Monday, September 05, 2005

WRIA 17 planning in Clallam County being handled by the Dungeness River Management Team

I learned about a different twist to this watershed management process today...and it's not something that the Department of Ecology people have gone out of their way to tell us about during their two most recent public meetings on the WRIA 17 instream flow process. Bear with me here...

Although we have been presented with the impression that the rule-making under way is for the entirety of WRIA 17, it seems that planning for part of WRIA 17 in Clallam County (JimmyComeLately, Bell Creek, and Johnson Creek sub-basins) is being handled by the Dungeness River Managment Team as the result of "...a Memorandum of Understanding between planning units..." You can learn a bit more about this at
You more commonly arrive at this page by clicking on WRIA 17 on Clallam County's interactive watershed map at:
As we have been given to understand, the process being undertaken in setting instream flows for WRIA 17 is being handled on a watershed-wide basis. So this begs the question of why the planning is being handled for a portion of the WRIA by the team responsible for planning for WRIA 18?

As if things weren't confused enough through governing water use across county boundaries by defining the management unit as being the totality of the watershed identified as WRIA 17, they split off part of WRIA 17 in Clallam county and hand it over to the team responsible for planning for a completely different WRIA.

Does this mean that a WRIA 17 instream flow will apply to the entire WRIA, or will the above three sub-basins be exempted from the rule set for the rest of us? If we manage to blunt Ecology's thrust in WRIA 17, will a different instream flow rule in three of the sub-basins mean that all of our work would be for naught, or would any improvement we gain apply to those areas and be an exception for whatever happens in WRIA 18?

Or is this simply one more bit of information that points to a process that the Department of Ecology believes is a foregone conclusion that will be applied state-wide? That would speak to an incredible level of government overreach and arrogance that should not be allowed to continue.

After all, we as taxpayers provide the salaries of all Department of Ecology employees. That makes us their employers. Are you aware of any form of legitimate business where the employees are allowed to tell the employer what to do on pain of penalty? Perhaps it's time we, as the employer, take back our responsibility for close supervision and guidance of our runaway employees.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home