WE just received a disk of public records that’s a scorcher.  Having looked through quite a few of these files (there are hundreds - it's good that this came with a list of “finds”) it looks like the county has done its best to evade the reality that significant collateral damage will befall the local economy if the “Lake Whatcom Reconveyance” moves forward.  What’s worse, the files reveal the Park Department’s constant and direct involvement in politics.  A lot of effort seems to have gone into putting direct pressure on elected officials near and far.  Instead of being objective, government has exhibited nothing but cold disregard for casualties on this steady march toward a predetermined outcome.  The disk is loaded with emails that urge secrecy about flaws.  Reading like a pulp fiction novel, tens of emails revealed deal making, back slapping, and surprising hypocrisy about environmental protection.   Unelecteds and officials marched together to take one side, with a few key players leading an orchestrated campaign to drum up public support based on grandiose promises and emotion. 

WE wrote a post on May 17 about this. In short, the “DNR reconveyance” would move 8,700 acres of public land back from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to Whatcom County, to create what’s described as (drum roll) a breathtaking new park.  Or was that a massive new conservation area?  Or was that a “water preserve”?   Or was that a “forest preserve”?   The promotional scheme that’s been fronted by Parks, the Land Trust, and Conservation Northwest has been a chameleon, changing constantly to tug at whatever heartstrings would deliver a crowd.

Pressing (critical) question #1:  What’s driven this, really?   The need for a park or something else?  Answer: 
             Oct 11, 2011 - proponent Lisa McShane wrote:   “It was at the 2003 tour where Jeff May, DNR logger, said to several of us: "if the people don't want logging here why don't you just reconvey the lands?"

There it is, that said it all.  For all the lip service given by Whatcom County about sustainability and renewable resources, these people don’t want logging here, and they found the perfect way to do it.  Partner with parks.

WE searched this disk, and found no tangible plan for the “park,” only maps showing what should get handed over, and a paper trail of claims that said there could be a regional park.  WE found “recreation” mentioned on cue in numerous talking papers, letters to the state, and emails to reporters.  But there were no trail maps or other plans except a few budget estimates.  So we did extra due diligence and checked the Parks website, but found nothing but the same smoke and mirrors there.  If you can bear the 11.4 megabyte download, look through the adopted 2008 Parks, Rec and Open Space Plan.  You won’t find much except a few statements about “opportunity” and a few blips on maps referring to the already useful trails on working DNR forest land.  There was nothing in the way of a mention of this park in the 20 year or 6 year capital improvement plans except for trail improvements to the working DNR property as it stands.  But “park” is the required legal purpose necessary for the land exchange, so “recreation” and “passive recreation” were injected everywhere necessary - into public notices and glowing narratives - for show.   "Preserve park" is the current one-size-fits-all description.

What WE found instead of a tangible plan was a lot of email about making money.  Reading through these, maybe it should be called a “money park.”

WE found emails estimating how much rent could be collected from cell tower leases (not one, four).  And there was a jaw-dropper about making money from wind turbines, with Convivium Renewable Energy saying there could be up to forty (!).   Huh?   What about the dramatic breast beating that there must be no roads or logging, to protect “our reservoir that provides drinking water for 90,000 people” ?   (It's a natural lake, mind you, not a water tank.)   And what about the urgent need to put a halt to activity on steep slopes that could result in (gasp) landslides?   Whether Convivium has moved on or not, the emails revealed a crass double-standard to exempt lucrative special interests from the DNR’s strict Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) once DNR and logging were out of the picture.   That was a total surprise.

Read clips from this email:  
             Oct 13, 2011 - David Wallin, WWU Huxley (who provided supporting "return to nature" reports) wrote to Park Director McFarland and Conservation Northwest’s Mitch Friedman:    “It seems that the reason this hasn't been done already on DNR lands is due to DNR's HCP.  DNR has taken the position that they are unwilling to even consider wind power on any of their west-side lands.  As I understand it, when the HCP was negotiated back in the 90s, they included lots of provisions to allow incidental environmental impacts from a variety of non-forestry related activities (gravel mining, cell phone towers, etc.) on DNR lands.  Unfortunately, no one thought to include wind power generation as an allowable non-forestry related activity.  DNR is concerned that if they try to re-open the HCP to modify it to now allow wind power, they could lose the entire HCP.  However, as I understand it, after reconveyance, the HCP would no longer be an obstacle to considering wind power.  Not sure if putting wind power on the land would compromise the reconveyance itself.  Can we have wind power in a park?  Apparently, we can have cell phone towers in a park so I don't see why we couldn't have wind power.”

