I'm sick of hearing this discordant music. I'm mad and sad as hell.
Most of the trees on the North side of Mount Baker Road from Terrill Beach Road to Buck Park will be cut. The rest may not stand, depending on the treatment of the land by heavy equipment. The smaller trees protect the larger ones, as we can see by the sad example of the Mount Property Constructed Wetland Project, where the tall pines are drowning and being pushed over by the strong winds that prevail in Eastsound.
What do we stand to lose with each mature or maturing tree cut? How much water filtration do we lose? How many bird's nests? Tree frogs? Salamanders? Raptors? Bats? Beneficial insects? How much shade and shelter and windbreak do we lose? How much life does one tree support? Who speaks for that life, for all those lives? Are any planners and engineers asking these questions and will they take time from their desks and go out in the field, as gardeners do, and observe the life around them, over seasons? Over years?
What can you really say? How much broken-heartedness can a person take? How can that be used to make the world a better place; not by force but by gentleness? How can one turn fierce anger into an ally that will stand up and say "NO MORE CARNAGE?" I am now so cynical that I can understand why people just give up and decide to be selfish and "me" oriented. Bah. May as well just do art and garden and try to enjoy the few years or days we have left. But thoughts haunt: who will speak for the trees? For the next seven generations of humankind? For our great nieces or children or grandchildren?
If this blog had followers in numbers like facebook pages, then maybe some people would offer up solutions, ideas, prayers - because we need every one of us to stop going in this planet-destroying direction we are heading. Meanwhile, I hope we all take seconds and moments, as often as we can, make it our meditation and mindfulness practice to appreciate and give thanks for what is here and give that forth to the land, the waters, and their marvelous resident and migratory creatures. This earth needs to feel our love and thanks, now more than ever.
I have wondered what my purpose is in writing these blogs. Who reads them? Who are they for? What do they really offer? Is it just mental masturbation, a journal written in the dark inside a crumbling coal mine as the oxygen runs out? How can I "just think positive," and then what - forget about it all and disassociate? Who even wants to know or ponder what we're doing to the planet, since pondering it hurts too much? Who is actually looking for being part of solutions, rather than just complaining, and who is willing to take the time to co-create them, implement them, and stand firm and hold steady against those who would destroy everything, and not give up or give in? Who in town (mostly moderate to low income people) even has the time or energy to do anything but survive and hope they can feed their kids from paycheck to paycheck?
I've wondered how to get people interested in sitting through arduously boring meetings that effect nothing, no matter how many times we tell the engineers and governmental officials that we don't want the trees cut, and have our offerings of other less hostile solutions for the land rejected in patronizing smiles. And what does "educating" people mean? It seems twofold. We have to be mindful of what is happening around us, and acknowledge the consequences of our thoughts, habits, and actions; ie our part in it. And if we then want to change those things to do least harm, we have to find ways to step outside the paradigm of this dysfunctional matrix and create something from the best of every one of us, and we have to want it really badly - so badly that we're willing to stop blaming our differences and learn to co-create and see them as a strength and an opportunity to have more creative ideas than if we were all alike. Easy to say, harder to do.
Then there's the whole white-male cultural rules: Men aren't supposed to be sad or feel the feminine inside them. (ie "no sissies."). Women aren't supposed to be angry ("bitches.") Everyone should just think positive and read a new self-help book, take more prozac, and go to a therapist or the latest motivational speaker or new age guru. Heh.
Even while understanding the historical moment we're in right now - the working class becoming a serf population, the hold the powerful few have on us all - I am frustrated by the lack of involvement locally. What will it take for Eastsound residents to be engaged with their own homeland? I am also disheartened that those outside of town with more acreage, time, and money - whose lands our sacrificial-lamb-the-Urban-Growth-Area, protect, turn away from our difficulties here. How can they look away? How can they not claim their connection with us and this land and these waters - in the heart, the hub, the most vulnerable geographic and geologic place in the island? In all the ferry islands, probably, due to our sea level location and narrow bridge of land which gets hammered by all the wind we get here, Eastsound is the most vulnerable.
Then there's the social ramifications: I am livid when someone moves to a place like Madrona Point and "loves" Madrona trees, then cuts down a bunch of them to build their "dream cottage" and complains about our dances at Oddfellows, the one joy many of us low-lifer blue collar workers have, while saws roar and trees fall around us. How can they call the cops on a fraternal organization that raises money for kids' scholarships and does all manner of good deeds for the community through rental of their hall for social events; here long before these new breeds who want closed gated communities for the rich with multiple homes, most not even willing to spend a winter here with just the locals? Who ARE these people?
