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.