||| BY MATTHEW GILBERT, theORCASONIAN OP-ED REPORTER |||


At long last, the county has put the finishing touches on the “San Juan Islands Destination Management Plan” (DMP), an ambitious effort to make “sustainable tourism” a centerpiece of island life. Sustainable tourism is defined by the UN Environment Program and UN World Tourism Organization as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” This process has been driven by the Environmental Stewardship Department on behalf of the county’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee (now chaired by Councilwoman Cindy Wolf) and executed by a diverse team of consultants.

Those consultants have done an admirable job weaving the many threads of investigation that have preceded this proposal over the last few years, and there are plenty of statistics (more on that later). The most sobering of them reveals that in 1985, when the very first tourism plan for the county was released, there were 17,000 annual visitors – the same as our current full-time population. That number has ballooned (mushroomed, exploded . . .) to a non-COVID average of nearly 700,000 unique visitors a year. Anyone who has been on the islands prior to, say, 2000, can attest to the accumulating impacts. Others simply don’t have such a history to draw from. Still, the plan attempts to do what most such plans aspire to: balance economic sustainability with (in our case) preserving island character, minimizing ecological degradation, and optimizing resource use. Many would argue that it’s way too late for that, but having “a plan” is probably better than none at all. More specifically:

The Vision:

Visitation in the San Juan Islands is balanced and sustainable, protecting and nurturing our unique environment while supporting a vibrant island community and thriving year-round economy.

Shared Values:

  • Environmental and cultural stewardship
  • Livable communities
  • Authentic island experiences creating a sense of place
  • Stable, equitable economy

Major Themes:

  • Almost everyone values and wishes to preserve the natural qualities of the Islands and the benefits it affords for relaxed, enjoyable nature-based experiences.
  • The current use levels demand active management by design, not default.
  • Tourism/visitation may increase.

The authors do acknowledge more than once (the word “however” is used a dozen times) the delicate balancing act of serving all masters, and that our systems are being pressured not just by “traditional tourists” but a growing resident population (one begets the other) and all the activity associated with that (e.g., delivery vehicles, construction workers, family visits). They also recognize that many popular destinations like the San Juans are vulnerable to “life cycle” effects, and that “increasing use and development may significantly change a destination [as] earlier stages of exploration, development, and consolidation often lead to later stages of stagnation and decline . . . destinations must ensure that use and development are in balance with available infrastructure, carrying capacity, and the destination’s intended types of experiences. Perpetual growth is not an option for San Juan County . . .”

Nevertheless, the nuanced intention of the DMP appears to accommodate current levels and trends of visitation (along with off-season promotions) with infrastructure investments, campsite and park expansions, expanded bike trails, and so on – essentially “resortifying” the islands while adding some guardrails to the impacts – in hopes that the quality of experience for residents and visitors alike doesn’t continue to decline and that the natural environment isn’t further pummeled into submission. It’s a lot to ask.

The DMP notes that in 2021, the Tulalip Tribes released a report titled “The ‘Recreation Boom’ on Public Lands in Western Washington: Impacts to Wildlife and Implications for Treaty Tribes.”  Researched and written by a wildlife biologist and an environmental policy analyst, it offers a stark assessment of how excessive visitation levels over the last decade or so have been diminishing the natural world – and our experience of it – because of “increasing degradation of resources, disturbance to wildlife, and disruption of lifeways.”

Crunching the Numbers

2021 and 2022 were watermark years of post-pandemic euphoria with lodging and sales tax revenue at all-time highs – and the locals felt it. 2023 got off to a slow start (especially on San Juan Island) as ferry disruptions and pent-up international travel made an early dent in visitor traffic. But the numbers picked up by summer, and according to data provided by the Orcas Chamber of Commerce, lodging and sales tax revenue for Orcas Island through August is now up 1.4% over last year. It should also be noted (at least according to former DCD Director David Williams) that the number of single-family building permits – spurred in part by the pandemic – has more than doubled county-wide over the last three years, and that the recently approved Comp Plan estimates that “Orcas Island is expected to add about 1,000 new residents between now and 2036, raising total population to 6,423. This means an additional 500+ people will [in theory] end up in the Eastsound UGA, which is required to accommodate 50 percent of all new growth.”

Ferry ridership to the islands in the second quarter (April – June) was up 3.6% over 2022 (though still slightly behind 2019 and 2021 figures). As reported by Washington State Ferries (WSF) in one of their July communiques, “July and August are typically our busiest months. This year’s peak travel season kicked off with 88,192 riders on Saturday, July 1 – our highest in a single day since summer 2109! For the week of July 2 – 8, we had nearly 500,000 customers. For comparison, ridership averages close to 250,000 during our slowest winter weeks. With more sunny, warm weather and big events ahead, we expect to remain very busy through Labor Day!” And so they did as traffic patterns kept pace with last year’s surge.

The report emphasizes the importance of developing tools for site-specific capacity analysis “based on their natural resource and cultural conditions, recreational infrastructure, and transportation dynamics . . . to help identify which sites could handle additional visitation without degradation, as well as those that need more active management practices implemented to prevent further site decline.” This is fine as far as it goes, but as the report wisely adds, “There is a complex interaction between visitor numbers, the quality of site conditions, and the infrastructure to handle them. If visitation continues to grow, the Islands will need increased infrastructure to maintain high quality conditions. However, it is important to recognize that improved infrastructure may also attract additional use (‘build it and they will come’).”

Importantly, identifying those site-specific capacities is a subset of the bigger – and more complex, and likely more costly, and generally ignored – issue of attempting to define the “carrying capacity” of each individual island (and the county overall) to reasonably support the needs of a growing population, whether permanent or temporary. The Salish Current recently reported on the drought emergency in Whatcom County that left 300 households in the Nooksack watershed without water because three public water systems dried up.

The report’s “Cooperative Action Plan” proposes various actions across a wide range of areas, including 29 infrastructure projects at an estimated cost of $10.7M and 58 “management actions” totaling an additional $2.3M. Of this $13M (+/- 30%, but I’d wager the +), $4.5M is earmarked for creating up to 90 additional van, bunkhouse, and/or yurt-style seasonal camping locations on each island and $4M to improve and expand bike lanes-paths on each island. As for funding all of this, another broad range of suggestions was made, including the creation of $10 – 15 vehicle, boat, and bicycle passes (similar to the Discover Pass) that would apply to both visitors and residents.

There is also the impressively compiled Recreation, Open Space, and Stewardship Plan (ROSS) released late last year that envisions “an interconnected and integrated system of parks and open spaces” and proposes an additional $51M in capital projects over the six years to accomplish this.

And so . . .

The San Juan Island Visitors Bureau (SJVB) has come under some fire for its role in driving traffic to the islands, but it is inherently designed to do just that. To change its mission would be akin to asking companies to no longer maximize quarterly profits. But the damage of such short-sightedness in the corporate sector is increasingly clear, and as stated in the report, the SJVB has been adjusting its “messaging and promotion to address community concerns.” But even with that, “community feedback in 2022 still encouraged a continued evolution of their strategy” to include “an increase in stewardship programming, active management of visitors via dispersion approaches, and direct, strategic education of visitors before they arrive in theIslands.” But then it was also pointed out that (for example) dispersion – “directing people to less-visited locations” – has its own glaring disadvantages.

The closing date for public review of this Gordian Knot of conflicting ideals has been extended to October 31. Visit the San Juan Islands Destination Management Plan project page which also includes background information and resources, ongoing updates, FAQs, and tools to submit feedback or ask questions.


 

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