Soon Eastsound area will feel the long-term effects of the latest onslaught by Public Works which dovetails nicely with their new excessively-monied grant program called "roadside hazard mitigation project."(more about that in another posting).
My frustration with Public Works is that they plan, engineer, seem sincere and probably are, but go about it backwards. First they apply and get the grant money. Then they spend some (plenty!) of that money planning and engineering. Then they have open houses, which are not really open houses, since they're "telling" us what they are going to do. It's frustrating to watch the engineers plan and then consistently run out of money for monitoring and maintenance; the very things that would make the new "constructions" work. The job goes to the lowest bidder; it has to by law. Never mind if they are skilled or ethically qualified to do the best job they can do. It's all about the dollars. There are too few Public Works "blue collar" crew to do the work of the white collar experts! Now, how is that?
And very soon Mount Baker Road, home of some longtime island families and friends, home to my own new garden (which will be 10 degrees colder when those trees are lost), and many other life-forms that can't speak up at "public" meetings and who depend on tree cover, will be irrevocably compromised in terrain where there are precious few trees left, and any new trees will have a terrible time growing, due to the almost continual buffeting winds and our new rabbit problem - people releasing domestic rabbits into "the wild" (illegal and destructive beyond belief).
In the vicinity of my new garden, built last spring/summer I have already seen cedar waxwings, anna's and rufous hummingbirds, goldfinches, western tanagers, garter snakes, tree frogs, all kinds and sizes of hawks, eagles, ospreys, pileated and downy woodpeckers, and much much more. I have heard several kinds of owls at night. Where will these creatures live without their homeland trees? What will hold stormwater and polluted road runoff from flooding in the lowlands, if not tree roots?
The Mount Baker Road Widening Project is at best, unnecessary. At worst, it's a long-term tragedy that will do immeasurable harm. Why is this being done? Supposedly, for safety and visibility on "dangerous" Mount Baker Road, which runs through a large category 1 and 2 wetland. Having lived here for 30 years, I can tell you that Mount Baker Road was a lot safer before Public Works's last project, the "truck bypass route" which many trucks don't use anyway. They made two promontory-type corners and don't have the manpower to maintain them so the visibility is terrible. There have been more serious accidents and fatalities, not less. The so-called trail is in a wetland and underwater most of the year; some parts all year long so people have to walk out in the shoulder-less roadway. Couldn't they have fixed the trail with a berm and flow pipes for a whole lot less money and carnage?
How does making this road into a highway where people can now do 70mph instead of 50, safer? Public Works refuses to acknowledge the part that excessive speeding, alcohol and drug impairment, and inappropriate cell phone use are the top contributors to accidents and fatalities. Their solution? Get state and EPA grants and keep the engineers employed and happy. SO... for the benefit of the few, the many must suffer. Same old tired song and I'm sick of hearing this discordant music. I'm mad and sad as hell.
Most of the trees on the North side of Mount Baker Road from Terrill Beach Road to Buck Park will be cut. The rest may not stand, depending on the treatment of the land by heavy equipment. The smaller trees protect the larger ones, as we can see by the sad example of the Mount Property Constructed Wetland Project, where the tall pines are drowning and being pushed over by the strong winds that prevail in Eastsound.
What do we stand to lose with each mature or maturing tree cut? How much water filtration do we lose? How many bird's nests? Tree frogs? Salamanders? Raptors? Bats? Beneficial insects? How much shade and shelter and windbreak do we lose? How much life does one tree support? Who speaks for that life, for all those lives? Are any planners and engineers asking these questions and will they take time from their desks and go out in the field, as gardeners do, and observe the life around them, over seasons? Over years?
What can you really say? How much broken-heartedness can a person take? How can that be used to make the world a better place; not by force but by gentleness? How can one turn fierce anger into an ally that will stand up and say "NO MORE CARNAGE?" I am now so cynical that I can understand why people just give up and decide to be selfish and "me" oriented. Bah. May as well just do art and garden and try to enjoy the few years or days we have left. But thoughts haunt: who will speak for the trees? For the next seven generations of humankind? For our great nieces or children or grandchildren?
