Conservation  - May 2007

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        The Legislature: in the Home Stretch

By the time you read this, the legislative session will be over or almost over.  One piece of good news: the $100 million we wanted for the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program is in the capital budget!  The only Clark County legislator to vote against the $100 million was Representative Jim Dunn, 17^th District.  The global warming bill passed the Senate easily.  All Clark County's senators voted for it.  As of this writing, it is in the house where I was told, "it is changing every day."   Dunn gave an incoherent and embarrassing speech on the floor of the house that revealed his total ignorance of global warming.  Of course, he opposed the bill.  More on this next month.

              Speaking of Global Warming

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned by the U.N., just released its latest report.  The news is not good.  We are likely to experience water shortages and increased forest fires.  The rising sea levels would threaten the Washington coast.  As I am writing this, in early April, the temperature on my thermometer reached 80 degrees.  I have not had substantial rain since March.  All winter the pattern has been dry, dry, dry, rain, dry, dry, dry, heavy rain, dry, dry, drizzle, dry, dry, dry, deluge, dry, dry …  That is the picture and it is not normal.  The snow pack in the mountains is down for this time of year.  I heard the report on the radio that all winter there would be heavy snow fall, followed by rapid melting, followed by heavy snow fall, followed by rapid melting, and so on.  We need to act fast.  I wish we would have started twenty years ago.

                           The Cross-Base Highway:   Thurston County

Why would Vancouver Audubon be interested in a proposed highway in Thurston County?  Because it would cut across Fort Lewis and the McChord Air Force Base, endangering oak woodlands, one of the most endangered ecosystems in Washington.  Wilson Cady tells me that Fort Lewis has a good population of species and that "Western Bluebirds and Purple Martins are nesters there and the martins are nesting in natural cavities on the base, one of the three known sites in the state where that occurs." 
Several years ago, Tahoma Audubon brought the issue of the cross-base highway to the Washington State Audubon Conservation Committee.  We passed a resolution opposing it.  At the time, my legislative representative, Deb Wallace, was on the transportation committee and that was how I became involved.  Despite the cross-base highway being such a bad idea, the proposal went forward.  Now, a committee in the Puget Sound area has the responsibility to select projects for inclusion in a package of transportation improvements.  I commented on the cross-base highway, listing the costs as follows:
· "Increasing pressure to develop that would, in turn, produce even more congestion;
· Jeopardize a thriving equestrian industry in the area;
· Jeopardize the existence of the military bases themselves.  The military does not like to have subdivisions and other development crowding around their bases.  They will close a base if the development interferes with the mission of the base;
· Degrading or destroying valuable habitat, habitat that cannot be replaced or mitigated for. 
· Foregoing other benefits of the transportation money that is available to the Puget Sound area.  Money that is spent on the cross-base highway cannot be used to provide actual solutions to your traffic problems."

         Proposed Copper Mine Next to Mt. St. Helens Monument

An Idaho mining outfit has proposed developing a mine right outside of the Mt. St. Helens Monument.  This is an appalling idea with the potential for water pollution, obliteration of trails, and destruction of fish and wildlife habitat.  The proposed mine is on land that Trust for Public Land obtained for the Forest Service for the purposes of recreation and conservation.  The Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for leasing mineral deposits in the west, has issued a Declaration of No Significance Impact for leasing the mineral deposits.  The reasoning of the BLM is that issuing the lease does not affect the environment because nothing on the ground would be disturbed.  The action is just issuing a piece of paper.  However - this action is preliminary to some severe environmental degradation.  We think something should be said about that.  Comments are due the middle of May.

                                              Gretchen Starke    gstarke@pacifier.com