Council; PDS Land Capacity Analysis concerns for comp. plan Thursday, January 21, :12:32 AM

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1 From: To: Subject: Date: Attachments: WENDY Council; PDS Land Capacity Analysis concerns for comp. plan Thursday, January 21, :12:32 AM LCA concerns.docx Please find attached a comment on the LCA for the comp. plan for county council review. I would appreciate it if you could post this to the county website under public comments. I hope that other comments will be posted there prior to the public hearing on Tuesday as many of us rely on this comments for an understanding of the hot button issues and the arguments that need to be addressed. Thank you Wendy Harris

2 1 I have some concerns regarding the staff s land capacity analysis. I would appreciate it if the county council sought public explanation from the staff. Issue One: Catastrophic Critical Area Risks The land capacity analysis (LCA) indicates that many types of critical areas were removed from the land base available for development. This certainly makes sense as the GMA indicates that critical areas are not appropriate places for urban level growth. Thus, the LCA removes from consideration land containing wetlands, rivers, streams, steep slopes, seismic soils, floodplains, naturally occurring asbestos, and "if available, additional critical areas and shoreline information" from GIS data and local critical area and shoreline ordinances. (There is a little more complexity regarding buffers and mitigation areas). The end result, according to staff is that the "resulting selection of developable parcels unconstrained by these areas will be used as the land base to calculate deductions for future public uses, future infrastructure and market factors." That result is straightforward and consistent with GMA rules. However, it does not appear compatible with what occurred in the final EIS for the comp. plan. Under the "earth element" of the FEIS, in the Chapter 1 summary chart, Table 1.5-1, it is noted that for the Preferred Alternative: Similar to the other alternatives, the Preferred Alternative would permit development that is at risk of catastrophic geologic event, including landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic hazards. Similar to Alternative 3, the Preferred Alternative would expand existing UGA boundaries at Birch Bay, Lynden, and Nooksack, and provide for intensification of infill areas within existing city limits and UGA boundaries elsewhere. The Nooksack UGA expansion would occur in an area mapped as volcanic and seismic hazard areas. Why have land areas, classified as geologically hazardous critical areas, allegedly removed from the land capacity analysis, been placed into existing or expanded UGA areas? It appears that the public is being misled. In essence, critical areas have not been removed from the land capacity analysis or the preferred alternative would not contain the risk of

3 2 catastrophic geologic event, including landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic hazards. How is it even possible that the FEIS Preferred Alternative includes the potential for another Oso? This is NOT my vision for this county, nor do I believe it would be the vision of any rationale resident. Issue Two: The LCA Is Oversized The LCA did not exclude all critical areas and land that is not suitable for development, and as such, over states the land that is available for UGAs and growth. HCAs Ignored Most importantly, the LCA does not factor in Habitat Conservation Areas (HCA) because the county lacks current, accurate and complete information regarding wildlife, habitat or corridors, with the exception of instream fish. This is readily obvious from a review of the county critical area maps. The county has created two different HCA maps. A map for Fish Habitat Conservation Areas covers fish throughout the county in some detail, distinguishing between HCA 1a, 1b and 1c streams. It also includes Preliminary WRIA 1 Nooksack River Basin Anadromous Salmonid Periodicities for twelve salmonid species, which complies with GMA requirements to place special focus on salmonid species. (This map notes that Fish Presence: The version depicted on this map comes from the March 2004 WRIA 1 Salmonid Distribution maps created for the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project.) A second map entitled Wildlife Habitat Conservation Area claims to reflect approximate location of wildlife features found in Whatcom County. The information is inexcusably sparse. The most common entry simply states, riparian zone. There are large gaps all over the map. There are occasional and scattered references to eagles, heron, swans, harbor seals, bats, seabird concentration or shorebird concentrations. There is no indication that Semiahmoo or Drayton Harbor are designated important bird areas that show up on bird maps. The Lake Terrell nature preserve is not noted. Only a few of the