If this blog had followers in numbers like facebook pages, then maybe some people would offer up solutions, ideas, prayers - because we need every one of us to stop going in this planet-destroying direction we are heading. Meanwhile, I hope we all take seconds and moments, as often as we can, make it our meditation and mindfulness practice to appreciate and give thanks for what is here and give that forth to the land, the waters, and their marvelous resident and migratory creatures. This earth needs to feel our love and thanks, now more than ever.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Questions handed in to Public Works on Feb. 15, 2011 re: Mount Property Stormwater Facility
Here are a bunch of questions written to PW on February 15, 2011 and handed in at a Stormwater Aesthetics meeting to their representative engineer, Shannon Wilbur.
How many of these questions were addressed by Public Works? It would be good to compile follow-through documentation on this.
“Thousand Questions” re: Mount Property Stormwater Treatment Facility
1) If, according to BAS, wetlands shouldn’t be used for stormwater treatment facilities if there’s any chance of negatively impacting groundwater in sensitive aquifers, how does this plan prevent groundwater or potable water pollution?
2) If this wetland, as-is, can handle normal seasonal runoff (and we’ve had one of the wettest winters on record), isn’t there a way to divert stormwater runoff someplace near the wetlland (ie into a culvert or a pond off-site) that could be slowly absorbed back into the ground rather than into Fishing Bay, and leave the wetland as-is except for canary grass removal and a little gentle grading and splitting of flow? (Michael B’s idea from what he observed while walking the wetland several times.)
3) Regarding future piping from Fern Street and any other piping to this facility being planned: everything I’ve read so far says that stormwater should be diverted away from wetlands, not into them. Would you please point me to science that shares the opposite view?
4) When planning this stormwater treatment facility, how much was future buildout considered? If this connects to future projects, have those been mapped out? What are the piping and other treatment facilities that will tie into this? How can we see those in connection and relation to this first step?
5) How will this facility affect abutting wetlands? What will happen to them as they get filled and more impervious surfaces put into them, more alluvial soils displaced, and more chopping up of the Eastsound Swale into smaller and smaller separated pieces?
6) Is anything at all being done to protect the rest of Eastsound Swale from having to take stormwater and thus we’d lose more tree habitat? (Most of the willows were unfortunately already cut down along lovers land and Enchanted Forest Road.)
7) Since science seems to point to natural functioning wetlands being always preferable over engineered wetlands, I’m wondering how we got to this plan. Is it just that we had no other choice, based on science and geography?
8) Mindy seemed to think that Amanda drew up an alternate plan that was less radical than this one and more natural than engineered. Is that plan available for public perusal?
9) Wetlands, even drained and filled, can be restored if the alluvial soils are left intact. (EPA). What will happen to the alluvial soil? If removed, why, and why not returned to the site? There are some grants for restoration. Should we explore that angle for the rest of the impacted parts of the Swale?
10) Many of the BAS documents on stormwater and wetlands that I read said that detention and retention ponds are being over-used and that the latest BAS studies show that they are doing more harm to wetlands than good, and that ponds can ruin a wetland's function within 20 years due to various factors. Was this considered in the engineering? If there is science disproving this, please point me to those documents, because I’m not finding them.
11) Not one engineered wetland I’ve seen (in the many docs I studied) showed an engineered wetland planted with trees. They all seem to be grassland and marshland. Why is it that these are chosen over tree filtration systems. Can’t trees be planted that would thrive in wet conditions and grow, like the island willows we once had everywhere and have all been destroyed for development? If trees keep wetland life warmer in winter and cooler in summer due to shading and protection, this destroys the ecological balance of that area.
12) I read in the scientific documents that if a potential site’s climate is dry in summer for more than two months, (as the San Juans are), a pond system wetland is not a good pick because the ponds should not be allowed to dry out and the chance of pollutant spread was greater if heavy rains followed a dry summer. Was this considered? How will that be handled? What will be done to provide shade and organic refuse for the ponds, since tree cover will no longer shade the water?
13) making new “edges” (from cutting down trees and excavation) encourages noxious weed proliferation near and into the wetlands (i.e. hawthorn trees replace more desirable willows, blackberries replace nootka rose). Herbaceous perennials and annuals are taken over by invasive plants such as canary reed grass. How will the existing reed canary grass problem be addressed? Blackberry? Edge buffers for the new edges created? Have you considered the rabbit problem in Eastsound?
14) My readings of wetland science suggest that sun, although it can be good for “cleaning” ponds (although I doubt it gets hot enough here), changes the temperature, and that many fish and amphibians are negatively impacted (fatally) by temperature changes of even a few degrees. We lost most of our salamander and frog population due to Enchanted Forest Road being put on top of the swale right over their breeding grounds. What is being done by the County and Public Works to protect the rest of what’s left, and are you working with the Army Corps of Engineers, state DOE, fish and wildlife, and the EPA to protect these critical areas aquifers?
