Say Goodbye: September 7; the day the bulldozers begin deconstructing a functional mixed-forest wetland for an "engineered wetland" stormwater treatment facility

Mark your calendars. September 7, 2011.

The grim and, to my mind, horrible, beginning of a dubious experiment will begin on this day. Amid the sounds of grinding engines, scraping blades, chain saw roars, snapping tree limbs and trunks, roots ripping from the earth, amid the scramble of terrified birds, bats, and amphibians to escape the crushing 'dozers and find themselves homeless and possibly doomed to die, amid confused bees with no place to go or winter over - 'progress' is being made by destroying a functional wetland ecosystem that only needed a little help, in order to build an elaborate "engineered wetland stormwater treatment facility."

After June's 'open house' with 3 days notice for a handful of people, no newspaper notifications, the inevitability of this disastrous error looming, and the refusal of Public Works to entertain a low-impact alternative requiring only simple grading with shovels and some low-key clearing with maybe a backhoe - much, much cheaper - I'll admit I just wanted to curl into a fetal ball and suck my thumb until the carnage was over. Only it doesn't end in September. We will be seeing the visual impact of this and the dearth of diversity for a long time to come. Think on how long it took to grow each and every filtering tree. Think of all the bio-diverse life that each tree and shrub houses, shelters, shades. Think of all the mature and maturing trees - all soon to be lost.

To their misguided credit, Public Works actually thinks they are doing the right thing: No blame. But they're sadly mistaken. Besides the small plant specimens picked to stay within the woefully inadequate plant budget, many of which will need to be caged for a long time against the onslaughts of rabbits and deer, there are other crucial issues as yet unaddressed. This site is a wind tunnel in an extreme wind area. This parcel is the last forested piece in this particular north-south strip of land - on a section of Orcas that is only one mile wide and at sea level; Eastsound Urban Growth Area. This area contains a large category two wetland - Eastsound Swale. The stormwater facility parcel was once part of the Swale, and not that long ago. 20 yrs. max. Another pressing question that has yet to be satisfactorily answered is: will the grant money run out with no money left for maintenance (weeding, watering), monitoring of how well the filtering is working, and operational costs? From the other projects done by PW, I feel pessimistic, and pretty sure there'll be no money for operations. So what's the motive for obtaining large grants to engineer elaborate things with no budget to follow through and monitor and maintain?

Then there's the science. Scientific field evidence (some of which is included in the Best Available Science documents for SJC's Critical Areas Ordinance in the Wetlands and Stormwater sections), seems to point to 4 unavoidable facts about why this project is likely to fail:
1) stormwater should be diverted AWAY from an existing functional wetland, not into it. Why? Because they eventually, within 20 years, dry it up, as do sedimentation ponds.
2) After 20 or so years of observing failed and failing "emergent" engineered stormwater treatment facilities, the conclusion from many wetland field scientists is that mixed-forest is, after all, best. (We already have that now.)
3) When you remove alluvial soil from a wetland (which Public Works plans to do), it can't recover; maybe not ever.
4)Sedimentation ponds such as retention and detention ponds (which will be built on this site) are not advised for dryland summer areas (two or more months of dry weather, which is what the San Juans have.)The pollution issue alone of storms after a dry season is scary, and probably a topic for another blog post.

At the end of this post I put up a few pictures of the "proposed stormwater site" that I took in spring. The trees were blooming, the bees were humming, the place was full of life, horsetail softly waving on the forest floor, and the honey smells of blooming flowers. Birds darted among the trees. Coolness and shade, wind shelter, and so many shades of green graced this land. I will not forget.

Walk this land while you still have time. Get in touch with the pulse of Life there. Appreciate all that is there; life in abundance. Say good bye. And vow to be vigilant to never to let a poorly planned, over-engineered project such as this happen again in our "Urban Growth Area" home. We must do better to protect our critical areas.

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Surround this land with protection and your highest thoughts. Send your love and good energy to the tree-beings and their inhabitants and dependents, that their spirits remain eternal and intact although their bodies will die. Send your healing thoughts to the soils and waters of the wetland, that they be protected. Send your respect to the Native ancestors who might lie here, perhaps in middens. (I hope at least we can have someone on site to observe if there are bones, and stop work if there are.) Send your scientific evidence to Public Works and the Council and ask that it be put into the records. Ask, in whatever fashion you do, that the Universe helps the new plant beings to be nurtured and grow and thrive to heal the land.

