Pure Imagination: No More Good News Forever

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce ended one of the most brilliant armed struggles in history by promising, "From where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever." Sadly, the environmental-ish movement seems to carry on its phony struggle according to the pledge, "No more good news forever."

Right now, we are at the tail end of one of the largest salmon runs we've ever seen. The pre-season Fraser River estimate for pinks was about 8 million fish. The in-season estimate was raised several times and now stands at more than 26 million. Sources say that experts believe the actual number may be closer to 35 million, but officials are reluctant to publicly announce such a huge figure. When you combine the Fraser runs with the 6+ million pre-season estimate for other regional rivers, it's not unreasonable to believe the total return to our waters might amount to more than 40 million pink salmon alone. At an average weight of 4 lbs, that's in excess of 160 million pounds of salmon biomass. By any standard, that's a lot.

And yet, where are the good news stories about this fabulous return? Where are all the people who profess to love nature and salmon habitat? Our County has spent $12 million on salmon habitat over the past decade. Why is no one crowing about the wonderful year we're having?

The good news doesn't end there. Compared to 1972, there are 10 times as many seals in the Puget Sound region now. Even the population of Stellar Sea Lions in our vicinity (the Eastern population) has been steadily increasing. 

There is even some good news about our climate, which is the third-rail of any eco discussion. We seem to have been in an undeniable "pause" in global warming since about 1997, and overall climate warming seems to have proceeded much more slowly than most projections. Also, while the Arctic ice cap is shrinking, the Antarctic ice cap has been steadily growing, and winters in the southern hemisphere have been brutally cold (if you consider that good news). Nevertheless, bad climate news is in demand and some scientists maintain that Antarctica, at least the Peninsula, is really warming ... so that's why Antarctica as a whole is cooling ... or some such nonsense. One paper along those lines received attention for its controversial use of reconstructed past temperatures to declare that, despite the growing ice cap, Antarctica was unambiguously warmer than the reconstructed (i.e., imaginary?) past data. Guess where that paper originated from? ... from our own University of Washington (Eric Steig).

Eric Steig is part of the University of Washington's new College of the Environment, which is chock full to the gills with the usual bad-news insiders. That's where David Dicks, formerly of the Puget Sound Partnership, has his latest sinecure as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Civic Engagement. Through its Advisory Board, which includes Martha Kongsgaard and Bill Ruckelshaus of "Trouble Brewing in the San Juans," the UW College of the Environment also has ties to the Bullitt Foundation. The Bullitt Foundation recently hosted a Seattle Times training session for the press about climate change. Here's how one attendee described that training session:

Journalists don’t normally sit in meetings and plot ways to tell only one side of the story; they simply write from their own personal perspective ... There are, however, exceptions to this rule as I discovered last week when I attended a two-day “Climate Change for Journalists” workshop hosted by the Seattle Times. Held at the Bullitt Center, which bills itself as the “world’s greenest building,” and conducted by the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, the event was precisely what we’re told never happens: a conscious, deliberate effort to coach reporters on the finer points of deceiving their readers ...

Good news? We can't have any of that! Let's train the press to report only eco-doom, despite the billions we spend on environmental protection every year ... because that's the 100% environmental-ish world of pure imagination. Doom is music to environmental-ish ears, and they don't want anyone singing a different tune.

 Governor Jay Inslee, right, laughs with Bullitt Foundation board member Harriet Bullitt, left, on her way to the podium at the grand opening of the Bullitt Center on Earth Day Monday, April 22, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Seattle. This six-story, 50,000 square-foot structure is the greenest commercial building in the world and aims to improve long-term environmental performance and efficiency through cutting-edge sustainable technology. (Jordan Stead, seattlepi.com)

  

How Much Is That In Dog Grants?

The Island Guardian has a current article about the amount of money that has been spent on Salmon Recovery Grants. It amounts to $9.6 million state-wide this year. Over the past 10 years or so, with matching funds thrown in, the amount spent in San Juan County is about $12 million, according to statements and presentations by the Lead Entity Coordinator for San Juan County.