15) Who will maintain the wetland facility after major soil disturbance? Who will regularly maintain and weed-out the inevitable thistle, teasel, and other noxious weeds that follow? Based on the county’s maintenance of other projects due to personnel shortages, I do not feel hopeful that this facility will be properly maintained and monitored.
16) What will major tree removal do to songbird, bat, and amphibian insect catchers in terms of foraging, mating, and breeding sites, which we’re already losing fast or have lost within the UGA? Can we afford to lose any more of their habitat?
17) Since all that I have read says that tree roots have great filtering capabilities, especially conifers, are there any examples of “treed” natural wetlands used as stormwater treatment facilities? If so, would you direct me to links or documents?
18) What can possibly replace trees, aesthetically, for the kind of height and natural backdrop that we’re used to seeing behind the band shell? The band shell was built to be part of an environment which included trees for backdrop. Loss of trees will destroy the scale and scope of the design. Can we plant pines or some other type of small or narrow conifers along the Eastern edge of the wetland to shield our view and help keep late afternoon sun out of our eyes when viewing concerts? (the trees did this for us late afternoon and early evening)
19) What will be done to keep people from walking all over the wetland area if the wetland dries up in summer, which seems probable?
20) What will keep the ponds from becoming mosquito breeding grounds and who will maintain weeds around them? Will the ponds contain aquatic plants?
21) If soil is being excavated out two feet deep or more, aren’t we infiltrating the groundwater and aquifer supply?
22) What is the life (in years) of this kind of facility before it needs to be “re-engineered?”
23) Is a 60 foot long, ten foot wide concrete ramp really necessary to clean the north pond? Can the pond be moved East to mitigate that, or can some temporary metal mesh type material be used to roll out and put down atop a much more minimal concrete structure (perhaps even mostly underwater) when the excavator or backhoe needs to clean the pond, and then rolled back up?
24) How often will the pond need to be cleaned?
25) Has anyone heard of an exciting new thing in possible pollutant cleaning of wetlands – mycology? There has been good success with mycology in forest restoration. Results have been promising in studying mushrooms’ ability to absorb and “eat” pollutants and when tested, the mushrooms are shown to be “clean.” Can we explore this as a potential treatment for pollutants? See Paul Stamets How Mushrooms Can Save the World. Mr. Stamets is a highly sought expert on this subject and how mycology is helping stormwater pollutant absorption.
26) What will be done about the potential litter problem that, so far, is kept to a minimum by tree and shrub buffers and mostly impenetrable wetlands, but is a problem in existing trails? Who will regularly clean up the litter?
27) Is it possible that rather than put the east-west trail right next to the pond, it can go more on the perimeter of the wetland and thus have less foot traffic disturbance of the wetland?
28) How do rain gardens tie in with this facility plan and stormwater in general? How will you give the public incentive to utilize them?
29) What is being planned in terms of culverts and aprons in Eastsound?
30) I would hope that any tree removal/upheaval NOT be done in nesting season and until fledglings have flown.
31) Why was this project chosen here, when the bulk of pollutants are running down Main Street in the ditches and directly polluting Fishing Bay through stormwater outflow pipes?
32) What is being done to consider futurity, 20 years out? 50 years out? How does this project help with that? How many more functioning wetlands will be destroyed to make engineered stormwater treatment facilities, which are not suggested for existing functioning wetlands, according to state and federal laws and the Clean Water Act?
Kim’s Input- Went to the constructed wetland plan workshop today
I would like to know more re:>
~ toxics testing and sediment dredge schedule
~out flow pipe monitoring plan- scouring
~buffering the existing true adjacent wetland and
~risks involved in damage to this preexisting adjacent healthy wetland by altering upstream w/ constructed wetlands
~and when i look closely i question if this small tx site is able to handle the volume present, much less the increase load that comes w/ future development, plus increased impervious surface = what mechanisms are in place to handle overflow?
~I would like public to be aware of the presence of the creatures in the bay where this water is being pumped out.
~ Please go to the beach watchers website and republish photos and information from our data on surfactants
Some documents I requested may be able to answer the drainage and runoff questions interspersed throughout.
Thanks for considering these questions, thoughts, ideas, and concerns. Please understand that Eastsound is home to many of us, and we love and want to protect it. I remember the Swale when it was far more diverse in functionality, vegetation and wildlife, and don’t want to keep losing it piecemeal until it’s so destroyed it can be reclassified to “unregulated” and finished off by rampant and poorly planned development.