            Then Mitch Friedman from Conservation Northwest writes back in the same thread:   “Very cool. Though we need to think through what it means to meet Hinkley's insistence that the HCP continue to apply to the reconveyed land. Maybe there's a way exempting the ridge tops?”

Did you get that?   The habitat conservation plan would be an obstacle?    While loggers would be put out of business because roads pollute and ridges may slide, special interests can do what they want.  It doesn't matter that foresters have been toeing the line and following the Landscape Plan.  After the land is transferred and logging is stopped, the county could write its own exemptions from the rules.   (Maybe we've got that wrong, you figure it out.)

WE saw a lot of emails penciling out how much money this “park” could make for the treasury, and silence about those being put out of work.   Council seemed concerned about the loss of taxes to some “junior taxing districts,” there was a lot of chatter about that.  (Remember that the council vote changed when a "gift" of $500,000 caused the Mt. Baker School District to switch its position to support?)   No numbers were found in these records about the loss of jobs in the woods, or impacts to all the businesses like Hardware Sales, General Chain Saw, Yeagers and  others that supply and repair forestry equipment, mill lumber, and so on.   That’s just wrong.

What else is on the disk?   There were some emails talking about the need to keep things quiet.  WE saw things like this: 
          Oct 8, 2011 from Conservation Northwest’s Friedman to Lisa McShane, Rand Jack at the land Trust, Parks director McFarlane and Con. NW’s Seth Cool:  “Heads up. This is confidential, so please do not share or let others know you have this. (We can’t ask DNR questions.) And yes, it sucks to have this land right before the hearing. But this slide will be in DNR’s presentation."
         DNR is downplaying its significance, saying its just a guess and that future decades play out differently. Nonetheless, it could be an opening for somebody to make trouble if they want to. Basically, value shifts from Common school to State Forest Transfer. WE don’t even know what the latter category is! (Maybe the new name for Forest Board?) Any thoughts on significance or what we might say to offset any concern?”

What was going on here WE can hardly guess.  But the intrigue continued:
             Oct 9, 2011 - Rand Jack at the Land Trust to Mitch Friedman and Seth Cool at Conservation Northwest, Lisa McShane, and Parks director McFarlane:   “I agree that we can't give up at this point, but I am not at all clear what we can do to neutralize the effect if the staff doesn't do so.  I think we need to try to find a way to force the DNR staff explain this.  Is there any way to go back through the channels that got this slide to us to try to bring this to a head before the meeting?  I suspect that Tom Westergreen* has this crisp, bright slide in his pocket and may even have made the slide.  If it does not derail the BNR, it will make getting this through the county council somewhere approaching impossible.  The whole premise of the intertrust exchange is like for like equity.  This slide devastates that premise in its most vulnerable spot.  Well before this slide, Pete has been afraid that BNR would reject the intertrust exchange and that  Tony Larson would hammer him for having wasted the money.”

Has this political kabuki been in the public interest?   People have asked, "Why wasn't something this big ever run through Planning?"  The more a person looks, the stranger it all seems.  WE said the records read like pulp fiction; they do.  WE couldn’t guess why groups like Conservation Northwest and the Land Trust would steer so many people so hard, and crush honest objection with such passion.

Then WE saw the golden egg - a draft conservation easement written (actually negotiated) just before the New Year that would give Whatcom Land Trust immense control of the whole 8,700 acres of this public land forever.  That was a bigger jolt than seeing no mention about lost forest jobs and business, that there was no tangible park plan, that so much focused on money, or that people would talk about about environmental exemptions for untold land uses, but still call this land a “park.”

Read the draft conservation easement yourself.   Any citizen can follow it.   Basically this (1) would apply to the whole reconveyance; (2) the county would have to maintain the land to the Trust’s satisfaction or it could be sued (bearing that cost), (3) the county - meaning the public - would have to pay all the expenses of upkeep and maintenance, and (4) did we mention the agreement would last forever?    Small wonder the proponents would do anything - absolutely anything - to see this reconveyance go through.

With that easement could the state - the DNR - or the people of this county ever see this public land productive again, under those terms?  Did the Board of Natural Resources know about the draft conservation easement?   That's entirely possible, given Public Land Commissioner Peter Goldmark's tight relationship to so many politicians and proponents.  It looks like Pete Kremen knew about this, it was run through county legal; Dan Pike, Kelli Linville and Clare Fogelsong (Bellingham environmental director) were negotiating those terms.  Did our council know?  We the People haven't had an inkling.

This post is so long (and there’s so much more to still to see) we’ll have to issue a Part II.   There are more questions to ask, that's for sure.

