Guest Opinion | Open letter to County Council

Beheading the Department of Environmental Stewardship

||| FROM CINDY WOLF |||

In the State of Washington, responsibility falls on the local and Tribal governments to execute Salmon habitat conservation and restoration projects, which is a focused way of saying projects addressing marine health in general.  This mission dovetails nicely with the clean water utility function of keeping pollution out of the stormwater and surface water.  The solid waste utility is also clearly a part of attempting to keep trash out of the water that feeds us and gives us air to breathe.

The perception that somehow these utilities do not belong with Environmental Stewardship puzzles me greatly, as does the perception that utility funds were somehow improperly used to fund Environmental Stewardship.  I am aware there were float funds in the utilities that were used for qualifying projects until such time as reimbursement was received from the granting agencies.  I am also aware that work done by Environmental Stewardship staff for utility work was properly compensated with utility funds.  I also know when staff was compensated by the use of float funds for work exterior to the utility, those funds were reimbursed when reimbursement was received by the granting agencies.  I have repeatedly reached out for current Council to explain this system, but only Council Member Fuller has made the effort to thoroughly understand the complex system of grants, floats, and long term projects that make up the world of environmental work in this County.

A few people have asked whether the State will pick up the slack?  In the case of the Salish Sea, the State functions only as a land holding entity, regulatory agency and a block grant style conduit for funds.  Puget Sound Partnership and Northwest Straits are the tables at which the money gets parceled out by consortiums of local and tribal governments and citizens councils in competitive grants based on where the biggest ROI can be found for the health of the whole Salish Sea.

By dividing and dismantling the Department of Environmental Stewardship and removing a program from the CIP that has already been approved for funding,  you are sending a strong signal that San Juan County is no longer interested in participating in Salmon habitat restoration.  In fact, you are destroying the ability to do so.

A proposal has been made that one day in some theoretical future the legislature will approve a 1/10 of 1% sales tax which then must be adopted by a future Council who then must agree to approve use of the funds to reconstitute the department.  This is a simple and inadequate solution to a complex problem.  Such a tax would only produce in the neighborhood of $850,000 per year.  Where are you getting the float money for multi million dollar projects?  How are you compensating skilled staff who split their time between grants funded projects and utility work? You are about to lay off the one person in the County government with Flood Plain Management certification.  Where are you going to source that? What guarantee is there that future Councils will honor the thousands of personnel hours of and years of effort that are spent on all levels of government by the time a project gets to the design phase?

You have been called upon repeatedly by the people of this county, especially those young enough to have to live through the future you are creating, to prioritize environmental work. No one else can or will do that work here in this county.  It is on you to create the circumstances that make the grant funding flow and the execution of this work possible.  Understand the repercussions of shirking that duty are existential.  No one is coming to save us.