well written Delaine. Thanks for taking the time. I suggest NW Citizens. Also read the article Mr. Kirsch wrote here as well. I think it was in 2008.

Greg Kirsch wrote several articles back in 2008 about the beginning efforts to create a park through a reconveyance process.  You can search by clicking on g.h.kirsch in the ‘Past Writers’ box on the home page.  This will bring up Greg’s last 50 articles on NWCitizen.  The first I found that deals with the reconveyance is March 29, 2008. 

You don’t know What you got till its gone

http://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/you-dont-know-what-you-got-till-its-gone

Another is from May 2, 2008

A Park for Pete’s Sake

http://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/a-park-for-pete

You can find more.  NWCitizen has paid a lot of attention to this issue. 

The new TMDL report comes with a mandate to remediate over 80% of the runoff from developed areas in the watershed to forest standards. 

Way bigger lakes than Whatcom have been taken down by too many nutrients.  It happens very fast, usually surprising even the folks that have argued against curtailing development.

The way you fix it is to install a shoreline intercept and sent the bad stuff off to treatment.  The problem with that approach here is that Whatcom has bad inflow without the Nooksack diversion, the use of which has become increasingly problematic.

It could be a pipe down to the G-P lagoon until they turn it into a marina.  Then what?  We’re talking big bucks.

The reconveyance lands could be the cheapest filtration solution available.  Not only is closer, but it keeps the water in the basin.  Furthermore, individual drainages could find their own solutions and finance them as Local Improvement Districts, thus assigning assessments where they belong and keeping the costs off the general water utility rate base where they would mostly impact people not creating the problem.

As for people meeting and trying to come up with a plan.  That’s the way things always happen.  You have to have a plan before you run it up the flagpole.

The reconveyance is one step toward better control and integrated management of the watershed, and that’s long overdue.

  I’ve lived in the LW watershed since 1989….in this current house since 1998…....and I could safely drink any water which passes through this property. My only reservation might be that my neighbor to the north and upstream does, regrettably, use herbicides as do many property owners in the watershed…..most notably the City of Bellingham. In my view the most mismanaged property, relative to water quality, in the watershed is Bloedel Donovan Park.
  As much of a wacko enviro nut as I am, the notion of a big new park in the watershed, after seeing what goes on at Bloedel leaves me feeling a little jaundiced.
  A ban on the use of cosmetic pesticides is sorely needed in the watershed. If and when we, as a community, ever finally get really serious about Lake Whatcom as a source of edible water it’ll need to happen. Until then we’ll just spend money, lots and lots of money, without making any significant improvements.
 
 
   

Hi Tip,
Could you elaborate a bit more on your response?  I’m not sure I understand what you mean.  It looks like you are saying we could pipe the water to the top of the mountains and let the forest be the filter. 
Delaine

You’d want to use gravity where you can, but some pumping would probably be required.  That’s an unfortunate expense, but piping everything to treatment in bellingham would cost, too.

Maybe it could just be piped to the creek and dumped, I don’t know, but it all takes the water out of the system.

But there’s a big advantage to keeping the water in the basin, and the forestland is cheaper than building treatment facilities if Post Point is any indication.

It should at least be studied.  They have good tributary basin info and all it would take is to overlay that on the reconveyance lands and a map of development to see the potential.

Having a big forest filter in reserve seems like a good conservative decision.

Clean water is the by-product of a healthy lake.  The way to fix the lake is to holistically restore all ecosystem functions.  DOE, the city and the county are offering us big, expensive engineered solutions that focus on stormwater management (and allow more watershed development to occur.) The landscape plan only addresses stormwater run-off.

We need the reconveyance because it is the only solution that restores ecosystem health. Remember the biodiversity that was so important to protect in the Chuckanut Community Forest?  Well, we need that in the Lake Whatcom watershed too. 

The real value of the reconveyance is being overlooked. We need old growth forest (all three layers:tree canopy, shrubbery and forest floor) and we need habitat to help the lake recover.

