By Dee Anne Shaw - Daily World assistant city editor, The Aberdeen Daily World , 7/15/1999
In an unusual move for a School District, the Hoquiam School Board last night joined a growing list of Twin Harbor agencies and organizations expressing deep concern over proposed new shoreline management rules.
The resolution adopted by the board is calculated to get the School District's position on record before the state Department of Ecology convenes a public hearing Thursday at Montesano.
Echoing coastal lawmakers, business interests, farming and forestry groups and local and county governments, the Hoquiam district is asking Ecology to withdraw its proposed amendments to the Shoreline Management Act.
The most controversial elements of the DOE proposal involve "site potential tree height" buffer zones, measured as the average height of fully-grown trees next to waterways. Opponents call the buffer zones setbacks, and say that in heavily wooded areas like Grays Harbor and Pacific counties the setbacks could be 150 feet or more. All development in the buffer zones would be severely restricted or prohibited.
The changes are billed by the DOE as necessary to protect salmon habitat, but opponents maintain the regulations are too drastic and infringe on private property rights.
Grays Harbor and Pacific County officials have protested that Southwest Washington boasts some of the most pristine shorelines left in the state, yet no one from either county was asked to serve on the Department Ecology's advisory committee during the years the new rules were being drafted.
Hoquiam School Board member Dan Wood, who is among those spearheading a protest rally before the DOE hearing on Thursday, urged his fellow board members to adopt the protest resolution.
At first, it appeared the measure might die for lack of support, with board members Jon Parker and Tanya Bowers expressing reluctance to have the School Board adopt a political stand on a non-educational issue.
But Parker invited Wood to persuade him that the School District would be negatively impacted if the DOE rules are put into place.
Wood noted that the School District owns property on the Highway 109 spur outside of Hoquiam and on the Ocean Beach Road. Both parcels have potential value in the marketplace if they were to be sold for the purposes of residential development, he said.
He said he has a "high level of concern that any lots where these rules apply may no longer be developable" if the DOE's shoreline amendments are adopted.
He said the best example was given by the county's public services director, Mike Daniels. In remarks published June 30 in The Daily World, Daniels said the DOE's shoreline jurisdiction would be 200 feet plus "the uplands that affect the shoreline. Well, that's everything" on the Twin Harbors, Daniels said.
Woods noted property owners of undeveloped lots are very concerned. He noted that Daniels is quoted as saying the rules say "No more than 10 percent of a lot can be covered with an impervious surface. Well, if you have a 12,000 square foot lot at the beach, do the math. If the square footage includes your driveway, how much is left for your house?"
As another thought, Wood noted that the high school is built on a wetland and is surrounded by wetland.
"We built back in the days before building on a wetland was a "no-no,' but now there are management activities" to control the school grounds from the encroachment of the surrounding wetland growth, he said.
"Those management plans would have to be re-approved," Wood said, adding he believes the School District could even be ordered to prepare an EIS statement proving the necessity to keep the wildberries at bay.
"At the very least, we would have to have our plans re-approved," he said. "I have no idea how we can begin to estimate that cost" yet he predicted it would be "substantially higher."
In the end, boardmembers voted unanimously to approve the resolution, with Tanya Bower abstaining.
Bower said afterward she personally supports the resolution, but also wanted to stand firm in her position that the School Board is better off in the long run if it does not take political positions on non-educational issues.
Thursday afternoon, a series of public meetings on the proposed regulations begins in Montesano at City Hall with a special presentation by the Economic Development Council at 4 p.m. The Department of Ecology will hold a workshop on the new rules at 5:30, followed by an official public hearing at 7 p.m. Protesters, including Wood, are planning a rally on the steps of the County Administration Building at 5 p.m.
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