The folks who opposed the Reconveyance are not taking their loss particularly well, I'm afraid.
The folks behind the Whatcom Excavator are livid.
The day before the March 12th hearing, they posted this...
Talk around town is that votes are in the bag for the reconveyance to pass tomorrow March 12, no matter what anyone says at the public hearing that starts at 6 pm at the courthouse. LINK...and after the hearing, and the 5-2 vote sustaining the Reconveyance, they posted this...
This play-by-play, self-promoted at the Bellingham Herald Political Blog by The Political Junkie might have been useful, but WE found it to be churlish and intolerant. The running mockery relayed no tolerance for different views; no sympathy for collateral damage. Attacking the sincere and innocent with the blood lust of bulldogs does nothing to improve the civility of the community. LINKSo, there's that.
Then there is the matter of Councilor Knutzen's remarks in opposition to the Reconveyance on March 12, 2013...
Knutzen: ... I asked the Department of Ecology if this [the Reconveyance] was going to fix water quality... and was told it would not... I took the time to ask that... if someone knows different I would love to hear that... because... if we no longer need to take the Department of Ecology's opinion on water quality... why are we paying attention to the TMDL on some of these other issues? ...
If you don't mind, folks... I've got this one...
The reason that we are paying attention to the TMDL from the Department of Ecology is as follows. The Department of Ecology has actually taken a position on the water quality in Lake Whatcom, and has published a substantial volume of facts to support that position. Ecology's official opinion on the Reconveyance is that it doesn't have an official opinion one way or the other. Ecology has published no official statement that it either supports or opposes the Reconveyance, and has published no facts on the matter of the Reconveyance.
The Department of Ecology's agnostic position on the Reconveyance seems like a flimsy foundation on which to call into question the role that Ecology will be playing in the restoration of Lake Whatcom and its watershed.
Councilor Knutzen may use the lack of an official ringing endorsement of the Reconveyance from Ecology to inform his decisions as Members of Council on the Reconveyance itself. He is well within his discretion to do so.
Mr Knutzen is not, however, within his discretion to take Ecology's non-existent opinion on the Reconveyance and grant it the same standing as Ecology's well-documented factual reports on the state of Lake Whatcom and the watershed.
Mr Knutzen may have taken the time to ask, but he also didn't demonstrate a command of the bedrock facts of about the Department of Ecology's view of the Reconveyance.
Officially, Ecology doesn't have an opinion on the Reconveyance one way or the other.
Unofficially, however, individuals who work for the Department of Ecology have offered their support of the Reconveyance. And I know that because Barbra Brenner told me so. On March 12th, 2013.
Brenner: ...I don't support the Reconveyance... and the biggest reason was... somebody from the Department of Ecology... the local office... caught me walking out to my car one day, quite a while back and said, "Oh please, is there anything I can do to get you to support this Reconveyance?"... and I said, "Well... you and I don't always agree but I trust you completely. If you can tell me that the Reconveyance will afford any significant improvement at all in water quality in the lake... 'cause that's my issue... then I will support it..." and he said, "I can't tell you that"... he said, "I think this is going to be the greatest thing for the County and it will bring recreation in and that's so great"...
That sounds like someone in the Department of Ecology, someone who is knowledgable about Lake Whatcom, felt that he personally supported the Reconveyance, even if he couldn't offer a professional opinion to reinforce that support.
Now that the Reconveyance is resolved, I am supremely confident that all of this credibility that the Department of Ecology has enjoyed with Mr Knutzen (and the bulk of the other Reconveyance opponents) is about to expire. The opponents of the Reconveyance have relied heavily on the Department of Ecology's position that the Reconveyance will offer no meaningful benefit to the water quality in the Lake Whatcom watershed.
It is true that the Reconveyance will not "fix water quality". I don't know anyone who supports the Reconveyance who believes that it will.
I personally believe that the Reconveyance will offer a modest, but meaningful, measure of protection of water quality in the watershed. I believe it reduces the risk to water quality, even if the Department of Ecology doesn't officially share that belief.
So, while the Reconveyance opponents busy themselves rending their garments, the rest of us have things to do. Lakes to restore. And whatnot.
'Nerd Out.
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