Seaview Neighborhood Protests Propane Tank

— by Margie Doyle —

(Disclosure: my property line abuts the lot at the corner of Seaview and Aeroview, where InterIsland Propane’ is proposing to install a 30,000 gallon propane tank and distribution center)

Neighbors listen as one of them describes the difficulties in evacuating the neighborhood during a 2015 fuel spill

About 40 neighbors of the densely residential Seaview-Mt. View-Blanchard Street neighborhood gathered together on Saturday, July 29, to protest the installation of a commercial propane tank and distribution center in the heart of their neighborhood. Other islanders who are concerned about the integrity of residential neighborhoods in the face of dangerous enterprises also attended.

Many had attended the July 13 Hearing Examiner meeting, giving testimony, and many others had expressed their concerns at the July 17 Fire Commissioners meeting. They reassured some who didn’t make it to the meeting, and raised similar safety concerns that were addressed at those meetings, that “The county has to respond.”

More neighbors, including airport hangar/homeowners and OPAL homeowners, discuss the dangers from propane leak, fire or explosion

Tim Blanchard, who serves on a member of the county Planning Commission, attended the gathering and said, “It’s a mistake to have a zone that allows [a propane tank]  to occur, either next to an airport, or in a residential area.  And I feel we shouldn’t we keeping all of our propane in the same general area.

“With the county [installing a 30,000 fuel] gasoline tank in the middle,” one neighbor called out, referring to the tank placed at the Orcas Public Works yard this summer.

County emergency fuel tank at Orcas Public Works site on Mt. Baker Road

That tank was installed without going through the required permitting process. There are additional commercial fuel storage tanks further west on Mt. Baker Road in another service/light industrial zone.

Blanchard continued, “It’s a mistake, we understand how it got made, but we shouldn’t be keeping all of our propane in the same general area. If some event compromises one of them, the other one is still there. We should find a different part of the island that might not be compromised by the same natural event or man-made error.”

Eastsound Water Users Association Manager Paul Kamin agreed, suggesting that a safer area might be found closer to the barge landing at Obstruction Pass, near Olga, where the propane fuel would come to Orcas Island.

Blanchard said, “From a planning perspective, it makes more sense to find a different part of the island, a few miles away.” He suggested that another area on the island may be available “that’s zoned rural industrial that would be more appropriate, is not located in a neighborhood, and as neighbors they could handle the problem.. .

His comments were interrupted as one neighbor asserted, “They fought  that, they’re moving forward [with the Aeroview lot].”

But Blanchard replied, “They might not be. Speaking just as a member of the community, it looks to me like [the application was] a plain mistake. The  people who are supposed to have bought it now, bought it with public knowledge that it was a bad idea. The problem is you’ve got a pending permit application at the present time and it takes time to get a zoning change, even if it is a mistake. It’s an annual process and we’ve missed the window for this year.

Seaview Street resident Wayne Rankin makes a point about the proposed tank’s location next to residences and airport hangars

Again, I’m not representing anyone, or speaking for the Planning Commission or anybody else, but there’s got to be a way to stop a further mistake from going on, especially when it’s got three strikes against it:

1. the location where it presents a safety perspective;
2. the tremendous expense  to the community of evacuation without impediment. That’s not reasonable to impose that on your neighbors and the risk is obvious and real;
3. in the event of a natural disaster, it’s “just dumb” to locate fuel tanks in close proximity to each other.”

Molly Roberts quoted the owner Don Galt as saying at an earlier neighborhood meeting, “If you guys could find me any other place I would take it.”

Kamin reported that County Councilman Rick Hughes is working to locate other properties that may be more appropriate for propane storage and distribution. “He is aware of the land use designations that need to happen, and that’s the scenario we need to keep the heat on,” Kamin said.

A petition to present to the County Council and the Eastsound Planning Review Committee was distributed. As of August 1, 92 signatures had been gathered.