One of the recent grant-funded salmon recovery projects has been the purchase of a conservation easement by the San Juan Preservation Trust to "protect" land on Stuart Island. Just to be clear, grant money is coming from the State to our County, and then our County is providing the money to the San Juan Preservation Trust, who is purchasing a conservation easement from some private citizens who own land on Stuart Island ... who get the money and then get reduced taxes too because of the easement (yes, the State and County are giving out grants to lower their own tax base). The Guardian has the financial details, but the grant is for $800,000 ... with matching, the cumulative total amounts to a little over $1 million being spent on salmon recovery ... on that project alone.

Reportedly, this Reid Harbor project was highly rated by technical and citizen reviewers associated with our MRC. However, by my estimate, this project "protects" about 0.1% of our county's potential intertidal salmon habitat, assuming it was "threatened" at that location to begin with. Furthermore, the Guardian quotes Governor Inslee as saying,

"these projects will provide construction jobs and help countless numbers of Washington families and businesses, including tackle shops, charter operators, restaurants and hotels, that rely on the world-renowned Pacific salmon.” 

Another official says,

 "Puget Sound Chinook are about one-third as abundant as they were a century ago,” said David Troutt, chair of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. “As we have developed our urban and rural landscapes, we’ve damaged many of the estuaries, floodplains and rivers that salmon need to survive. These projects have been selected as ones that will make big impacts on Puget Sound and salmon recovery."

Does this Reid Harbor project provide construction jobs (nope)? ... protection (well, "they" say it does, but nope)? ... in Puget Sound (nope)? ... increase salmon populations (nope)? ... estuary, floodplain, or river (nope)? ... big impact on Puget Sound and salmon recovery (nope)? Does this project do any of the things talked about? Is it anything more than vacuous "save the environmental bureaucracy" PR messaging?

Answer: No

Mostly, San Juan County has intertidal salmon habitat rather than salmon spawning habitat. We don't have the really important "estuaries, floodplains, and rivers that salmon need to survive." State law provides a statutory path forward for counties that do not have "sufficient" intertidal habitat, and RCWs 77.85.220 & 230 set forth the requirements for an Intertidal Salmon Enhancement Plan. However, we don't have such a plan ... not one that follows the statutory requirements anyway.  So, by inference, it would seem that the State thinks we probably have "sufficient" intertidal habitat already.

There's a disconnect. We're spending millions to protect intertidal habitat here despite not having a proper Intertidal Salmon Enhancement Plan, which the State (the sugar daddy of habitat "protection" millions) would require if we had insufficient intertidal habitat.

How do we know when we're done with salmon recovery here? Is our goal to make intertidal habitat more than sufficient? How do we know if any of our salmon recovery efforts are doing anything? Do we know if we're making any progress?

Answer: We don't know.

Barbara Rosenkotter, Salmon Recovery Lead Entity Coordinator for San Juan County

Conservation District Watch: The Stacked Deck

The San Juan Islands Conservation District has merged with the San Juan County Stewardship Network and the Puget Sound Partnership's ECONet. Moreover, the non-profit Madrona Institute and the PSP's Action Agenda Oversight Group (AAOG)/Local Implementation Organization (LIO) have incestuous links to the Conservation District too.

Let's play a shortened version of 20 questions ... let's try 6 questions:

1. Who is head of the San Juan Islands Conservation District?
2. Who is on the steering committee of the Stewardship Network?
3. Who is the founder and head of the Madrona Institute, which acts as the fiscal agent for the Stewardship Network, receiving a modest 5% to 10% cut on all grants?
4. Who endorsed Pratt, Stephens, and Byers for Council?
5. Who has been trying to take County programs and grants away from the County (e.g., Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator)?
6. Who has been discussing #5 above with Jamie Stephens in relative secrecy?

The answer to all of the above is Ron Zee, who is part-creator, part-manipulator of a giant hairball bureaucracy that is a wolf (PSP) in Conservation District clothing. At the end of this post is an effort to depict this hairball with a graph, but honestly, it's an impossible task. Complexity is their disguise. It's a Gordian Knot of bureaucratic self-interest and conflicts of interest. Nevertheless, I hope readers begin to get an idea who the real power is behind this bureaucracy ... and it's not our elected officials.

