Project threatens Hood Canal

(This guest column appeared in the Seattle PI on Thursday, April 3rd.)

JOHN FABIAN AND LARRY MAYES
GUEST COLUMNISTS

Nobody wants to lose Hood Canal. It is a basin rich with natural beauty and sea life, including salmon, orcas and even gray whales. That is why our tax dollars support the Puget Sound Partnership, Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program and other efforts to make Hood Canal a legacy for our grandchildren.

Why, then, if we agree to save Hood Canal, would we allow a new threat to its vitality? Why would we enlist experts to rescue its troubled waters, only to invite disaster from another source?

Yet we do, with a massive expansion of sand and gravel mining and industrialization planned by Fred Hill Materials (FHM) in the quiet, forested part of Jefferson County. The "pit-to-pier" project would increase FHM's production from 750,000 tons to 7.5 million tons a year at the expense of local wildlife, air and water quality, scenery and livability.

Gravel, gouged from 40 acres at a time, would be transported along a four-mile conveyor to a giant, 1,100-foot steel pier. Gravel barges and ships would transit the Hood Canal Bridge, interrupting emergency and other vehicle traffic. A single diesel-fuel spill could ruin Hood Canal's water quality and threaten wildlife. A single collision with the bridge could cut the lifeline to the Olympic Peninsula. Incessant diesel exhaust would threaten human health.

As we face industrialization of Hood Canal, we are frightened by the blindness with which some greet this dramatic change, with minimal scrutiny from government and surprisingly little attention from the media.

On March 25, a coalition of concerned citizens, including Hood Canal Coalition, People for Puget Sound and Kitsap Audubon Society submitted arguments to the Jefferson County Superior Court explaining how local mining restrictions were loosened without meaningful environmental review.

Surely, a careful look is long overdue. In 2002, Jefferson County amended its comprehensive plan, allowing FHM a tenfold increase in gravel extraction throughout a 690-acre mining district, while increasing the mining parcel limit from 10 acres to 40. When 690 acres are not enough destruction, FHM has indicated they will ask for more.

Yet, we do not know the scope of damage to air, water, soil, wildlife, scenic views, traffic conditions, public safety, noise levels and other elements of the environment. Although Jefferson County voters have elected more environmentally responsible commissioners since the 2002 plan amendment was adopted, it still appears the county and FHM would rather fight in court than address these important issues.

Some fundamental questions include: How much earth will be torn up? How much dust will pollute the air? Which wildlife species will lose their habitat? Are emergency services at risk as ships and barges transit the Hood Canal Bridge? What will happen to traffic, the economy and safety if a bridge collision knocks it out of commission? Which streams will be polluted as gaping pits replace forest, and within the Hood Canal watershed?

We wait for answers even though, in 2004, the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board ordered Jefferson County to really evaluate the impact of 10-acre versus 40-acre mining segments. Unfortunately, the county's second effort was hardly better than the first. We fear that such blind cooperation will help FHM push "pit-to-pier" through a loosened permitting process.

The public has invested in a cleaner, healthier Hood Canal. The public deserves to see through the cloud of dust and smoke surrounding FHM's plans. Unless Jefferson County pulls its head out of the sand pit, we may open our eyes someday and find that -- while nobody was looking -- we lost Hood Canal.

John Fabian of Port Ludlow and Larry Mayes of Renton belong to the Hood Canal Coalition, whose members and supporting organizations oppose the proposed Fred Hill Materials pit-to-pier project on Hood Canal