Author Responds to Ferndale Clerk

Mr. Taylor concluded his above comment by saying, “Water is the lifeblood of a community.” I agree with that statement, so it makes no sense to me that the Ferndale City Council, under the leadership of Mayor Jensen, made a major decision about the community’s drinking water, “the lifeblood of the community,” with no voice from the Ferndale community members themselves.

Mr. Taylor also writes, “A recent article in Whatcom Watch unfortunately confused this community’s wise decision to switch drinking water sources with some type of secret cabal to give water to a privately proposed bulk cargo terminal at Cherry Point known as the Gateway Pacific Terminal.” I think Mr. Taylor is the one who is confused when he says, “this community’s wise decision,” when in fact, the Ferndale community was never given a vote on the city’s water switch, so the residents were not involved in the decision. The community Mr. Taylor refers to, I believe, consisted of seven City Councilmembers, the mayor, and possibly some city staff, but the majority of the Ferndale residents were rendered mute in the city’s decision to switch to well water.   

I spoke to Mr. Taylor in a phone call a number of months ago, and specifically asked him why no vote on the water switch was taken by the city. To my best recollection, Mr. Taylor told me that the city is not allowed to vote on whether to switch the water source and that the city could have taken a test vote of some sort, but that it would have cost money to do so, saying it may cost a few thousand dollars. I don’t understand why, at the very least, Mayor Jensen and the Ferndale City Council did not take that step to obtain the Ferndale community’s opinion on the water switch, especially when that switch would necessitate millions of dollars in up front costs, so the cost of a few thousand dollars to take the residents’ pulse on the water switch seems prudent. If they had, then Mr. Taylor could rightly use the words “this community’s wise decision.” 

Additionally, to describe my questioning of the city’s decision to switch water sources as confusing that decision with “some type of secret cabal” is his perception, as I simply presented various facts I gathered from confirmable sources referenced in my article, asked questions, and allowed the readers, like Mr. Taylor, to come to their own conclusions. 

Mr. Taylor also commented, “The author of the recent article argued that a 10.2 percent increase was some sort of pittance simply because it wasn’t a 25 percent increase. In our view, a double-digit rate increase is a double-digit rate increase.…” In writing my article, I did not argue that a 10.2 percent PUD rate increase was “some sort of pittance,” as Mr. Taylor writes, but rather, I confirmed that the 25 percent PUD rate increase, which the city said (back in 2010) would be in store for Ferndale over the next number of years, was actually going to be 10.2 percent in 2011 and 10.5 percent in 2012, according to emails sent from the PUD to Ferndale city staff. I’m no mathlete, but my thinking is that, while both 25 and 10 are “double-digit” numbers, if you look at what Ferndale’s yearly PUD water bill was and compare 25 percent of that number to 10 percent, I’m confident it would result in quite a large differential. So, while both numbers are indeed double-digit, clearly there is a significant difference between 25 percent and 10 percent.

Also, it’s important while reading Mr. Taylor’s statement, “a double-digit increase is a double-digit increase” — which, by the way, sounds like hollow reasoning to me — to figure in the additional estimated $1.2M to $1.4M cost (and as of July 2013 the cost is now estimated at $1.6M to $2.1M) of the needed water softener in the water treatment plant; the estimated yearly attached cost of up to $80K for running it; the $30K extra cost of hiring an engineering consultant to find a fix to the hard water problems; and the costs to businesses and residents for their needed appliance/plumbing upgrades and, in some cases, replacement due to the hard water problems.

Mr. Taylor further comments, “The author of the article should be given credit for citing public sources of information related to the allegations of why Ferndale switched water sources.…” I find it interesting that Mr. Taylor uses the word “allegations” when in reality, I simply laid out factual information, asked questions about that information, and let the readers’ minds do the rest, which did not include any allegations on my part. Asking questions does not equal making allegations which, as a former journalist, I’m surprised Mr. Taylor would not realize. 

Mr. Taylor went on to say, “Ferndale doesn’t have to worry about costly capital infrastructure upgrades because of another entity.” Mr. Taylor is correct when he says that Ferndale doesn’t have to worry about costly capital infrastructure upgrades because of another entity, but what he does not say is that Ferndale water customers do have to worry about paying for the costly capital infrastructure upgrades that have become necessary because of Ferndale’s seemingly hasty decision to switch its water source, and the problems that have resulted from that decision. Ferndale water customers may not be presently seeing their water rates increasing, according to Mr. Taylor, but they will be paying in the form of various potential tax hikes, and potential costly repairs, replacement, or upgrades of their appliances and/or plumbing, due to hard water damage. 

I believe the more important potential cost to Ferndale for its switch to groundwater is something that remains to be seen. That is, whether or not the aquifer will be able to sustain the city’s water needs in the future, and whether pollution problems will occur with the city’s groundwater since Ferndale is surrounded by heavy industry and farming operations, which can adversely affect groundwater. So, while Mr. Taylor cited the importance of Ferndale taking full control over its water future by switching to well water, I wonder if it might be more valuable to have less than full control over a more sustainable water source like the Nooksack River, which has proven to be an excellent quality water source for Ferndale since 1974. If the city’s well water turns out to be problematic in the future, then having full control is of little importance. And, as to the issue of potential future costly legal battles related to users of the Nooksack River Mr. Taylor alludes to, isn’t water worth fighting for if it’s good, sustainable, clean water, and has been so for Ferndale for close to 40 years? Remember what Mark Twain said, “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.”