County Prosecuting Attorney Randy Gaylord said islanders can contact the county to view a "wetland inventory map" and if a wetland is shown on your property, and you disagree, it's up to you to disprove it.
With that kind of approach and with the desk-jockeys making County wetland maps at full throttle for the last couple of years, they'll be more Dalton-like cases than you can count. Take, for example, the long-time islanders who wrote the following letter to the Planning Commission today. Do you hear the bell tolling yet?
We are the owners of water front property on Lopez
Island. As such, we are following
with grave concern the San Juan County writing of a Critical Areas Ordinance,
and in particular the Wetlands Section of the CAO. It is our understanding the County has again requested
citizen input regarding its proposed Wetlands Section.
We have reviewed the proposed wetlands designation map
and are flabbergasted to see a “non-tidal wetlands” label pasted upon our
property. We are flabbergasted
because no standing water or any semblance of a “wetland” has ever existed or been observed on our property in the past 44 years the
property has been owned by us or our parents. It appears to us that San Juan County has acted erroneously
and randomly in their analysis of and labeling of our property regarding
“wetlands”.
If our property is any indication of the overall manner in which San Juan County
“wetlands” have been identified, we consider the county’s work quite
flawed. We do not claim to be
particularly knowledgeable regarding wetlands, but it doesn’t take much
knowledge to understand that our property is no “wetland” of any type.
We respectfully request the proposed Wetlands Section
not be incorporated into the CAO until its errors are corrected and impacted
private property owners are given proper and satisfactory answers to their
concerns.
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