Twenty Years Ago

To celebrate 20 years of publishing Whatcom Watch, we will be publishing excerpts from 20 years ago. David Laws has been generous enough to volunteer to review the Whatcom Watch from 20 years ago to find suitable material to reprint. The below excerpts are from the May 1993 issue of Whatcom Watch.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Well…

by Robin Dexter

After discussing a set of goals for protecting the Lake Whatcom Watershed, a joint meeting of City and County Councils, and Water District 10 Commissioners adjourned Wednesday night, April 28, seemingly without appreciation for what a positive step they had taken on behalf of rational growth. An intuitive recognition of the way water resource issues are going to dominate land use planning for years to come, led the group to ask County Executive Shirley Van Zanten to develop a plan to reallocate staff time to Lake Whatcom Watershed protection at the expense of timely compliance with state growth management law. Van Zanten, who has been patient and sensitive regarding water-related issues, agreed to come up with some suggestions. In conversation following the meeting the Executive even foresaw that the same kind of prioritization may be appropriate when Nooksack Basin Planning gets underway in the summer or fall of this year.

Many in the environmental community feel that careful study of a rational water policy will add much clarity to land use planning and we applaud the subtle change that occurred at this meeting.

Forest Forum: A Review

by Wendy Hunziker

Bellingham’s Forest Forum, held Saturday, May 1 at Sehome High School, was something of a microcosm of the National forum in Portland.

[…]

… Mason Browne from the John Hancock Insurance Company Timber Resource Group . . . assured us, in his best public relations voice, that although John Hancock owns 560,000 acres of forestland in the Northwest, they would never, never, ever consider mowing down a sensitive eco-system.

[…]

Taking the side of the dollar, but desperately not to don the black hat, was David Syre of Trillium. Syre told of how he had a fascination with watching plants grow as a child. One is forced to wonder if his love of watching green plants grow in his garden has been replaced with a love of watching greenbacks grow in his bank account.

Syre amazed many of us with his own interesting brand of science when he explained to the crowd that a clear-cut forest does not contribute to erosion, because the roots of the tree are still taking up water; and that further a living forest is more dangerous than a field of stumps because it is filled up with water and may cause a landslide. (Perhaps he and Ronald-trees-cause-air-pollution-Reagan attended the same high school biology class.) He urged us to calm our fears because, “Bio-technology will overcome all our religious and spiritual concerns.” Oh, brave new world!