Save Our Watershed 2023

Take a position. Join the Union of your fellow neighbors who want to protect our ecosystem, change the State and County building codes, limit unrestrained and destructive “development,” and the big money Ambleside Project. My name is Jim Walsh and I live in unincorporated Snohomish County. Presently, there are about 7,500 of us who have signed a petition to make changes that favor the environment and our neighborhoods.  You can see it here https://chng.it/tDyQtstx  Current policies and practices allow for the destruction of our critical areas which include fish bearing streams, wetlands, urban forests, and the very buffers that are supposed to protect us along with the habitat and wildlife that lives there.  Take a look around, won’t you have a say in this systematic continuous destruction? The people who were here originally may have tried to tell us this before!

 Snohomish County Planning and Development Services (PDS) works hand-in-hand with developers and not the citizens in making decisions and issuing permits with little or no input from the community.    Have you ever wondered how these decisions are made?  When was the last time you had something to say about it?  

PDS has stated in writing that the people on the outside of this (citizens) are third parties in this process. For instance, if you disagree with PDS permit decision, you have all of 14 days to appeal it and you must pay $1,500.00 to do so.  Since when and whoever decided that a citizen must pay $1,500.00 to exercise a constitutional right in appealing a government agency decision?  It should be considered a shameful disappointment that our democracy would allow for a prohibitive price for the right to notice, due process, to be heard, and have equal protection under law.  If you get to the hearings level, the record shows that you have about a 1 in 25 chance of prevailing–and they call this democracy?

PDS does not allow for open online access to files or records.  The citizen is the last to know what’s going on which is consistent with the PDS policy that the citizens are “third parties.”   PDS has admitted that it accepts developers’ fees as a revenue source.  Appearances aside, who comes out on this one?  

On those projects requiring a SEPA analysis the developer routinely hires experts in support of what they want to build.  These experts are under no duty to declare under penalty of perjury that what they’re saying is true. When you take the time to read through some of these expert opinions you will see inaccuracies and omissions upon which PDS will rely in issuing permits that result in the adverse consequences of overbuilding and destruction that is plain to see in our communities.    

Look at the record to see what it reveals.  A SEPA plan approved and permitted by PDS is literally a death warrant for all living things on that land.  The developer cuts down all the trees, displaces the natural flow of water, and destroys the habitat along with the wildlife and the migratory patterns.  All of this is gone forever.

A case in point is this Ambleside Project. PDS recently granted the developer a “conditional permit” to build 52 skinny houses slammed together without enough parking on approximately 4.8 sloping acres containing 4 houses and an urban forest and wildlife.  This property adjoins a 5 acre wooded WSDOT property held in perpetuity as an upland wetland with a Category 4 fish bearing stream.  It took some doing for the “multijurisdictionals” to finally acknowledge the special nature of the WSDOT property to include Silver Lake Creek being fish-bearing.  Regardless, it appears PDS and the developer proceed at pace despite the ramifications of how the development will affect the survival of this critical area.   

Ambleside has no plan for the sewer for the 52 units.  Previously the developer was going to build an elevated sewer requiring retaining walls of about 6 feet on one side and 8 feet on the other side in which the sewer pipe would be dropped in.  This construction requires the destruction of a 1,000 foot tree canopy that would impinge upon a registered wetland and another fish-bearing creek. In addition, this would cause flooding and erosion on adjacent private properties. Another purported plan was to bury this sewer underground, which would result in similar ruination.

The wetland and the fish bearing creeks are integral to the watershed. The Silver Lake Creek runs from Silver Lake through a wetland, into Ruggs Lake all the way down to Lake Washington and then into the Salish Sea. Ruggs Lake has already been deemed to be Category 5 because of overdevelopment.  

Recently PDS, after a little effort, finally recognized Walsh Creek as Category 4 fish-bearing. This creek runs North-South through the wetland and intersects the Silver Lake Creek.  The code recognizes these waters as critical areas that require special protection. Here, it is clear that we have an aggregate critical area given the two streams, the wetland, and the adjoining lakes on either side.  All of us have a duty to protect these critical areas and give extra special consideration to aggregate critical areas.  Although these areas are on private land, these waters and urban forest belong to the people of the State of Washington and must be treated as such. Our state government has concurrent duty with the county regardless of lack of enforcement to protect these areas from encroachment. Buffers must be acknowledged and expanded to once and for all preserve these areas.

Science tells us that misadventures such as Ambleside will cause the deforestation and ruination of the waterways resulting in higher temperatures and the additional adverse consequences and disruption that goes with it.  Climate change is real and human activity, such as destroying our urban forests and natural flora/fauna, wetlands, streams, and waterways contributes to it.  Let’s try a New Path and agree on the following:

1.       It is time for a moratorium on SEPA proposals involving critical areas with special attention to those with aggregate critical areas.

2.       There needs to be a review and a reset of code provisions dealing with critical areas and buffer zones that match the purpose and spirit of the State Environmental and Protection Act and good sense.

3.       A code provision to include a Bill of Rights for the Environment.

4.       Instant online access to all PDS files similar to SeattleInProgress.com and Odyssey, etc.

5.       A redraft of the code provision to extend the appeal time of a PDS decision to at least 30 days and the abolition of the $1,500.00 fee to appeal a PDS decision.

6.       A code provision putting the citizen on equal footing with the developer with PDS.

7.       A code provision prohibiting direct funding of PDS by developers.

Will you stand with us to save our watershed?  If so, please sign.