No Man’s Lake

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

NO MAN’S LAKE: As the new, all-male Bellingham City Council lined up for their council committee assignments, the Gristle was disappointed to note Seth Fleetwood retreated from membership on the Lake Whatcom Reservoir Committee. This is not commentary on the worthiness and energy of the committee chair, freshly elected Michael Lilliquist, or members Barry Buchanan and Stan Snapp (the latter of whom in particular was a ferocious evangelist for municipal water purity last year). It’s simply an observation that, coming directly from County Council, Fleetwood might have brought much crossover savvy on that water resource. One glances through the list of mundane committees, and that one jumps out as the most interjurisdictional and dependent on a healthy working knowledge of county policy and resources: Seth’s AWOL on water.

It’s one gloomy shadow to fall over Lake Whatcom in the new decade.

Another, the county’s interest in Lake Whatcom in 2010 got severely backburnered in the November elections.

In May 2008, county departments produced a long, color-coded list of countywide water quality projects—more than 270 in all, ranked by cost and efficacy—nearly a third of which were centered on the remediation and protection of this drinking water reservoir for 95,000 people. All were stalled in one way or another for lack of funds. The county administration asked for guidance in setting budgets for these tasks, and a more progressive council was generous in its cash assignments.

Carl Weimer, then council president, tumbled to the idea that funds to address these concerns might be gleaned through an increase in the county’s Flood Tax, which council could unilaterally enact in its authority as the county’s Flood Control District Board of Supervisors, thereby doing an end run around the miserly County Executive’s veto power as it relates to raising taxes. The votes were there; and Pete’s veto threat was not.

Now the one thing we do know about the makeup of the new County Council is, by gum, they hates them taxes.

Barbara Brenner hates ’em. Ward Nelson hates ’em. Bill Knutzen and Kathy Kershner practically campaigned on an anti-tax platform. And if Sam Crawford has his way, he may reintroduce last year’s mini-initiative to slice off the county’s greedy tax collectin’ hands. Of course, no one hates raising taxes more than Pete Kremen; and one can certainly argue that the executive’s appointment last week of Nelson to finish out the District 1 term left vacant by Bob Kelly creates the supermajority that ensures Carl and his crew are never again able to poach a penny from Pete.

All of which bodes ominous when it comes to funding the very pricey fixes for Lake Whatcom most experts recognize are required.

Crawford practically admitted as much in a message he sent to other council members last week, detailing what he believed should be council’s legislative priorities for this year.

“I am committed,” he wrote, “to tackling our budget problems without taking more money from the citizens through any form of property tax increases.”

Making a candid admission, Crawford continued, “In 2010, I am not inclined to propose or support any removal or significant change of any existing regulations that are currently in place to assure environmental or cultural protection. I know this will disappoint many landowners who are directly impacted by rules that appear unnecessary or are over-reaching. But I also feel strongly that the council must exercise considerable restraint and caution when it comes to making those kinds of adjustments.”

While Crawford’s caution may be viewed as good news by those who fear a shifted council may aggressively tip over any number of hard-won progressive environmental reforms, it suggests these reforms will not be advanced, either. They will, in Sam’s liking, be backburnered in preference to other priorities (notably, a measured recall of council’s urban growth area discussions in late 2009).

“The land use policies and laws regarding what I’m calling ‘environmental regulations’ are the things I’m saying ‘let’s not go there’ with specific action in 2010,” Crawford explained in a follow-up email. “I’m suggesting we stay focused on the [growth management] items,” he continued, predicting his preference would not please rural conservatives hopeful the entire package of progressive reforms might be rolled back.

“We’ve got strong, tough (and in some cases draconian) environmental protections in place now,” Crawford said, “and until there’s more time and resources to review a better way to do some of these things, I’m intuiting that we should hold off.”

Yet—as Crawford notes—first up early this year, council (acting as the county Health Board) will reexamine septic regulations, with a strong preference among a council majority to make septic inspections a largely self-policing activity by homeowners. Naturally, the potential consequences of this shift may be profound for Lake Whatcom, fringed by thousands of aging and inadequate septic systems.

So again, while no active harm is planned for the lake, help may be moved back to a farther horizon. The Gristle’s prognosis for future county elections, in which the best that looms in 2011 is a shift back to a sharply divided and immobilized council, suggests this decade… like the last… and the last before that… is not the decade for Lake Whatcom.

From the standpoint of political reality, the lake will continue to enflame and activate the one-half of county voters who do not drink from the lake and do not believe (or hardly care if) there is a problem with the lake. Only Bellingham has the vested interest and political will and strength of numbers to advance much on the lake. But do its elected leaders share that interest and will and strength?

Seth, with feet on both sides of county and city water policy, chose not to step into that puddle.