The Stewardship Network is comprised of 24 organizations, including 5 separate County entities. The Steering Committee for the Stewardship Network is comprised of 4 people: Zee, Linda Lyshall (who works for Zee at the Conservation District), Stephanie Buffum of the Friends, and Lincoln Bormann of the Land Bank. This Steering Committee recently appointed Julia Vouri to be the coordinator of the Stewardship Network/ECONet "under the umbrella of the Conservation District."  The Conservation District Board had no say in the matter. Julia Vouri is the wife of Mike Vouri, who happens to be on the Advisory Board of the Madrona Institute. The Madrona Institute was founded and is headed by Zee. He has put together a 4-person Madrona Institute Board (himself, Land Bank Commissioner Jim Skoog, League of Women Voters member Sarah Crosby, and Elaine Kendall of the Ag Guild ... Zee's wife). In addition, Zee has assembled an 18-member Madrona Institute Advisory Committee that includes Linda Lyshall (again), Lincoln Bormann (again), the previously mentioned Mike Vouri, Nick Teague (National Monument/BLM Manager), and Katie Loring, wife of Friends' attorney Kyle Loring who Zee appointed as Associate Board member of the Conservation District.

Given the weight of all these heavily-networked advisors and board members, anyone who thinks the measly Conservation District Board has any power is at best an optimist and at worst a damn fool. The Conservation District Board consists of 5 members, two of whom are appointed by the State. There are just three elected members to the Conservation District Board in an otherwise sprawling complex of self-appointed greased-palm special interests.

And that's not even including the links between the Conservation District and the AAOG/LIO, whose links to the Conservation District are so cozy that the Conservation District has an office reserved for them in their new building. Who's on the AAOG/LIO, aside from the Conservation District itself? Let's see ... the Implementation Committee of the AAOG/LIO consists of a further 12 organizations, including the Marine Resources Committee (again), the Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator (again), the Stewardship Network (again), three County departments (Public Works, CD&P, Health), the Water Resources Committee, the Town, and 3 tribes.

In this impossible-to-follow Gordian Knot, self-appointed Zee-cronies are represented multiple times while the public is shut out. Let's look at the Salmon Lead Entity (SLE), for example. The Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator is Barbara Rosenkotter, who was the Treasurer for Byers campaign (endorsed by then-Democratic-Party-head Zee). Although Rosenkotter ostensibly works for the County, she represents the Stewardship Network, the MRC, and the AAOG/LIO Implementation Committee ... and she has been working stealthily with Zee, the Northwest Straits Commission/Foundation, and the tribes to move her position and State funding to the Conservation District.

There you have it ... 24 organizations in the Stewardship Network, 18 advisors to the Madrona Institute, 4 board members of the Madrona Institute, 13 members to the AAOG/LIO Implementation Committee, 2 State appointees to the Conservation District ... and just 3 elected members of the Conservation District Board. No independently elected official to the Conservation District or even to our County Council has a clue how they're being played by this bureaucracy of mass destruction. No matter how improved the Conservation District electoral system might become as a result of anticipated reforms and lawsuits, the fix is already in ... the elected positions don't even matter anymore ... the Conservation District is machine headquarters where the business of the PSP and Friends is done. The Conservation District is hopelessly broken as a representative body.

And this cabal will pass judgment on whether we, as a County, are good Puget Sound Partners. That's important because whether we are good Puget Sound Partners will matter when our County tries to obtain funding from the State. There is statutory language to that effect. Given the hearings this past week about Conservation District funding, the County Council may be under the misapprehension that they are funding the Conservation District, but in reality, it's the reverse. The County is being set up to be squeezed by the Conservation District, the PSP, and the Friends over State money. If we don't follow their whims, our State funding will be threatened.

And despite the high-minded labels (e.g., Salmon Lead Entity) and the strident, tearful pleas of bureaucratic insiders crying about the environment, absolutely none of the bureaucratic whims have anything to do with improving ecological health. The taxes and grants devoted to bureaucratic eco-efforts aren't funding on-the-ground "save the salmon" or "save the planet" initiatives ... they're funding "save the bureaucracy" initiatives.

