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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Under
the radar and out of control
By John Koster
Citizens
of Snohomish County are blessed to live in a place that has it all for
those of us who love the Pacific Northwest lifestyle. Rivers, lakes,
mountains, all close enough for us to enjoy, and the word is out that
this county is a great place to live. With a robust regional economy led
by corporate giants Boeing and Microsoft, our local construction
industry struggles to keep pace with the housing needs of our sons and
daughters and newcomers.
While
we enjoy on one hand the fruits of our prosperity and growth in the form
of a healthy job market, we also endure frequent traffic jams and other
growth-related challenges as we continue to play catch-up with our
transportation infrastructure. In spite of the challenges before us, we
remain a vibrant and optimistic county that remembers and has a heart
for its rural roots. We continue, as we should, to place a high value on
the protection of farming and farmlands.
A
particularly disturbing trend in our land use policy, however, is the
seemingly unstoppable destruction of thousands of acres of valuable
farmlands via "wetland conversions." The conversions are being
done in the name of conservation for salmon or wildlife habitat, wetland
banking and/or other environmental programs unrelated to farming.
Projects are planned and carried out by government agencies with your
tax dollars via federal, state and local grants, and it's happening
under the public radar.
It's
no secret that farmland-to-wetland conversion projects are popular today
with politically correct media and environmental groups. Proponents and
their supporters enjoy a general lack of high profile scrutiny. In
essence, large scale environmental projects that gobble up hundreds and
even thousands of acres of farmland (more than 2,000 in this county
since the 1990s) are often given a free pass from genuine media scrutiny
while relatively tiny non-wetland conversion projects involving
farmlands are subject to intense media pressure and subsequent
criticism.
A
good example of this involves Snohomish County's recent purchase of 155
acres of farmland on Smith Island to go along with another 269 purchased
in 2001. The plan there is to breech the dikes and flood the farmland to
create salmon habitat. In The Herald's Jan. 29 article headlined
"Smith Island to Nurture Salmon," the writer gushes about the
virtues of the project, never once describing the project as
controversial or that the properties to be flooded are farmlands.
Neither is it mentioned that these private properties are to become
non-productive government lands, forever removed from the tax rolls. The
rosy, one-sided presentation of the Smith Island project provides stark
contrast to the negative tone expressed in articles appearing in The
Herald describing the recent Arlington UGA expansion of a mere six acres
as "controversial" and perhaps even "illegal," as
was erroneously stated by Futurewise.
Needless
to say, I don't know when or where or who decided on a policy that any
farmland-to-wetland conversion trumps Snohomish County's commitment to
preserving our farmland. In the Smith Island case, our own Surface Water
Department, working behind the scenes and with good intentions, secured
grant money to purchase the properties for the "conversion."
When Surface Water brought the proposal to the County Council at the
11th hour, we were confronted with losing the grant money if the measure
was voted down.
My
point is not to say that all farmland-to-wetland conversions are a bad
thing, as there may be occasions where they should be utilized. However,
a thorough examination of any potential conversion should be required
and should include genuine participation from the Farm Bureau, the
Snohomish County Agricultural Board and locally elected officials.
For
the past several years the county executive has used the weight of his
office to bring much attention to the annual Focus on Farming events.
These events have done much to promote an image that Snohomish County is
committed to farming and preserving its farmland. However, image isn't
everything. It is obvious that we will need to do a better job in the
future of communicating our pro-farming vision to the agencies under our
own authority. In other words, the right hand needs to know what the
left hand is doing - and the policy makers, not unelected bureaucrats,
need to be the makers of the policy.
Farmland-to-wetland
projects such as Smith Island need ample time to study, review and
ponder. They require much more than a last-minute opportunity for an
elected official's rubber stamp.
John
Koster is a member of the Snohomish County Council, representing north
county communities including Marysville, Arlington, Granite Falls,
Stanwood and Darrington.
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