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Action Alert!
Comment to defend your property rights!
Comments must be submitted by December 15, 2013!
WDFW seeks Far-reaching Hydraulic Rule Code Changes it
is not Prepared to Administer
Your property, your dock, your utilities, your
business is at risk with this!
Impact
Statement on proposed changes to the Hydraulic Code Rules -Chapter
220-110 Washington Administrative Code (WAC).
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has
prepared a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that
will be reviewed here. For
purposes of this article, the above mentioned document will be called
DPEIS. This is needed because throughout the document referred
to(https://wdfw.wa.gov/licensing/sepa/2013/13072peis.pdf)
the department seems to think that other acronyms are interchangeable
with DPEIS.
The DPEIS in itself is problematic. This document is generalized, does not include
supporting documentation, and is redundant, rambling, and was not
prepared with the required cost – benefit analysis. It does not meet
the requirements of SEPA or NEPA and does not address the real
impacts such as increased threats to human life, property, and
livestock. There is no financial analysis addressing the
impacts to business, farmers, foresters, property owners, or impacts
to citizens’ constitutional rights. This document fails to address
the impacts to municipalities including increased costs and impacts
to utility districts. Therefore, the DPEIS is incomplete.
The science listed in the references is from internal
publications, not independently peer
reviewed third party scientific publications, and the so called
science used is not multidisciplinary. Much of what is used as
science does not meet BAS requirements and does not meet the
requirements of HB 1112.
The WDFW is attempting to broaden its mission from
issuing HPA permits based exclusively on impacts to fish, to include in its mission shoreline and near shore
habitats and mitigation requirements that are already addressed by an
excess of federal, state, and municipal codes. Furthermore,
WDFW is attempting a change to the use a one size fits all method of
applying so called science from a site specific HPA analysis.
Cumulative effects are the impact on the environment which results from
the incremental impact of the action when added to other past,
present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what
agency (federal or non-federal) or person undertake such other
actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor, but
collectively significant, actions taking place over a period of
time. There is no summary of changes from the current rules to
the proposed rules, making it difficult to determine if the proposed
changes will have either a positive or negative impact on fish
species, or to determine if the proposed rule changes will have any
impact regarding cumulative effects.
In the course of attempting to broaden its mission,
the WDFW is including in its
proposed rules agencies such as The State Department of Archaeology
and Historic Preservation, and activities that are already covered
under other codes, such as the GMA and the SMA. The WDFW does
not have the authority to include codes that do not pertain directly
to the WDFW.
Stakeholder and public involvement are inadequate in a
rule making process that proposes to be so broad and sweeping a rule
change as to have significant impact on the public. This is seen in that the public comment period
only received 31 comments to the proposed rule changes. The
inadequate notice and involvement of the public will result in
hardships and changes that will come as a surprise to the public and
then be all the more costly. The WDFWs choice of stakeholders
obviously dismissed and failed to include a broad enough group of
individuals as to allow for significant involvement by the
public. Where were the major property rights groups included in
the stakeholders group? The WDFW now should be compelled to at
least publically list the stakeholders to insure the public that
enough public interests were involved in the process. Some
questions need to be answered: How many public meetings were
held? Was there adequate notice of these meetings to the
public? Were all municipalities, small and large aware of the
proposed rule changes and the possible impacts to them of the rule
changes? Were formal comments accepted and recorded at each step
of the involvement process?
The stakeholder group was consulted on the Hydraulic
Code Rules that WDFW proposes for adoption including new fish science
and design technology. The
new fish science and design technology is not something that should
be addressed by the stakeholder group alone, but also to the
public. It should also be vetted, since it is labeled as
science. How did the WDFW do the peer review, and what specific
science was used to develop the “new fish science”? What specific
disciplines of science were used, and which scientists were
consulted? The multidisciplinary approach to best available
science was not used, as its white papers show the science was
internally produced documents that were reviewed, and they were
reviewed internally. The WDFW presents no record of what is
defined as best available science, and presents no record of that
definition having been followed. If the WDFW wishes to broaden
its scope of influence through rule changes, then it needs to also
present evidence that that scope is needed, and that it has complied
with Best Management Practices in its science, and that the proposed
rules and science they use are compatible with the scope they
seek. Has the WDFW made sure that its actions will comport with
what is required of them under the Clean Water Act, GMA, SMA, and
Ecology’s Storm Water Management? How has the WDFW with this
document of Proposed Rule Changes shown that it has complied with the
law in HB 1112?
The scope of influence the WDFW seeks in this DPEIS
includes differences from the present rules to the Preferred Rules
that would impact the lion’s share of the following activities:
Streambank protection and lake shoreline
stabilization; Residential docks, watercraft lifts, and buoys in
fresh water areas; Boat ramps and launches in freshwater areas;
Dredging in freshwater areas; Marinas and terminals in
freshwater areas; Sand and gravel removal; Water crossing
structures; Fish passage improvement structures; Channel
change/ realignment; Large woody material placement,
repositioning, and removal in freshwater areas; Beaver dam
management; Pond construction; Water diversions and
intakes; Outfall structures in freshwater areas; Utility
crossings in freshwater areas; Felling and yarding of timber;
Aquatic plant removal and control; Mineral prospecting;
Intertidal forage fish spawning habitat survey; Seagrass
and macroalgae habitat surveys; Bulkheads and other bank
protection in saltwater; Residential piers, ramps, floats,
watercraft lifts, and buoys in saltwater areas; Boat ramps and
launches in saltwater areas; Marinas and terminals in saltwater
areas; Dredging in saltwater areas; Artificial aquatic
habitat structures; Outfall, tide, and flood gate structures in
saltwater areas; Utility lines in saltwater areas; Boring
in saltwater areas.
This extensive list of activities are claimed to have
the potential to effect several different aspects of the
environment. Thus WDFW is
proposing rule changes that are significant, much requiring
mitigation, on the same activities in many differing ways, and basing
the required rule changes on potential effects, ignoring the fact
that no nexus between the activity and peer reviewed science exists.
This DPEIS evaluates two alternatives for changes to
the Hydraulic Code Rules—the No Action Alternative, which consists of the Current Rule. And the
Preferred Alternative, comprising the Proposed Rule Changes. It
is time for the WFWD to choose the stated alternative of the No
Action Alternative to change its Hydraulic Code Rules until and
unless it can prove its Preferred Alternative is one it is capable to
implement. The WDFW needs to show it is ready to chew what it
has attempted to bite off. This DPIES document dismayingly
demonstrates they are not yet ready for the environmental
responsibility they seek.
Here again is the internet address to obtain this
document and review it. https://wdfw.wa.gov/licensing/sepa/2013/13072peis.pdf Although it is
unnecessarily large at 132 pages, it is broken into sections, so the
task of determining how an individual or business will be effected by
this proposed rule change is not as daunting as would first
seem. It is needed though to understand and comment on the
changes. The comment period has been extended until December
15, 2013. One should get comments submitted before that time. Here is
the information needed for submitting comments:
Contact:
Randi Thurston
Phone:
(360) 902-2602
Email:
randall.thurston@dfw.wa.gov
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