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Jeanie Orr
From: Jeanie Orr
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 3:58 PM
To: Michelle McConnell
Cc: AI Scalf; Stacie Hoskins; Jeanie Orr
Subject: FW: SMP update comment
From: Norman Macleod [mailto:gaelwolf@waypt.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:43 PM
To: #long-Range Planning
Subject: SMP update comment
I am submitting this comment for the Jefferson County Shoreline Master Program update.
I am concerned that we are predicating this update on a standard of "no net loss", but we are
completely ignoring the net gain in environmental quality we have experienced over the past
several decades. An example of such a gain is the restoration of the southern end of
Discovery Bay from a heavy industrial site, complete with a sawmill, log yards, and floating log
booms, plus a formerly active railway that ran over the tidelands of the southern end of the
bay.
Today, including recent restoration projects where heavy equipment was used, the southern
end of Discovery Bay has been restored to the point where the draft SMP states that this area
is of such high quality that it merits classification as "natural". The SMP has no historical
context with which to credit the people for the incredible investment of time and money that
has restored the location. Instead, we are confronted with a "no net loss" standard that
shoreline property owners will be held to . . . no recognition of their part in bringing that area to
the environmental quality it now enjoys.
We've heard comments that people who do not agree with some aspects of the draft SMP are
out of place with their concerns as a result of not having participated in a very active public
process. This criticism is generally misplaced, because those people are often those who
have been engaged with other public policy processes, such as the critical areas ordinance,
the septic program, the evolution of the Puget Sound Partnership, the WRIA 17 instream flow
rule, membership on the WRIA 16, 17, and 20 planning units, and a whole host of other policy
processes. To criticize these volunteers for not also being fully engaged with the SMP process
is disingenuous at best, shameful at worst. The vast majority of public involvement is by
people who are not paid to be part of the process, as opposed to the paid participants that they
are engaging with on a weekly or daily basis.
The intensity of human presence on or near Jefferson County's shorelines is light. Aside from
the Port Townsend Paper Company, we have virtually no heavy industry, and a relatively
insignificant amount of medium or light industry and/or commercial use of our shorelines. The
science being applied as part of this SMP update is often geared to far more intensive
shoreline activity than we are ever going to experience in Jefferson County. The
proportionality of the use restrictions contained in much of the SMP is simply out of scale to the
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development intensity context of the Jefferson County experience.
Much of the impetus for the restrictive nature of the SMP comes from advocates and advocacy
groups based in the heavily developed regions along the 1-5 Corridor. Yes, the shorelines
have been heavily impacted in those communities. However, that does not justify turning
Jefferson County into some kind of mitigation zone to compensate for the severe degradation
several of those communities have inflicted upon their shorelines. They are better advised to
put forward the time and resources necessary to restore their shorelines to healthier
conditions, as has already been done in Jefferson County.
The Jefferson County Shoreline Master Program is just one of many policy pieces that should
be integrated into a sensible whole. It should not attempt to do the whole job of environmental
protection on its own.
Norman Macleod
241 Sand Road
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-379-8912
6/17/2009