By Levi Pulkkinen Daily World Writer, October 8, 2003.The Aberdeen Daily World
WESTPORT A leading statewide environmental organization has jumped into the legal battle to stop the Links at Half Moon Bay golf resort near Westhaven State Park.
A small cadre of local environmentalists, led by Friends of Grays Harbor, has been on its own in a grinding, four-year-old legal battle against the 350-acre resort. Yesterday, the Washington Environmental Council announced it would join FOGH's appeal of two recently issued shoreline permits.
The permits were issued by the Westport Planning Commission and the appeals will be before the Westport City Council. Josh Baldi, the Environmental Council1s policy director, said his organization entered the fray in part because of a new state appeals process that applies to "distressed rural" areas. The council wants to be involved in what could be a precedent setting decision.
Earlier this year, Coastal Caucus members drafted a law requiring that, in distressed rural areas, including Grays Harbor, all appeals against large-scale developments be heard simultaneously by a new board. The Links appeals, Baldi said, will be the trial run of the new system. "From a state policy perspective, there's a lot at stake with this issue," Baldi said.
At a meeting with The Daily World editorial board in late April, two area legislators, Sen. Mark Doumit, D-Cathlamet, and Rep. Lynn Kessler D-Hoquiam, spoke in support of the change in law, claiming the Links project delays were born of an unfair system. Kessler said the change is "supposed to, and hopefully will, help the golf course."
"We were both quite upset that (the Links project) was being held up," the House majority leader said. The change in law created a new appellate board, the Environmental & Land Use Hearings Board, to hear complaints from citizens or agencies with concerns over development permits issued in distressed rural areas.
Presently, citizens and agencies appeal each permit issued to a developer separately to one of the Environmental Hearings Office's boards. Under the new law, the board would review all of a development's finalized permits simultaneously.
The change also eliminates one level of judicial appeal; instead of an appeal going to a Superior Court, it will go directly the Washington State Court of Appeals.
Joan Crooks, WEC executive director, said today that her organization hopes to ensure that "important shoreline habitat is protected and public access to our beautiful beaches is maintained."
"We really don't know how it's going to play out, but we want to follow the process through to ensure that our state's natural areas are protected," Crooks said. "We were contacted by a local group and sympathetic with their concerns, but our involvement in the issue is going to focus on issues of statewide significance."
The council helped write the Shorelines Management Act, the Growth Management Act and other major environmental legislation.
To FOGH attorney Knoll Lowney, the change in law illustrates clearly the influence developer Mox Chehalis LLC and the Links project's supporters have had in state government.
"We know that this project has friends in high places, and yet the developer's supporters won't even show their face," Lowney said. "We don't even know who's behind this project." Neither FOGH nor Mox Chehalis have been willing to release the names of their members or financial backers.
While on an economic development tour of Grays Harbor April 23, Gov. Gary Locke met with City of Westport officials and project supporters at Westhaven State Park to survey the proposed development area immediately southeast of the park. The governor's contact with Mox Chehalis representatives, however, can be documented as early as March 2001.
According to memoranda reviewed by The Daily World in an examination of Department of Ecology files on the project, the governor's office voiced the developer's complaints against Ecology on the developer's behalf.
One widely circulated e-mail discussion between the governor's Executive Policy Adviser Sheila Martin and Ecology Regional Director Sue Mauermann concerns Ecology's unfavorable opinion on the initial version of the project's Environmental Impact Statement.
"The Gov is meeting with a number of legislators and a developer about a resort/convention center/golf course being proposed in Westport," Martin stated in an e-mail sent March 13, 2001 to Mauermann.
"At issue is the response of state agencies, in particular, Fish & Wildlife and Parks & Rec, on their written comments on the EIS. They weren't real pleased with Ecology's comments either, but said that they weren't as bad as the other two (does that make you feel better Sue?)
"This is why we need an early warning system." Mauermann's response was logged the same day and sent to eight other state employees.
"I did not lead the EIS response, but you can use me as the contact ... and I'm glad we're third instead of first on the bad list," Mauermann wrote.
"The message was probably the same, but we've been working on our tone! ...
"So we're swamped, and won't take on Westport until we get farther down the line with the other three ... and Westport and their fiercely protective legislative caucus will be unhappy."
The Westport City Council will hear the appeal if FOGH files before the Friday deadline, Mayor Berkley Barker said. He said the news that the permits issued by the Planning Commission would be appealed took no one by surprise.
"It would have been almost too much to hope for that FOGH and their associates would ever respect the decision of the City of Westport, the Department of Ecology or any other governmental body," the mayor said.
For FOGH's part, Lowney said the organization has no plans to give up its fight against the 18-hole, 200-condominium project.
"We're not willing to sacrifice the county's oyster growing industry or some of the most important access areas in the state for a $100-a-round golf course," the Seattle attorney said.
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