Letter to Editor: More Suburbanization of Orcas Island?

— from Michael Durland —

If you are concerned with the look and feel and safety of the roads on Orcas Island please download, read and sign the attached petition.

San Juan County Public Works is proposing a new bridge in Deer Harbor to replace the existing wooden bridge. The proposed bridge will be almost twice a long, twice as thick, will raise the roadbed 3 to 4 feet, and will widen the road corridor from about 26 feet to over 40 feet in width. Public Works had a series of ‘meetings’ in which they presented their preferred plan and other options. These open houses and meetings were all held during the day when most of us were working and could not attend.

The straw poll at the meetings I attended showed that those concerned with the rural character of Deer Harbor and the excessive speeds the proposed bridge would generate voted for a bridge more in keeping with the rural character of Deer Harbor and a bridge that would not increase vehicle speeds through Deer Harbor Hamlet. The Deer Harbor Plan Review Committee, of which I am a member, voted 4 to 2 in favor of a bridge with a stop in order to slow traffic.

A meeting on the bridge of concerned local citizens also voted in favor of a stop or some way to control traffic speeds as the hard corner on the west end of the bridge does now. That is not what Public Works is proposing. I ask you to read the Petition below and make your comments heard. I am told by Rick Hughes that a petition needs to be presented to him and the Council regarding the design of the bridge by those opposed to the Public Works plan rather than a petition by those opposed to the wishes of the Deer Harbor Plan Review Committee and the local residents.
If you have not read it take a look at Peg Manning’s letter on May 19th in Orcas Issues about Suburbanization.

The bridge in Deer Harbor does have some problems but this does not mean that Public Works needs to spend 3 Million dollars to ‘fix’ a small problem. Environmental studies have been done on the fate and future of the lagoon and a wider bridge may or may not resolve the problems of the silting of the lagoon. Public Works may be trying to fix one problem and end up creating bigger problems with the increased silting of oysterlands, eel grass beds, and crab habitat.

We are not asking for abandonment of the project, we want a meaningful discussion about the options for replacing the bridge. Public Works was informed they received grant money for a new bridge in December of 2012, incidentally the money can be used for an alternate route instead of a new bridge, yet waited until the spring of 2014 to hold public meetings. Now they are rushing their proposal through as they have set a timeline for completion and need to proceed quickly in order to receive the money.

Please sign the petition or e-mail me with permission for me to add your name to the petition. Only in this way can a meaningful discussion of the Deer Harbor Bridge project occur.