4 3 remarkably high number of estuarine areas in the county are noted. Biodiversity hot spots, such as Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham, easily found on the WDFW public mapping program, are not reflected. The only effort that appears to have been made is with regard to the misnamed Chuckanut Corridor (It is actually core habitat, rather than a corridor) and some of the forage fish spawning sites along the shorelines. Even then, although the Cherry Point herring are identified, they are not noted as a designated Evolutionarily Significant Unit because they genetically distinct from other herring. The same is true for Coho salmon. ESA species are not highlighted and although the map claims it will be updated as new species and habitat are added, no information is more recent than 2004, despite the addition of three species of rockfish to the ESA in The GMA also requires that the county identify open space and areas of connectivity that have value as habitat or for recreation. It has failed to so, despite being on notice a good number of years. (Large arrows on maps do not satisfy the GMA requirements because habitat corridors must be specific enough for the land that is impacted to be identified.) As all this makes clear, the county, like many other Washington jurisdictions, has been ignoring its obligations regarding HCA for some time, but this can no longer continue. Once the HCA requirements are factored into the land capacity analysis, the land supply available for develop will decrease. Landscape Analysis Ignored The amount of land that will be impacted by a proper consideration of HCA and corridors is greater than would appear simply by review of the missing species and areas of high conservation value. The county has insisted on reviewing HCA on an inappropriate site specific scale, a matter that I attempted to discuss at length with the county during the EIS scoping process, all to no avail. I have also submitted a number of public comments on this issue, which have also been ignored.

5 4 However, as a matter of both science and law, it is inappropriate to limit the scale of HCA review to the development site. That contradicts the entire purpose for creating habitat corridors and it is contrary to the way that wildlife live and move through the land. WAC (6) states: Functions and values must be evaluated at a scale appropriate to the function being evaluated. Functions are the conditions and processes that support the ecosystem. Conditions and processes operate on varying geographic scales ranging from site-specific to watershed and even regional scales. Some critical wildlife habitat conservation areas, such as wetlands and fish, may constitute ecosystems or parts of ecosystems that transcend the boundaries of individual parcels and jurisdictions, so that protection of their function, and values should be considered on a larger scale. It is currently unclear how proper inclusion of HCA, at the appropriate landscape scope of review, will impact land available for development. However, it is clear that it will reduce the land available. And it is reasonable to assume that this will impact an area of some size given the county s almost complete nonconformity on this issue. Finally, it should be noted that as a result of state changes in the laws for floodplains and wetlands, it is possible that more critical areas exist now than at the time the LCA was first produced. The increase may be small, but it is worth mentioning. Issue Three: Trains When the staff first began its LCA over 2 years ago, coal and oil trains did not impact traffic or increase rail road infrastructure to the extent that currently exists. Valley View road was not closed in order to store oil trains. To the extent that there are more rail road lines, spurs, and higher train traffic volume, this will impact land available for development. Whatcom County needs to develop policy on how much of an offset, if any, it will require from the rail road tracks. As I previously documented in a comment dated August 2, 2015, there are significant health impacts associated with the diesel exhaust from trains. That has been further

6 5 corroborated by the latest EPA National Air Toxics Assessment or NATA data released earlier this month, which found that when it comes to airborne toxics, transportation and woodstoves are the biggest contributors to the risk of getting cancer or respiratory illness in Island, Skagit and Whatcom counties. This was also discussed in a press release by the Northwest Clean Air Agency. Given the health risks associated with breathing in diesel exhaust from trains, in addition to the danger of exploding oil trains, people may no longer be willing to live as close to the train lines, and the county may wish to adjust its regulations to better protect public health and avoid concerns regarding social justice issues. As a result of these facts, it is likely to affect and reduce the amount of land that is available for development. Conclusion The totality of these facts, taken as a whole suggest that the county LCA is over sized and that less land is available for development than is suggested. This needs to be reviewed and properly adjusted so that council and the public will be aware of the exact amount of land that remains, and whether or not this will impact population and employment figures. It is difficult to envision how it could not. In particular, I remain concerned regarding the geologic hazards that remain or are being included in new UGA areas despite the catastrophic risk that is presented. This problem simply must be resolved. In addition, it is well past time for the county to address its wildlife and habitat issues. It is quite possible that the end result of these adjustments will indicate that we are simply out of land. If that is not true now, it will definitely be true at some point in the future. The county cannot continue to plan for unlimited growth when it has only so much land and limited and dwindling natural resources. We need to openly address this problem and stop engaging in denial based planning.

7 6 Thank you for considering my LCA concerns. I look forward to hearing responses from the staff. Sincerely, Wendy Harris Whatcom County Resident