Below is a chart that shows just a fraction of the players who have been involved and how many have been connected in emails.   Whether a person considers himself a “liberty-type” or not, you’ve got to admit there’s been a lot more to this “reconveyance” business than  expected.   WE thought it was a shill and bad news, and still do.

*By all means, read this plea from Tom Westergreen.  Take an interest.  Write a note about your concerns to council right now (click here).    Then speak up and loudly at the public hearing on September 11 before the shoe drops, as it very well may.   These are powerful people, and they don't like anyone messing with their plans.

The City of Bellingham ban on plastic shopping bags has gone into effect, and shoppers are beginning to feel the effects of the ban, and encounter the realities. You can't have a plastic bag, but you can pay extra for a paper one. You get a rebate if you bring a reusable one. Ironically, if you bring a plastic one, that doesn't qualify, despite that you are in fact, re-using it. 

Many households used to re-use their plastic shopping bags as lunch carriers, wastebasket liners, kitty litter wrappers, and doggy-do0-bags. Now, we will have to find other alternatives, most of them more substantial than the free, wafer-thin biodegradable shopping bags. 

When WE describe a bag ban as an infringement on liberty, 'progressives' will say, "come on man, it's only a shopping bag, get a life!" Unfortunately, the lives and liberty of the people who produce these bags are certainly curtailed. The freedom of the stores to provide a convenience to their customers is curtailed. The customers who like the convenience are... inconvenienced. 

"But these bags are killing wildlife and damaging the environment in the name of convenience and greed", you argue.  Well, what you call convenience, I call choice. What you call greed, I call livelihood. So instead of a government mandate, what say you put your money where your mouth is, and use your First Amendment rights to raise awareness and convince people to do (your interpretation of) the right thing? You can stand in front of supermarkets and department stores, hand out reusable bags (at your own expense), and let the rest of us make the decision voluntarily, based on our individual needs, preferences and beliefs. But before you mount your self-righteous crusade, you should probably consider the following from Real Clear Science:

Across the country, cities are joining the latest environmental trend – banning plastic grocery bags. Concerned about the amount of plastic that reaches our oceans and the impact on wildlife, communities have decided that banning the bags is a simple and environmentally responsible approach.

But is it? What does the science say?

The evidence points to the fact that banning the bags may actually be a net negative for the environment, yielding little benefit to wildlife while significantly increasing carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. (Read more...)

This is a political fad, and nothing more. They're doing it because it sounds good -- and because they can:

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.  ~ George Washington

If they're this cavalier about our liberty when it's "just a bag", what happens when they infringe on something really important? Just because they can, man. 

WE care about truth, and most readers know there's far too little clarity or application of the scientific method in government work.   Honest science demands that hypothesis (theory) must be tested and confirmed to correctly identify cause and effect, to respond reasonably when necessary.   What we face nowadays is a tsunami of regulations based more on zealous beliefs than fact-checked science.

San Juan County is a near neighbor with islands in the same chain as ours.   With a small population, they're only now facing the adoption of their first CAO, which means "critical areas ordinance."

Whatcom County has had a CAO since 2005,  revised in 2007.   Ours - WCC 16.16 "Critical Areas" (WCC means Whatcom County Code) - has always been plagued by lack of definition, and it's loaded with obtuse terminology and descriptions of "values" that are impossible to measure.   Of course, those weaknesses didn't stop its being adopted.

We share the pain of our San Juan neighbors who find themselves caught in the same web of pseudo-science and fog, often spun deliberately to achieve undefined ends for "reasons" that make no scientific sense at all.   The following post (one of a series) offers more than a little insight into a situation we face together in the constant struggle against the eco-activist spin machine. 

Countdown to CAOmageddon
 Flaw #9 – Gamesmanship
 from The Trojan Heron

August 11, 2011

Will you please tie my shoes? That was the question posed to several people during a research experiment on the "art" of persuasion. Here's what they found:

You start by asking for something outrageous; when that's turned down, you then ask for something reasonable. A boss may ask an employee to work weekends for a whole year, for example, and when that request gets turned down, the manager might ask for a report to be turned in by Friday. The outrageous request reframes the real request to make it sound reasonable.

And so it goes with buffers in the San Juan County CAO. During various forums, there has been talk of buffers as large as 800 feet. Then, the Planning Commission draft of the CAOs had buffers up to 260 feet. These "outrageous" requests were tweaked to something more "reasonable"... 230 feet. Nevertheless, we still hear the Friends wanting more from buffers. Janet Alderton ended her most recent CAO paean with the un-paean-like punchline:

But the numerous activities permitted in buffers by the proposed Critical Area Ordinance update interfere with buffer function and fail to protect our valuable Critical Areas.