Tip,
If what you are suggesting is in anyway a viable solution for storm water treatment, I would want that determined before the land is transferred.  Personally, I think it is a long shot.  Forests make great filters, but not sure they are designed to filter extra pumped in water.  In addition, if this land is so steep and landslide risk is so high, I’m not sure we would want to add more surface water to the system thereby further increasing slide risk.  The slide that happened on the Hertz trail in January had nothing to do with logging and had everything to do with the geology of the area, weather, and surface water.  I would think ANY unnatural additions to the area increase that risk.

I also think it would be a hard sell at the DOE.  Call me cynical but…..

And finally, there is but one reason the County is allowed to reconvey these lands.  That is for park purposes.  Not sure that zoning and codes and RCW’s will allow a “treatment plant” in a park.

Wendy,
The problem is that even the DOE is not really on your side.  Here is a quote taken from the Bellingham Heralds Politics blog:  ““We know a natural forest is not identical to managed forest, but it’s not a (difference) we can quantify,” Hood said.

So I think the claim that it must be “old growth” to protect the lake is a bit of a stretch.

Also, I have read many articles written by you where you are questioning and disagreeing with how land use rules are being interpreted and what is being allowed.  In particular, you seem to want the Whatcom County Council to follow GMA.  In this case you have been very silent on the fact that this 8,800 acres of land is zoned Commercial Forestry which makes it “resource lands”.  The GMA requires that County to “maintain” resource lands.  If this transaction takes place, the County will need to rezone the property out of commercial forestry and will therefore, not be complying with GMA.  Is there other land somewhere they are then going to zone into Commercial Forestry?

I know you are much more of an expert on GMA than I so I really would like to hear your take on how this particular transaction is in compliance with GMA.

The zoning issue is a red herring that is not worthy of much discussion. 

Bottom line… this land is also a critical area. Critical areas function as an overlay on land, even natural resource land, and require the highest level of protection. The Growth Management Hearings Board has repeatedly emphasized the need to protect Lake Whatcom and to comply with TMDL requirements to restore the Lake

Bottom line: the need to protect the potable water for the city, and the need to restore the dying aquatic environment trump the need to protect very poor quality timber land.

My question: Why is there no discussion of the $300,000 that was already spent to proceed with the reconveyance, voted for in a public meeting, or of prior written assurance to DNR of the Council’s committement to moving forward with the reconveyance? And why is there no discussion of the economic signficance of the two fish hatcheries that depend on Lake’s water quality?

Also forgot to add that the Clean Water Act is a federal law. It supercedes state law requirements, such as the GMA, although, of course, in this case, they both require protection of Lake Whatcom, which is best achieved through the reconveyance.

Wendy,
Personally I think you just sidestepped the issue.  Mike McFarland from Whatcom County Parks has said the FIRST thing they will have to do is do a “critical areas’ study on the land.  Not sure how you are placing all this land into “critical areas”.  Has that study been done?  If it has great!  Then the Parks department can start building trails immediately.

If you were aware that park lands were critical areas, why would you try to trip me up with the natural resource questions? I see now this is just some button pushing game for you. I will not be wasting my time of you in the future. Perhaps John can expalain to you again how this blog is different than the Herald blog.

Wendy,
I was not aware that ALL of this land was critical areas.  I was surprised that you seem to think that has already been determined since my understanding is that that particular study has not been done. I fail to see why that is trying to trip you up.  But if that is your perception you are entitled too that and I apologies for making you feel that way.

I don’t have much sympathy for people who are eager to build more houses in the watershed. Likewise, I cannot fathom how even the most careful and diligent logging operation—even something as stringent as the Forest Stewardship Council’s guidelines—could not pose a menace to our already ailing water supply.

Along the same lines, I also see a developed park (trails and bathrooms anyway) as posing problems: Do we really want people driving to and from this park, within the watershed, in large numbers?

The “park option,” apparently, is part of the pill we have to swallow to get this large tract of steep and unstable forested land protected.

For that reason, and no other, I fully endorse this reconveyance as a step toward putting Bellingham into the 19th century of watershed management techniques and science.

Loggers and school children should find better ways to generate their funding than by damaging the drinking water supply that this entire city relies on, and pays for, to ensure its own fiscal future. As harsh and undiplomatic as that stance is, the fact remains that this sort of civic drama never would happen in a more enlightened place, such as New Jersey or Tacoma, where people do not play games with protecting the water that they drink and shower in every damn day.

Wow Alex, that’s really sad. wjw.