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 March 1994 issue of Whatcom Watch.

ALERT

On March 22, [1994] the County Council has on its agenda a resolution stating in part that:

“It is the policy of Whatcom County government to assure that restrictions on the ability of private enterprise to establish, conduct, and maintain a healthy jobs based economy be removed and that the ability of private enterprise to establish and maintain a healthy jobs based economy be enhanced by the actions of the government.”

In addition, the resolution proposes a nine-member committee consisting of three government officials, three industry representatives, and three representatives from business and development organizations to advise the council how best to meet this goal.

This resolution is not supposed to be taken as a “weakening of the county’s commitment to the conservation of the county’s environment …”

Call the council offices and have a copy of this resolution sent to you, and then attend the meeting to voice your opinion!

Amtrak and Politics

by John Servais

On Tuesday, April 5 [1994], at a little after 7 pm, the three commissioners of the Port of Bellingham will vote to waste $1.5 million on the Fairhaven train station. Before the project is done next year, another 3 to 4 million taxpayer dollars will be wasted.

Most people in Bellingham think this project is necessary in order for Amtrak to stop here. Most also believe the Port when it says this decision was reached after public hearings. [...]

[There exists] a much less expensive — and perhaps better — alternative train station project. It is the renovation of our Old Town station … for less than $1 million. [...]

[…]

Why would the Port bureaucrats want to spend over $5 million dollars on a train station in Fairhaven rather than less than $1 million on a station in Old Town? Two reasons.

One. The Alaska Ferry Terminal is losing $1 million dollars a year . . . the Port hopes to make their investment in the Ferry Terminal look better.

Two. Big projects pay bureaucrats’ salaries. The Port of Bellingham has more employees for its income than any other major port in the state.h- Fragmentation Destroys Wetlands in Bellingham

by Steve Redman

The largest wetland forest in the Whatcom Creek Watershed is threatened by the fragmenting and destructive effects of misplaced industrial and residential developments. Located north of Lakeway Drive, south of Iowa Street, West of Valencia Street and east of I-5, the Cemetery Creek Swamp Forest occupies well over forty acres south of Whatcom Creek.

. . . Cemetery Creek, Park Creek, and Lincoln Creek are the primary critical spawning and rearing habitat of the significant populations of chinook, coho and chum salmon and the steelhead and resident and sea-run cutthroat trout that inhabit the watershed. … Other sensitive species like the great blue heron, northern harrier, and pileated woodpecker are known to utilize the area.

… developments are carving in from every direction! … It appears that the current political-economic-bureaucratic plan has the Great Swamp slated for sacrifice.

Squalicum Creek: Developer Ignores Permitting Process

by Rebecca Meloy

On January 6, the trees and owl’s nest went down fast along Squalicum Creek. By the next day, the beaver dam had been bulldozed under and the artesian spring fed wetlands to the south of Pacific Concrete were obliterated.

… This scenario describes the first steps to install an industrial recycling facility on a seven acre site in Bellingham—wedged between the Birchwood and Eldridge Historical neighborhoods. The area had been zoned for planned industrial use a decade ago, but the 1990 Bellingham Wetlands Inventory identifies the lands with wetlands.

… the developer, by his own account, was unaware of the need for permits [despite having been] in the land movement and drainage business for 25 years…We might naively assume that a massive land alteration performed without proper permits would draw a fine … The City’s solution to the problem is interesting. Even after dozens of people called in and complained, no Stop Work Order was written up nor recorded.

[…]

Today, you may choose to visit the Squalicum moonscape to get ideas of how to develop your land. Pay no mind to the sylvan scene which existed only days before the bulldozers arrived. It is awesome to know what an immense land transformation can be achieved in a short few days’ time, and all without permits.