Support the Conservation District and save a self-interested bureaucrat ... and maybe even earn a modest 5% to 10% cut for Zee at the same time.  Now that's environmental stewardship San Juan style.

Click to enlarge. Right-click to download.

Conservation District Watch: Conservation District = Stewardship Network

The grand plan in the last election had several components, but in typical iceberg fashion, we only saw part of it. The plan included the following:

• Ron Zee, as head of the local Democratic Party, would endorse Stephens, Pratt, and Byers for County Council. Massive donations would pour in from party faithfuls, and the Zee-endorsed candidates would win handily.

• Ron Zee would become head of everything else (see email below). Zee would transform the Conservation District into a local amalgam of all State agencies and their non-profit allies operating in the county: PSP (AAOG/LIO, ECONet), Salmon Recovery Lead Entity (Rosenkotter), WDFW (Windrope), the tribes, Ecology, the Friends, and others.

• Stephens, Pratt, and Byers would increase the CD's special assessment in order to provide a local funding backstop against the possibility of diminished State funding.

• Having statutory authority (RCW 89.08.580) for administering water quality and habitat protection grants, the new amalgamated CD would be in a position to blackmail the County into following every outrageous State whim (e.g., Action Agenda of the PSP).  Do it, or else no State grants for you! 

• The Council would pass civility laws to stifle dissent at public meetings; a stacked MRC and Planning Commission would ram through a draconian SMP even easier than they rammed through the CAOs. "Everyone" would appear to line up behind fierce new anti-citizen regulations.

• The County would upgrade its GIS system. High-resolution aerial photographs (Pictometry) would merge with the TACT grant activities of the MRC/Friends to provide über enforcement opportunities. Open season would begin once the SMP was in place.

• Our Prosecuting Attorney's (PA's) Office would stand by and watch it all happen, if not facilitate it. The Friends would file their usual lawsuits against everyone (except other Friends) and citizens would receive no help from the PA.

Effectively, the net result of the above would have been direct control of San Juan County by hostile State bureaucrats and their non-profit allies (i.e., direct control by the amalgamated CD).

To get an inkling of what that might be like, have a look again at the email from Martha Kongsgaard. You can see echoes of the PSP Targeted Awareness Grants (i.e., Puget Sound is in trouble, our environment is our economy, and locals don't matter).

Our economy should really hum along after we've all been gotten rid of.

The email below was sent out by Ron Zee this past week. The election may not have turned out as planned, but they're still executing the grand plan.

______________________________________________________

Greetings All,

The Steering Committee is pleased to announce the selection of Julia Vouri as our new Stewardship Network Coordinator/ECO Net Coordinator, per the unanimous recommendation of the Search Committee at a special Network meeting held yesterday.  Contracting with the Puget Sound Partnership will proceed next week for the ECO Net Coordination grant under the umbrella of the San Juan Islands Conservation District.

Please welcome Julia to the Network when you see her.  With her help, we'll continue to move the stewardship ethic ever forward!

Cheers!

Ron

Stewardship Network of the San Juans

Website: www.stewardshipsanjuans.org

Email: stewardshipnetwork@gmail.com

A coalition of organizations who envision
a healthy, thriving ecosystem in the
San Juan archipelago, from land to sea

Speaking For The Fish

Despite the continuing mayhem about the CAOs, this year is likely to be dominated by shoreline discussions related to the Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) update. From CAO testimony, we have already had a prologue of what these discussions might look like.

Watch the clips below to hear Barbara Rosenkotter of the County (and formerly of the Byers campaign) speak for the fish. Then watch Jim Slocomb speak on behalf of the Marine Resources Committee (MRC) in recommending that all shorelines be considered critical ... essentially because fish need water and fish might use any of the marine water in the county at some point or other.  The Rosenkotter/Slocomb view is that "protection" means that every inch of shoreline in our county has to be designated as critical.

This raises a major question that our County government has yet to wrap its head around. Are we protecting "areas of use" or "areas needed for population viability?" The CAOs say we are required to protect population viability.

But that isn't the view of the Salmon Recovery Lead Entity or the MRC in these video clips.

Note: we apologize for the A/V sync issues but they are on the original video from the County.