SABOTAGE: Protected Lands Destroyed
A recent Seattle Times special report titled “Failing our Sound” suggests that “we pledged to protect Puget Sound. We’ve passed laws and spent millions to preserve it. Yet we keep sabotaging it.” This is all because we are making poor development decisions, decisions made easily behind a set of rules and laws that are simply inadequate to save our region.
Right now, politicians are beginning an enormous effort to protect and restore Puget Sound by 2020 - at which time, we are expected to gain another 800,000 people. This could end up costing us up to $18 billion.
“Failing our Sound” is a four part series (The painful cost of booming growth, Saving wetlands: a broken promise, Beaches suffer as walls go up, and Paying landowners to protect Puget Sound) highlighting the specific reasons why our current growth habits are undermining the health of Puget Sound. Continue reading for an introduction to all 4 parts of this Seattle Times special report.
PART 1: THE PAINFUL COST OF BOOMING GROWTH
Introduction: “The loggers arrived in July, topping 35 acres of Douglas firs and cedars. The bulldozers and excavators followed, scraping away the topsoil and leveling the land to golf-course smoothness. By this summer, the first of 166 homeowners will move here, to a place called McCormick Woods, west of Port Orchard in Kitsap County and a mile upstream of Puget Sound.”
Click here for the full article
PART 2: SAVING WETLANDS: A BROKEN PROMISE
Introduction: “On December 12, 1989, Gov. Booth Gardner announced that half the state’s wetlands were gone, and 2,000 acres more were vanishing each year. So he issued an order: For each marshy piece of ground paved, another would be created to replace it. Twenty years later, the promise has proven hollow. Destruction of wetlands, vital to the health of Puget Sound, is still routine, and attempts to replicate them are too often a failure.”
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PART 3: BEACHES SUFFER AS WALLS GO UP
Introduction: “On beach after beach, barriers of concrete and boulders are erected to keep the Sound from washing away valuable real estate. Stretched end to end, the barriers would already reach more than 800 miles - enough to line both sides of Interstate 90 from Seattle to Spokane…The walls keep growing even though scientists say it hurts the Sound by degrading some of the richest near-shore habitat, including spawning grounds of little fish critical to bigger predators like salmon.”
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PART 4: PAYING LANDOWNERS TO PROTECT PUGET SOUND
Introduction: “The 90 acres of green hay fields and barns near Arlington hug the Stillaguamish River, which, with some restoration, could be home to abundant salmon and clean water running into Puget Sound….So a few years ago, local politicians hit on an idea to keep Andrew Albert’s farm and others in this valley from turning into subdivisions: Get developers to pay Albert money to never build on his land. In return, the developers would get to build more houses elsewhere.” This is called “transfer of development rights” (TDT), and for all its promise, the results have yet to be realized.
Click here for the full article
QUESTIONS: Are we striking the right balance between protecting the Sound and making room for growth? Would you pay more to protect our Sound? If you do not live in Puget Sound, are these catastrophes happening to your environment?
Submit your comments below.
Source: The Seattle Times