In other words, consider yourselves lucky, peasants, that you're getting any use of your land at all. You should feel grateful! Never mind that no one can seem to adequately quantity or explain what "buffer function" actually means anyway.

The difficulty with all this reasonableness is that the purpose of buffers has been completely lost amidst the bazaar haggling over their size. We don't even know what we're haggling over anymore. What are buffers for? To reduce pollution? What pollution? Paraphrasing Jerry Maguire, show me the pollution. Show me the pollution!

Without de manifestis levels of pollution, there is no need for a remedy. Without a need for a remedy, there is no need for pollution-removing buffers, assuming buffers work as a primary pollutant remedy at all, and it's not clear that they do. It turns out that our own consultant, Dr. Adamus, wasn't even able to describe how buffers work exactly. He declined to explain, for example, the statistics in the Mayer paper, which formed the pollutant-removal basis for the buffer calculator he developed.

We can land a plutonium-powered rover on Mars using a crazy sky-crane contraption and nail the landing within a couple of miles of the target, but we can't get our highly-compensated wetland consultant to explain buffer statistics in the paper he used for our buffer design.

Does that sound reasonable?

UPDATE:  Aug 6, PM - WE just learned, thanks to the Bellingham Herald Politics Blog, that Bellingham City Council dropped this proposal during its afternoon session.    Of course this could pop back up (per eco-diva Lisa McShane's comment at the Herald blog.)   Keep an eye out.   It's a mighty wacky town.
 

Alert!   Bellingham residents should be aware of what its City Council is busying itself with today and tonight (here's the agenda).   WE see this anti Gateway Terminal item on the daytime committee agenda from 1:20 to 2:25 PM today, and this could possibly be voted  during the evening session at 7:00 PM at City Hall:

AB 19642
     4.  ** A RESOLUTION RELATED TO THE GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL PROPOSAL SEEKING A NONBINDING ADVISORY VOTE IN THE NOVEMBER 6, 2012 GENERAL ELECTION.

It looks like Bellingham City Council wants to use their bully pulpit and the political process to promote what its left-wing loon constituency aches for - that Bellingham should badger and control what it has no real right to, the private sector.

Advisory votes have a very useful purpose when government asks the public to weigh-in about government business - taxes, services, etc.    But that's not what this advisory vote would be about.   The communitarian utopians want city government to domineer the private sector and even commandeer it, as they did with the "bag ban" that's just hit us.

The proponents of this advisory vote want to forge a hammer to pound on other governments and agencies.  A big "oppose the shipment of coal" vote would be used to badger the county ceaselessly.

Proponents want to block the legal transportation of goods over the rail system.  Today the left doesn't like coal.   Tomorrow some faction may not want strawberries or tee shirts from somewhere else moved through town.  WE think public mandates like this are a slippery slope.

It's odd and ironic that this resolution would be proposed when city government just won a legal ruling to keep the bizarre and over-reaching CELDF "No-Coal Community Bill of Rights" initiative off the fall ballot.   The proposed ballot question would be framed with this very leading statement that lists the utopians' worst fears:

WE suggest you attend council TODAY/TONIGHT and follow the deliberations if you can.   Sorry about the short notice - WE just heard about this, ourselves.

The Bellingham Herald reports:

The No Coal! initiative banning the transport of coal through the city will not get to voters in November.

On Friday, Aug. 3, Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Charles Snyder granted the city of Bellingham an injunction that blocks the Whatcom County Auditor from putting the measure on the ballot. (Read more here...) 

Although supporters garnered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot, Judge Snyder ruled that it would be misleading to do so because it runs counter to constitutional principles that would ultimately render it illegal.

He said the initiative would "give the people in the community the impression they are doing something they cannot. ... It clearly would diminish faith in city government."

A word to the wise: Just because CELDF and other anti-Constitution groups have been dealt a minor setback (in one city of many where they're promoting this illiberal agenda), do not think that they won't be back, or that their next attempt won't be successful. Similar measures have been serially rejected by voters in Spokane, but by smaller and smaller margins. Every time it gets thrown out, CELDF refines their message. Without perpetual vigilance, this toxic agenda could eventually become reality.

This story is mighty revealing:

State won’t fund phosphorus research
in Spokane River
Becky Kramer The Spokesman-Review
 August 2, 2012

The Washington Department of Ecology has opted not to pay for additional research by a University of Washington professor whose earlier work suggested that not all of the phosphorus discharged into the Spokane River leads to rampant algae growth and poor water quality.

Michael T. Brett, the professor, had strong words about the agency’s recent decision not to contribute to a second study costing $75,000.