A Letter to San Juan County Planners, Public Works, and County Council

Dear San Juan County Council, Planning, and Public Works;

In response to the upcoming Planning Commission meeting and comment time for the Critical Areas Ordinance final draft, many questions arise.

What effect do our comments actually have in the course of deciding the final wording on the documents and amendments? I would like to know that what I and others say will count in the final draft, and that all points of view are taken into consideration, but that is not what I have seen in my 30 years of living here. What I have seen instead is cumulative and irreversible damage and destruction of the environment and critical areas, especially in non-shoreline areas, where the state only has advisory capacity and no real jurisdiction. Our forested and marshland wetlands have been consistently compromised and thrown under the bus. This concerns me greatly, especially in UGA areas, where it is most crucial to protect our wetlands. Both Lopez Village and Eastsound contain large category 2 wetlands, as well as other so-called "lesser" wetlands.

Some of us, perhaps the minority, want to ensure protection of our critical areas because once you damage and destroy them, the damage is irreversible and collectively, we really have no idea long-term, of what this means for the greater whole in the long term. We as a county are advised again and again by state DOE to take the path of no harm or least harm; that mitigation is not a real option – rather, no action is advised until all scientific facts are known - and this gets repeatedly ignored by developers and by the county; all because of some projected population growth numbers and refusal to think outside the box. It’s exasperating.

We have no real hope of enforcement for land use laws or the CAO; everyone knows it. Without fixing the enforcement issues so that there is at least one enforcement officer per island and follow-through on enforcement orders, none of this matters because people will keep violating the land and waters, just as they are now and have done all along. What is really going to change that? Besides enforcement, what are the incentives for people to choose to do the right thing, and the education that may help them make these land use decisions?

Why is the Polaris Mapping System not used extensively in land use decisions? Why do the wetland areas appear much larger on the Polaris maps than the county claims they are, and why are we not factoring in the degradation that has already happened? All maps need to all be used, so that we can see the cumulative damage we have altready caused, and therefore exercise extreme caution in the future not to do any worse damage. What is proposed instead? To re-map (ie shrink the wetlands) and then discount the other older maps, which clearly show the degradation over time. We put roads through wetlands, killing countless amphibians. We widen and straighten them, destroying beautiful, healthy mature trees in the process. It hurts my heart to think of all the creatures dependent on these ecosystems and their wholesale slaughter. Is this the best we can do?

I understand that the county has a budget shortfall. So do we workers, who are asked to carry the tax load of the entire nation on our backs. What I don't understand is the propensity of the county to use grant monies to build and engineer elaborate projects and then consistently run out of money for the upkeep and monitoring of these projects, which is exactly what will happen with Eastsound's Mount Property Stormwater Treatment Facility. It will destroy habitat for countless birds, frogs, bats, and will destroy many mature trees and the only windbreak left in that area of Eastsound.

Excuse my seeming cynisicm, but I want some honest and well-thought-out answers and solutions to these complex questions and concerns. To watch this continued destruction of all the plants and creatures who can’t speak for themselves over time has been heartbreaking and infuriating, and leaves me with little trust for County officials, no matter how well-meaning their intentions.

Eastsound Stormwater treatment facility; This.... or THIS?

                                   What would you rather have:  This? 

                                                         ...or THIS?

(These two photos are an estimate - not claimed to be accurate, but more to give a scale and a visual idea of what will be lost, based on the latest 80% Grading Plan provided by Public Works. This will be corrected if the final plan shows something different, and as more accurate information comes in.) That's Eastsound Swale and the hill West of Lovers Lane behind the Swale trees.


The short version and upshot of this is that Public Works puts this project out for bid on May 31 - less than 5 days from now, with excavation beginning in September. We will be seeing and feeling the impact of that for long months before, and many years after, planting begins. We have little time to get the word out. If you use social networking, please link to this blog. Thanks so much.

We know and accept that storm water treatment is badly needed in order to protect Fishing Bay, and that it's mandated by the Growth Management Act for Urban Growth Areas. Where we take issue is in the engineering and heavy-handedness of approach.  Our concerns are grave. These changes will affect us long term.

The (very) long version follows. Some of what's in it will be repeated in shorter bits in the future. I tried to address the whole big picture. I hope you take the time to read it. It contains concerns and details some of the alternatives presented to Public Works by a handful of dedicated citizens who, at least, effected some small changes in the design plan. Thanks to them, a few more trees will (hopefully) stand. Thinking of what will happen to the rest... no words can come close to saying how this hurts my heart. 

