Two local papers report a significant change in direction by WaDOE....

State tables shoreline plan after loud public protests By Hal Spencer,The Associated Press, The Chronicle, 8/19/99 OLYMPIA - State officials are putting on the back burner a red hot issue in rural Washington: a proposal to further restrict logging and farming near streams, rivers and lakes. The decision this week to table until next year the proposed revisions to the state's 27-year-old Shoreline Management Act is "wonderful news," Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, said Wednesday. Snyder and other foes, including hundreds of ordinary citizens, contend the Department of Ecology proposal, the subject of public hearings around the state this spring and summer, threatened to put small farmers and loggers out of business. "It would absolutely devastate us," Jane Rose, a small farmer and logger in Grays Harbor County, said in a telephone interview. Ecology officials argue that the impact of their proposal has been exaggerated. But they said they nevertheless have heeded an angry public and will consider revisions. Gov. Gary Locke and other state officials argue that it is past time to stiffen shoreline development rules to help protect dwindling salmon stocks, a growing number of which have been listed as endangered or threatened by the federal government. Among other things, Ecology's initial proposal would have greatly increased the setbacks or buffers between human activity and streams, sloughs, rivers and lakes. Drawing less heat from farmers and loggers are proposals to toughen rules regarding construction of concrete bulkheads and restrictions on removal of native shoreline vegetation. Ron Langley, an Ecology spokesman, said the department would revise its proposal and present it to the Legislature and public for review early next year. 'Our goal on this is to clarify and fine-tune the rule. We have invited local government planners and leaders to work with us. We're also taking into account 2,000 public comments" on the proposal. He was referring to public hearings that drew huge crowds of opponents, including one in Montesano, Grays Harbor County that attracted 1,200 people in mid-July. Rose, who was at that hearing, said the initial proposal "went way beyond the intent of the Legislature" to protect shorelines. The land she farms and logs along with her husband and children borders three rivers and also contains sloughs and streams that dry up during the summer months. "With the new buffer zones, we would not be able to use our land at all," she said. "It would absolutely put us out of business.'

Ecology backs off in wake of outcry - August 17, 1999 By Margaret Ellis - Daily World Writer, The Aberdeen Daily World OLYMPIA - The state Department of Ecology will make "substantive changes" to the proposed shoreline management guidelines that generated a tsunami of opposition in rural areas. While there's no specific date set for release of the revamped guidelines, the department plans to submit them during the legislative session that begins in January, according to Ecology spokesman Ron Langley. That is what coastal legislators had asked. Langley said today that the department received about 2,000 comments concerning the guidelines, which called for land use restrictions within about 150 feet of shorelines. A movement that began in Pacific County called it "environmental communism." A Department of Ecology hearing last month in Montesano was preceded by a rally that drew more than a thousand opponents of the proposed rules. Re-evaluation "It has given us reason to go back and take a strong look at this proposal," Langley said of the response. The decision to revamp the proposed guidelines proves the public process works, the spokesman said. Grays Harbor County Commissioner Bob Paylor agreed. "This is the way government should work," the Hoquiamite said. Paylor said he hopes Ecology comes up with "something reasonable" this time around. Asked if the changes Ecology managers are studying are less restrictive, Langley said he could not provide specifics. But the changes will be significant enough to start the process over again, he said. Reps. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, and Mark Doumit, D-Cathlamet, submitted a bill during the special session last spring to restrict the Department of Ecology's ability to enforce any new shoreline rules. Hatfield had said that he would submit the bill again when the legislature convened in 2000. Also outspoken in opposition to the rules was Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, who took his case to the Governor's Office. As they draft the new proposed rules to preserve and protect shoreline habitat, Ecology managers plan to meet with local officials and take a look at each of the 2,000 comments received on the issue, Langley said. "You really need to go through the public process and review," the Ecology spokesman said. "That is clear just from the range and intensity of comments we received." Farmers and rural lawmakers said the original proposal, an update of the Shoreline Management Act of 1971, was both vague and omnipotent. They said it would have given Ecology the ability to enforce 150-foot setbacks near shorelines - tantamount to seizure of land - and restrict important erosion control measures. Pacific County Commissioner Norman Cuffel said the decision to revise the proposed rules was prompted by the pressure from rural residents and local government officials. "I think that they would have very much liked to force these things onto us in the form that they had released them, but there's just so much pressure statewide," he said today.

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