“I think Ecology is aggressively trying to put the kibosh on the science,” said Brett, an environmental scientist in UW’s engineering department. “… Because the results are complicating their policy, they’re trying to make the science go away.”

Brett said that he and his fellow researchers believe they are close to discovering why some types of phosphorus promote algae growth while others don’t. The work could have ramifications for cities, Spokane County and companies that discharge treated wastewater into the Spokane River. The dischargers face multimillion-dollar plant upgrades to meet strict new limits aimed at reducing the phosphorus flowing into the river by 90 percent.

Department of Ecology officials, however, said while Brett’s research is academically valuable, the science hasn’t advanced enough to relax phosphorus limits in discharge permits. A second study isn’t likely to change that, said David Moore, Ecology’s watershed unit supervisor.

“Bioavailability (of phosphorus) may be a good tool in the future, but the science isn’t there to support it,” he said. “The science would need to be overwhelming for us to make that change.”

Ecology, dischargers split bill for pilot study

The Ecology Department paid for about half of an earlier, $110,000 pilot study by Brett, which tested effluent from six sewage treatment plants that discharge into the river. Dischargers picked up the rest of the tab.

Brett said the pilot results, released last year, indicated that some forms of phosphorus don’t spur the algae growth that leads to low oxygen levels and water-quality problems in the reservoir behind Long Lake Dam.

“For some reason, the algae and the bacteria just can’t use it,” he said. “The analogy I use is sugar-free gum. It has a lot of energy in it, but our bodies don’t have the enzymes to use the carbon” in the gum.

Sid Frederickson, Coeur d’Alene’s wastewater utilities superintendent, said he’s disappointed that Ecology won’t ante up for additional research.

“He (Brett) has every right to be upset, and so do all the rest of us who participated in the funding of round one,” Frederickson said.

“Do we have enough data right now to go out and rewrite discharge permits? No, I don’t think we do … (But) I think the research should be funded as expeditiously as possible. If the permit limits can be relaxed, that will be a great boon to ratepayers.”   (...more)

. . . . 

"Trying to make the science go away," that's troubling.    And this comes from an impeccably qualified scientist, not the right-wing fringe.   Maybe this research would be useful in understanding the 'phosphorous problem' in Lake Whatcom.

It's not ethical or constructive for government to impose heavier regulatory burdens on citizens without the willingness to prove scientifically that a problem exists that needs to be mitigated, can be mitigated (practically or theoretically), or that the burden will even accomplish anything.

Why is this powerful agency turning a blind eye to better science?    It certainly raises questions about the department's agenda.   Are they working to help us or to hobble us unnecessarily?    Ecology has a huge budget, and $75 thousand is a miniscule amount to spend compared to what they blow on other things.

BaldGuy has posted more video just today to help folks understand just how dirty the water flowing into Lake Whatcom has been.   These two videos were taken in the same place, but on two different days:

This official diagram helps a person visualize how this system works:

A lot of reasonable people are wondering:

(a) Are the agencies doing the pumping and flushing performing the measurements and tests that their permits require?

(b)  How does this flushing and turbid water affect the "lake science" data?   If the lake data doesn't note this, are land use and stormwater management conclusions correct?

(c)  Are watershed and lakefront property owners bearing the brunt of the burden for water quality in the lake?   Do these practices impact the lake as much or more than customary land use does?

Those are pretty good questions. 

It would be unjust for the general population to have to "restore," "mitigate," "enhance," and suffer crippling moratoriums for harm not actually related to their own actions (to make up for the actions of others).   There's a critical principle about damage that requires a direct connection (link or tie) to be proven between action, damage and remedy.   A remedy must be proportionate to be fair.  In the case of Lake Whatcom, is all the damage done by homeowners ("development")?

Just yesterday the Washington Department of Ecology announced new state LID (low impact development) regulations that will require people to install rain gardens, severely limit impervious surfaces, obtain off-site mitigation, and a long list of other actions, even though a recent cost-benefit study prepared for the City of Bellingham revealed that many "best management practices" (BMP's) for handling stormwater to reduce phosphorous appear to be so outrageously expensive that they probably shouldn't be recommended.  WE understand those BMP's are still being enthusiastically pushed by outfits like ReSources and their "Baykeeper" people.

Customary land use, including the advanced forestry practices that have been in place on DNR land in the watershed since the "Landscape Plan" was adopted, may have substantially less impact on the condition of Lake Whatcom's water than what we've been led to believe.

WE look forward to learning more about what's going on, and if the "remedies" being imposed in the Lake Whatcom watershed are proportionate.   Stay tuned.   Readers - feel free to comment.