Stormwater Treatment Facility Will Betray Public Trust and Good Faith

I posted this in the online papers last weekend. The important thing right now is the first two paragraphs of the editorial. The shopping center will visited in more detail at a later time.

This is the Stage On The Green as it is, with existing trees behind. Beautiful!

 

You’re at the Farmers Market or enjoying Music in the Park on a Sunday evening. When you look toward the Band Shell, what will you see? Blinding sun in your eyes and a backdrop denuded of trees except for a few – IF they survive the bulldozers and lack of supporting microclimate. This is what Public Works will do in autumn in order to give us badly needed treatment of some of Eastsound’s stormwater. Their rationale? “We had two workshops this winter; the public had plenty of time to comment.” Plenty of time? This thing has been in the works since the 1980s! Public Works got a grant for this project several years ago- the kind where PW spends money from the County coffers and receives payback when the project is completed.

The public was NOT included in this process until too late. In our UGA wind tunnel, the forested backdrop to the Stage on the Green, and tree habitat to many creatures, will be gone. The new plants will mostly be 2 – 4’ tall – in an area heavily infested by deer, and worse, rabbits. An aesthetics committee was asked to join in at the end, and they effected some better changes because they had ground experience with the existing wetland in question. In order to make this “constructed” wetland, most of the supporting habitat to the existing one will go.

Just think what we could’ve had if citizens had been included all along. Another part of this deal is a new shopping center just North of the Gym and West of the Post Office – directly abutting Eastsound Swale – a category 2 regulated wetland. The owner granted Public Works some easement. PW will pipe his stormwater to the facility, and he can build whatever he wants in an area in which he should not be allowed to build. More of our Critical Areas in town get trashed in the tradeoff.

People – get involved! We need to hold the County accountable for bad planning. They keep saying they want our involvement in planning; if we don’t get involved early and keep the pressure on, this is what we’ll keep getting. When the public sees this stormwater facility and what was sacrificed to have it, they will feel betrayed and outraged – again – with ample reason.

Sadie Bailey

Eastsound, WA

An Urban Growth Area Resident’s Perspective on Critical Areas

Here in Eastsound’s Urban Growth Area (UGA) –  at sea-level, only a mile wide,  and vulnerable to a wipeout in an overdue 9.0 magnitude earthquake – it seems our critical areas are viewed as disposable. Here we get maximum negative impacts from poorly planned development, and the brunt of stormwater dumping into non-flushing Fishing Bay. We’re forced to have sewers and chlorinated water, expected to withstand more retail buildings eating away at Eastsound Swale and other important wetlands while many existing buildings have vacancies. 

Forcing UGA residents to abandon septic drainfields and pay to install sewer systems hurts more than their already strained purse strings. It has killed countless cedars and other trees, many of which took hundreds of years to grow, because their water supply was cut off and diverted. This devastates tree-dependent wildlife.  In a wind-tunnel area already deforested due to over-development, we can’t afford to lose any more trees - natural wind breaks, shelter, habitat for countless avian species, stormwater root filtration systems. No artificial thing can replace a mature living tree.

Here In OUR urban growth back yard, we watch our beloved natural habitats get bulldozed and our village become the toilet and dumping ground of the island, so that the rest of the populace can have its open space. And at EPRC meetings, we suffer county officials saying that wetland buffers can be relaxed in a UGA, as we watch Eastsound Swale get chopped and destroyed some more. It’s maddening.

What recourse do we town-dwellers have? Most of us are low to moderate income people who must work. We can’t afford litigation and the constant vigilance it takes to protect our critical areas. Unless the rest of the citizens of Orcas begin to see a connection with us here, and realize this town is theirs too since they also use it, Eastsound critical habitats and their pristine beauty will be destroyed. The county has dragged its feet on the CAO for so long that the grant monies which could have helped us compile local Best Available Science (BAS) data are drying up, due to attacks on federal and state environmental protection laws and severe budget cuts.

All BAS and Best Management Practices Wetland documents I have read (and I have read many, since our apt. complex sits on part of the degraded Swale) say that mitigation and artificially engineered wetlands are the last resort and never achieve “no net loss.” Dr. Adamus said that until we can document local BAS, we should err on the side of doing nothing if there’s any chance of harm. Here’s an excerpt from his summary: “Many other data gaps exist that pertain to upland habitat, but these are perhaps the ones that most limit attempts to base land use decisions on sound science. Despite the above data gaps and information needs, the County’s efforts to protect habitats and biodiversity should not be put on hold until more information is available. State laws, the public trust, and popular concern for protecting natural resources from long-lasting harm dictate that both voluntary and regulatory efforts proceed with urgency using the best available science, whatever its current limitations.”

