Letter to the editor

The letter following these comments was published in the June 22, 2006 Jefferson county edition of the Peninsula Daily News.

Just about everyone who is questioning the proposed changes to Jefferson County's critical areas legislation and regulations fully understands the crucial role wetlands and riparian areas play in our ecosystems. For many, it's an ingrained understanding that comes from years of close interaction with those natural systems.

The letter's author misses several very important facts in his criticism of the agricultural community. Chief among those is the idea that a farmer must be a good steward of the natural resources surrounding him or her. If the farmer is a poor steward, the farm will fail. If you don't treat your soils, vegetation, and water right, they won't work together to produce healthy crops and animals.

Jefferson County's farmers have worked with the best science available for generations. They do so because that science combines to help them optimize crop yields, animal health, and ecosystem protection. The science helps them to reach optimal levels of production through the use of the lowest possible use of chemicals (which generally tend to be hideously expensive), while working in the regulatory regime already on the books. The regulations we presently have are protective of the natural resources that exist in our region, but it's still possible to make a living. Of course, for many of our farmers, having a non-farming job on the side is also a part of the life picture.

During a planning commission meeting on June 21, best available science was a topic of conversation. We do not feel that the science used in building the new proposed changes to the Jefferson County critical areas governance represents more than a portion of the peer reviewed science that's available. Two research studies, both conducted in the state of Washington, were added to the process during the public meeting in front of a room full of local citizens. They know it's there, and will expect that it be used.

Personal financial gain and a healthy environment are not in fundamental oppostion to one another. It's only in those nations and regions where excess financial resources are widely available that funding for environmental protection efforts is also widely available. You cannot indulge in ecosystem improvement projects when it's a serious challenge to make sure your kids have food every day. In the economically challenged parts of the world, it's money from the wealthier parts of the world that brings environmental protection projects to communities. Limit personal gain and you will see habitat enhancements wither on the vine.

Farmers in this nation should never be required to limit their farming in order to satisfy the demands of an outside special interest non-profit organization that has no accountability to the people it seeks to force local government to regulate. This nation was founded on the idea that government must be fully accountable to its citizens. Governance power without such accountability does not go down well with most rural landowners.

It's wrong to harm farmers or other landowners through government regulation in the name of wetland and riparian zone protection, particularly when that regulation comes at the behest of an organization that is not accountable to the people it demands that government control. Our farmers have worked in this landscape for generations on a tiny portion of the lands located in Jefferson County. The live and work where they do because that's where the soils are productive. We cannot say on the one hand that we want to keep agricultural land in agricultural production, and on the other that the farmers should not be allowed to farm in the manner that modern science tells us is optimal for both production and for the environment.

We do not believe that any of our farmers suppose that they have the "right to continue to damage wetlands and riparian areas simply because they have been doing it for a long time." Indeed, they have been working hard with the Conservation District and a broad range of groups to conserve their lands and to restore ecosystem functions in areas where the "best practices" of days gone by damaged those areas. Science changes, and so do the best practices. Farmers are usually at the leading edge of adopting both.

Not all that long ago, a local farmer attempted to convert a portion of his land to swan habitat as part of the mitigation for the removal of the Elwha Dams. He was trying to do the right thing for a species of significance that was going to lose part of its usual and accustomed habitat by providing the swans with a place to go. County regulations and permitting issues frustrated his attempt to do the right thing. Far from doing the wrong thing through ignorance or malice on his part, he was trying to do something good for all.

Common sense should enter into the equation somewhere.

Perhaps the letter's author should set aside his apparent preconceived notion that we are surrounded by farm people who only want to pillage the ecosystem for personal gain, and actually get out and meet with a few of them. I'm sure that there are several who would be more than happy to have him out to the farm to learn about the good things they are doing to help salmon return and to provide opportunities for other species to share the place.

We live in a community where there are many people who wish to live sustainably. They prefer to purchase local produce whenever possible. If that's the case, it would perhaps be a good idea for them to work with the agricultural community to learn how that happens, and what role they might play to help make it possible for farmers to actually make a living through growing and providing that local produce.

Maybe then we could enter into a more rational discussion about how best to protect and enhance our natural ecosystems. If we are supposed to live local, buy local, perhaps we should also try solving environmental challenges locally, too?

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Protect 'critical areas'

The important role wetlands and riparian areas play in the overall health of the aquatic ecosystems in Jefferson County is not in question.

The prposed critical areas ordinance has used the very best scientific studies to make the case for the protection of those areas.

The only effective way to protect and regain the proper functioning of the critical areas is to prevent mechanical damage such as compaction and/or chemical pollution such as fertilization.

This, too, is not in question. Private property rights do not include the right to injure resources that belong to all citizens.

As scientific understanding progresses, all manner of discoveries have caused society to change from the old ways to new practices that limit personal gain in order to promote the future health of the environment.

It is perfectly natural for farmers who would be required to limit their farming (and so, their income) to be upset and angry.

However, the plight of a few cannot be reason to limit laws or ordinances that benefit the overall current and future health of our natural world.

The argument against the retention of buffers to protect the critical resources revolves around the supposed right of property owners to continue to damage wetlands and riparian areas simply because they have been doing it for a long time.

Getting away with doing the wrong thing, whether through ignorance or malice, is not a valid excuse to continue doing the wrong thing.

Nor is it reason for our county commissioners to promote or allow exceptions to the ordinance.

Gerorge Bush,
Port Townsend

Bush is a retired U.S. Forest Service soil scientist