HomeMy WebLinkAbout053126 email - Comments on Letter of Support for transferring refuge lands to JST for JeffCo commissionersALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Dear Commissioners:
Please open the attachment and tell the public if this is how you want to see the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge transformed. The two bottom photos depict what the Jamestown S’Klallam
Tribe has some permits to do, but not yet a permit from the USFWS.
The USFWS has not yet written its compatibility determination (CD), the only version of an EIS that would be done. The U.S. District Court of Tacoma was about to rule this CD must be
done before any aquaculture could occur in the Refuge. The Tribe tried to intervene to be part of the argument. The Court twice denied the Tribe had a role when the plaintiffs - Protect
the Peninsula’s Future, Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, and the national D.C. organization Beyond Pesticides - are simply asking the USFWS to follow its own mandate to conduct
a CD whether the shellfish project would impact the Refuge and interfere with the mission of the USFWS to protect wildlife.
The Tribe appealed that denial to the 9th Circuit Appellate Court. We are waiting for this court to decide whether to uphold the Tacoma Court’s decision to not let the Tribe intervene.
Therefore, the letter of support you are being asked for is premature. One would hope that your Board would not want to help preempt a federal court decision. Too, neither Congresswoman
Emily Randall nor Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray are working on legislation to transfer the refuge lands to the Tribe. Any legislative-like documents floating around is language
being proposed by the Tribe.
It is not good policy to set a precedent to privatize national refuges and to open them up for corporate business, tribal or otherwise. The public would lose its oversight stewardship
role for these properties. Let’s support the Tribe continuing its co-management role of the refuge and Protection Island, following long-established regulations protecting these lands,
and keep public lands public.
Darlene Schanfald, Ph.D.
Protect the Peninsula’s Future
PO Box 421
Sequim WA 98382
1-360-681-7565
Civilizations do not fall only from war or economics.
They fall when the living systems that sustain them are quietly dismantled.
Joseph Varon January 26, 2026