Sincerely, Sadie Bailey – Eastsound resident
How many of these questions were addressed by Public Works? It would be good to compile follow-through documentation on this.
“Thousand Questions” re: Mount Property Stormwater Treatment Facility
1) If, according to BAS, wetlands shouldn’t be used for stormwater treatment facilities if there’s any chance of negatively impacting groundwater in sensitive aquifers, how does this plan prevent groundwater or potable water pollution?
2) If this wetland, as-is, can handle normal seasonal runoff (and we’ve had one of the wettest winters on record), isn’t there a way to divert stormwater runoff someplace near the wetlland (ie into a culvert or a pond off-site) that could be slowly absorbed back into the ground rather than into Fishing Bay, and leave the wetland as-is except for canary grass removal and a little gentle grading and splitting of flow? (Michael B’s idea from what he observed while walking the wetland several times.)
3) Regarding future piping from Fern Street and any other piping to this facility being planned: everything I’ve read so far says that stormwater should be diverted away from wetlands, not into them. Would you please point me to science that shares the opposite view?
4) When planning this stormwater treatment facility, how much was future buildout considered? If this connects to future projects, have those been mapped out? What are the piping and other treatment facilities that will tie into this? How can we see those in connection and relation to this first step?
5) How will this facility affect abutting wetlands? What will happen to them as they get filled and more impervious surfaces put into them, more alluvial soils displaced, and more chopping up of the Eastsound Swale into smaller and smaller separated pieces?
6) Is anything at all being done to protect the rest of Eastsound Swale from having to take stormwater and thus we’d lose more tree habitat? (Most of the willows were unfortunately already cut down along lovers land and Enchanted Forest Road.)
7) Since science seems to point to natural functioning wetlands being always preferable over engineered wetlands, I’m wondering how we got to this plan. Is it just that we had no other choice, based on science and geography?
8) Mindy seemed to think that Amanda drew up an alternate plan that was less radical than this one and more natural than engineered. Is that plan available for public perusal?
9) Wetlands, even drained and filled, can be restored if the alluvial soils are left intact. (EPA). What will happen to the alluvial soil? If removed, why, and why not returned to the site? There are some grants for restoration. Should we explore that angle for the rest of the impacted parts of the Swale?
10) Many of the BAS documents on stormwater and wetlands that I read said that detention and retention ponds are being over-used and that the latest BAS studies show that they are doing more harm to wetlands than good, and that ponds can ruin a wetland's function within 20 years due to various factors. Was this considered in the engineering? If there is science disproving this, please point me to those documents, because I’m not finding them.
11) Not one engineered wetland I’ve seen (in the many docs I studied) showed an engineered wetland planted with trees. They all seem to be grassland and marshland. Why is it that these are chosen over tree filtration systems. Can’t trees be planted that would thrive in wet conditions and grow, like the island willows we once had everywhere and have all been destroyed for development? If trees keep wetland life warmer in winter and cooler in summer due to shading and protection, this destroys the ecological balance of that area.
12) I read in the scientific documents that if a potential site’s climate is dry in summer for more than two months, (as the San Juans are), a pond system wetland is not a good pick because the ponds should not be allowed to dry out and the chance of pollutant spread was greater if heavy rains followed a dry summer. Was this considered? How will that be handled? What will be done to provide shade and organic refuse for the ponds, since tree cover will no longer shade the water?
13) making new “edges” (from cutting down trees and excavation) encourages noxious weed proliferation near and into the wetlands (i.e. hawthorn trees replace more desirable willows, blackberries replace nootka rose). Herbaceous perennials and annuals are taken over by invasive plants such as canary reed grass. How will the existing reed canary grass problem be addressed? Blackberry? Edge buffers for the new edges created? Have you considered the rabbit problem in Eastsound?
14) My readings of wetland science suggest that sun, although it can be good for “cleaning” ponds (although I doubt it gets hot enough here), changes the temperature, and that many fish and amphibians are negatively impacted (fatally) by temperature changes of even a few degrees. We lost most of our salamander and frog population due to Enchanted Forest Road being put on top of the swale right over their breeding grounds. What is being done by the County and Public Works to protect the rest of what’s left, and are you working with the Army Corps of Engineers, state DOE, fish and wildlife, and the EPA to protect these critical areas aquifers?