How can we convince people to want to do the right thing regarding critical areas? We can start by educating the public and landowners about the functions of wetlands and their necessary role in cleaning our critical aquifers and supporting biodiversity. The whole of Eastsound UGA is a critical aquifer wetland that has been so degraded it’s now unrecognizable from even 20 years ago. That doesn’t give anyone the “right” to continue to degrade it. Each development that chops up another piece of Eastsound Swale irrevocably destroys lives; tree, bird, fish, amphibian, flower, bat, bee. What I speak of is only a microcosm of the much greater interconnected big picture.

Can we find ways through education and incentives to protect Critical Areas? We must try, together. This is too important an issue to leave to a few county officials who think Eastsound is a write-off. I would argue that Eastsound is MOST important to protect. Many First Nations know, and knew, the interconnectedness of all things. When will we learn? Please submit your comments about the CAO and even if you’re not a “townie”, don’t forget us here in Eastsound, who are taking the hit for the rest of you.

 "I do not see a delegation for the Four Footed. I see no seat for the Eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior. But we are after all a mere part of Creation. And we must consider to understand where we are. And we stand somewhere between the mountain and the Ant. Somewhere and only there as part and parcel of the Creation." - Chief Oren Lyons, Oneida in an address to the Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 1977

What about a Third Option on the Ballot Regarding Solid Waste?

At the town hall meeting on February 24, Orcas council members offered us two options for solid waste to be put on November’s ballot:

1) close the solid waste facilities and force curbside pickup and recycling, or

2) keep the solid waste facilities open as-is by imposing a parcel tax.

This is a risky way to approach the solid waste issue for several reasons.

A) San Juan Sanitation’s contract ends in 2012.  That gives little time to look for alternatives if we want to contract with somebody else.

B) See #1 – too little time to look for a long-haul solution closer than Eastern Oregon.

C) This puts the power in the County’s hands rather than the people’s.

D) There is a third option that we’ve been telling the county we want for years: Keep existing facilities open, and help pay for that by reducing, reusing, and recycling.

This could mean privatization and forming a cooperative much like Opalco. Members would pay a one-time membership fee, pay for services used, and vote in annual meetings. There are creative ways to solve the solid waste issue and the citizenry has the wherewithal to make it happen. We already know that we could stop hauling away things which would make soil. Imagine what else we could do together.

Last summer, a random survey was mailed out to about 1,000 people in the county. Regular independent audits of solid waste as part of the budget solution was overwhelmingly the top priority. (See exhibit 9).  Are those audits available to the public on the County website? If not, why? If we are going to come up with viable alternatives to solve our solid waste issues, we need these numbers for comparison.

 Please read the survey to see if it reflects your goals and desires. Make your voices known through letters, emails, and by becoming a regular witnessing presence at meetings affecting solid waste and other important issues our county faces. At this Thursday’s EPRC meeting, Council will present a solid waste update. We need the third option put on the ballot.

Here is the link to that survey.   
http://www.sanjuanco.com/Docs/CAgendadocs/08-30-2010/PowerPoint_SanJuanSolidWasteSurvey_083010.pdf

Sadie Bailey

Eastsound, WA

PUBLIC MEETING THURSDAY. Please everyone, show up and make some noise

Mar 10, 2011 - Thursday

NOTICE OF SPECIAL PUBLIC MEETING – Thursday, March 10, 2011

Mar 10, 2011 - Thursday - 4:00 PM until 5:45 PM

Location: Fire Protection District No. 2, 45 Lavender Lane, Eastsound, Orcas Island
Description: Please join County Council Members Richard Fralick, District 4, Orcas West and Patty Miller, District 5, Orcas East, for a Town Hall conversation at the Fire Protection District No. 2, 45 Lavender Lane, Eastsound, Orcas Island on Thursday, March 10, 2011, 4:00-5:45 p.m. Items for discussion will be Balancing the Budget in Economically Challenging Times, the Solid Waste Program, the Update of the Critical Areas Ordinance, Shoreline Master Plan Update and other important issues facing the County. An open questions and answers forum will follow this presentation. For more information please contact the Clerk of the County Council at (360) 378-2898.