House Bill 1653 (and its companion Senate Bill 5726) may seem like routine housekeeping to our legislators, but its effect may be to wipe out the balance between environmental protection and property rights inherent in the Shoreline Management Act (SMA).
With hundreds of bills totaling thousands of pages, it us unlikely that anyone but a few staffers will read more than the executive summary of these bills before they are passed out of committee and voted into law. If they do become law, it is likely that the right of shoreline homeowners to protect their property will erode faster than an unprotected bluff in a winter storm.
We first wrote about the bill on February 4, after receiving a joint press release from the departments of ecology (DOE) and community, trade and economic development (CTED). Since then, the house bill was referred to the House Local Government & Housing Committee on January 27. On a fast track, the bill was referred to the House Rules Committee on February 17. The companion senate bill was referred to the Senate Environment, Water & Energy Committee on January 29.
On March 2, we received the following email from Sam Jessup, session aide to Senator Phil Rockefeller.
I am writing with the news that SB 5726 did not make it out of the Senate Committee on Environment, Water & Energy by “cutoff”, the February 25 deadline by which bills must be passed out of their committee of origin. Because it did not make this deadline, SB 5726 will not move any further in the process this year.
When we asked what this meant for companion House Bill 1653, Sam replied…
My apologies—I jumped the gun with my email to you. HB 1653 is alive in the House and is currently in the House Committee on Rules. Should it be passed by the House, it will move on to the Senate for further consideration.
So, the issue isn’t dead. It’s alive and kicking in the House. Please read all comments below.
I read the bill and based on professional experience see the biggest problem relating to requiring local government’s to ensure that all projects align with DOE’s definition of “no net loss” (NNL) of shoreline ecological functions. The definition of NNL is a moving target and can be specifically applied to any area where DOE, with or without consultation and/or prompting from local government can interject at any time based on any new “best available science” being presented.
This is problematic for property owners because most of the science is inconclusive, misdirected or cross-applied to environments where testing or research did not take place. There is also the position of regulatory guidelines that require when less is known it should result in more protections. This is clearly on the side of regulators and against property owners.
There is a clear effort by the state DOE and Puget Sound Partnership to take total control of the shorelines and restrict or take property rights away from shoreline owners. No matter how it is packaged that is exactly what it is.
Their direct frontal assault on private residential bulkheads and piers while essentially overlooking impacts from aquaculture, surface runoff, industrial pollution, sewage treatment plants, and other point sources that have more influence and economic muscle is nothing short of horrific.
To overlook the real causes in place of some minor cosmetic changes that will likely have no impact at all seems to be a feel good tactic aimed at shoreline owners who pay some of the highest property taxes in the state for the benefit of living where they do.
Dear Dave,
The presentation of your opinions has all the earmarks of serious and thoughtful consideration. Further thinking and research on my part will probably favor them.
Thank you,
Dan Alexander
Emailed 2/22/09 to Christine Rolfes, Sherry Appleton, and Phil Rockefeller:
House Bill 1653 and its companion Senate Bill 5726 are not about routine housekeeping. They are an attempt by DOE and CTED to eliminate the balance between environmental protection and property rights so wisely crafted in the Shoreline Management Act and reaffirmed by the legislature with ESHB 1933. I would ask that legislators carefully consider the negative impact on homeowners if this bill is passed.
Ken Sethney
Bainbridge Island
Chair, Bainbridge Shoreline Homeowners
The purpose of these bills is to “integrate the Shoreline Management Act into the Growth Management Act” and explain how they are to be integrated.
The bad news is that (apparently) GMA was already amended last year to place SMP as an additional (14th) evaluating factor in dealing with GMA critical areas objectives. In other words, SMA has possibly already been downgraded to nothing more than another NON-consideration alongside of property rights, all falling under the preeminent GMA, in which case “green” will continue to rule.
Washington Policy Center has taken the position strategy that nobody has any idea how GMA is doing against its objectives and there have already been 113 amendments over the past 15 years, “So why should we continue in the dark with even more amendments until we have a GMA performance review.?” They are calling for a complete GMA audit. I fear their position will have little effect in delaying the two bills identified above. But we should try.