15) Who will maintain the wetland facility after major soil disturbance? Who will regularly maintain and weed-out the inevitable thistle, teasel, and other noxious weeds that follow? Based on the county’s maintenance of other projects due to personnel shortages, I do not feel hopeful that this facility will be properly maintained and monitored.
16) What will major tree removal do to songbird, bat, and amphibian insect catchers in terms of foraging, mating, and breeding sites, which we’re already losing fast or have lost within the UGA? Can we afford to lose any more of their habitat?
17) Since all that I have read says that tree roots have great filtering capabilities, especially conifers, are there any examples of “treed” natural wetlands used as stormwater treatment facilities? If so, would you direct me to links or documents?
18) What can possibly replace trees, aesthetically, for the kind of height and natural backdrop that we’re used to seeing behind the band shell? The band shell was built to be part of an environment which included trees for backdrop. Loss of trees will destroy the scale and scope of the design. Can we plant pines or some other type of small or narrow conifers along the Eastern edge of the wetland to shield our view and help keep late afternoon sun out of our eyes when viewing concerts? (the trees did this for us late afternoon and early evening)
19) What will be done to keep people from walking all over the wetland area if the wetland dries up in summer, which seems probable?
20) What will keep the ponds from becoming mosquito breeding grounds and who will maintain weeds around them? Will the ponds contain aquatic plants?
21) If soil is being excavated out two feet deep or more, aren’t we infiltrating the groundwater and aquifer supply?
22) What is the life (in years) of this kind of facility before it needs to be “re-engineered?”
23) Is a 60 foot long, ten foot wide concrete ramp really necessary to clean the north pond? Can the pond be moved East to mitigate that, or can some temporary metal mesh type material be used to roll out and put down atop a much more minimal concrete structure (perhaps even mostly underwater) when the excavator or backhoe needs to clean the pond, and then rolled back up?
24) How often will the pond need to be cleaned?
25) Has anyone heard of an exciting new thing in possible pollutant cleaning of wetlands – mycology? There has been good success with mycology in forest restoration. Results have been promising in studying mushrooms’ ability to absorb and “eat” pollutants and when tested, the mushrooms are shown to be “clean.” Can we explore this as a potential treatment for pollutants? See Paul Stamets How Mushrooms Can Save the World. Mr. Stamets is a highly sought expert on this subject and how mycology is helping stormwater pollutant absorption.
26) What will be done about the potential litter problem that, so far, is kept to a minimum by tree and shrub buffers and mostly impenetrable wetlands, but is a problem in existing trails? Who will regularly clean up the litter?
27) Is it possible that rather than put the east-west trail right next to the pond, it can go more on the perimeter of the wetland and thus have less foot traffic disturbance of the wetland?
28) How do rain gardens tie in with this facility plan and stormwater in general? How will you give the public incentive to utilize them?
29) What is being planned in terms of culverts and aprons in Eastsound?
30) I would hope that any tree removal/upheaval NOT be done in nesting season and until fledglings have flown.
31) Why was this project chosen here, when the bulk of pollutants are running down Main Street in the ditches and directly polluting Fishing Bay through stormwater outflow pipes?
32) What is being done to consider futurity, 20 years out? 50 years out? How does this project help with that? How many more functioning wetlands will be destroyed to make engineered stormwater treatment facilities, which are not suggested for existing functioning wetlands, according to state and federal laws and the Clean Water Act?
Kim’s Input- Went to the constructed wetland plan workshop today
I would like to know more re:>
~ toxics testing and sediment dredge schedule
~out flow pipe monitoring plan- scouring
~buffering the existing true adjacent wetland and
~risks involved in damage to this preexisting adjacent healthy wetland by altering upstream w/ constructed wetlands
~and when i look closely i question if this small tx site is able to handle the volume present, much less the increase load that comes w/ future development, plus increased impervious surface = what mechanisms are in place to handle overflow?
~I would like public to be aware of the presence of the creatures in the bay where this water is being pumped out.
~ Please go to the beach watchers website and republish photos and information from our data on surfactants
Some documents I requested may be able to answer the drainage and runoff questions interspersed throughout.
Thanks for considering these questions, thoughts, ideas, and concerns. Please understand that Eastsound is home to many of us, and we love and want to protect it. I remember the Swale when it was far more diverse in functionality, vegetation and wildlife, and don’t want to keep losing it piecemeal until it’s so destroyed it can be reclassified to “unregulated” and finished off by rampant and poorly planned development.
Sincerely, Sadie Bailey – Eastsound resident
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