At a Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) meeting yesterday, October 15, the commissioners removed the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project interlocal agreement from the agenda.
The commissioners delayed the approval of the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project interlocal agreement (ILA) for “further legal review.”
Contrary to the county's stance, the cities of Olympia and Tumwater approved the ILA in separate meetings last week and yesterday, respectively.
The county is reviewing three issues associated with the ILA—funding source, use of stormwater funds, and indemnification.
One legal concern is the ILA’s funding source information, which includes information about the availability of different fund sources to fund the county’s proposed obligations stipulated in the ILA.
Plans call for the county to contribute as the local account treasurer. This entails managing the local accounts to ensure the legislature cannot “sweep the local funds.”
The proposed ILA mandates the county to contribute around $7,673,000 to sediment management costs.
“I think it’s actually irresponsible to move ahead when there are questions yet to be answered…We need to make sure there is a funding source available that will be legal and won’t succumb to some challenges at some later date,” said Commissioner Gary Edwards.
County Manager Leonard Hernandez said county staff is looking at various funding sources.
Another concern is the possible use of stormwater funds for the ILA, and Hernandez shared that different perspectives have been sent as public comments to the board.
Commissioner Wayne Fournier also requested during a separate October 14 budget meeting that the corresponding legal analysis or advice should be explicitly stated in writing if stormwater funding is used.
“Our initial perspective from our legal team is that stormwater funds can be used, but we need to get that in [a] written opinion,” said Hernandez.
“I think the analysis of the stormwater fund…what we will do is do a lookout based on the inflator of the payment how we can predict that's going to impact the fund out to the entirety of the payments if you do that every year,” Hernandez added.
Another concern is that the state does not have the authority to indemnify the entities under the ILA.
Indemnification involves paying an entity money if it suffers damage or loss.
“The state came back, and I'll summarize the information they sent, which is they don't have the authority to indemnify us,” Hernandez said.
Four commissioners voted to remove the ILA approval from the agenda, and only Commissioner Carolina Mejia opposed the motion.
Mejia stated her reason for requesting a review of the ILA’s funding nature: to make the funding review parallel to the ILA timeline instead of delaying the process altogether.
“Anything related to payments wouldn't begin until years later. We still have to go to see it even the state is going to approve this. I would propose that we move forward and work parallelly along this and…resolve the funding issue, questions,” said Mejia.
“In that way, staff is not pressured to move this forward. I just want to keep to the timelines that we've been saying in terms of the ILA,” Mejia added.
Mejia emphasized that she did not express funding concerns to delay the approval and expressed frustration regarding the delayed timeline.
Esther Grace Kronenberg wrote an article that appeared in the current issue of Works In Progress describing a citizen-initiated lawsuit against the project, published via volunteer-based Works in Progress (WIP) on October 15.
“On September 27, 2024, Olympia resident Arthur West filed a lawsuit in Thurston County challenging the legality of the proposed Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project Interlocal Agreement between the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services (DES), the cities of Olympia and Tumwater, Thurston County, the Port of Olympia and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance,” the article stated.
Kronenberg wrote that West is an activist who once filed a lawsuit against the Port of Olympia, which led to the discovery of dioxin in Budd Inlet in 2007.
West allegedly claimed that the Deschutes project violates the state’s Interlocal Cooperation Act, SEPA, the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), and the Public Records Act (PRA).
The entities involved in the project are legally bound to enforce the acts as state, municipal, and public agencies.
West claims that the agreement would relieve the parties from enforcing the laws they were bound to as public entities, so the proposed “Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project Interlocal Agreement” should be declared “void and unenforceable.”
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bhalverson
I have been very vocal on my support for the Estuary Project and just as vocal about the mechanism developed by the Deschutes Estuary Steering Committee (DESC) made up of elected leaders from each of the partners to fund the dredging of West Bay after removal of the dam. The dam was built in 1951 as a vanity project for the State Capitol. As early as the 1990's the Department of Enterprise Services (DES) recognized they had a huge environmental problem with the lake and as the years went by the problem became worse resulting in the lake being closed to all recreational activities. DES was responsible for the lake as part of the Capitol Campus but did little to resolve the numerous environmental problems. For years DES has been working on a solution. The Environmental Impact Study (EIS) identified a solution that would rehabilitate the area by removing the dam and returning the area to an Estuary. A good thing. But then DES had to find a way to fund this $350 Million dollar project and knew that by removing the dam more sediment would be washed down the river through the estuary and into the bay area where marinas, the yacht club and the Port of Olympia were located. All but one Marina had existed prior to the construction of the dam, and they were all dealing with sediment removal (dredging) up to the dams’ construction. Once the dam was constructed the amount of sediment washing into the bay area was reduced significantly and this became the norm for the past 75 years. If the dam had never been built they would have continued to pay for maintenance dredging all along. They had a 75 year hiatus of not having to dredge as often. The legislature had requested DES work with local jurisdictions and come up with a plan that could possibly include funding to deal with the dredging. Our local elected leaders followed the lead of DES. Lambs to the slaughter in the hands of experienced bureaucrats. All the right buzz words were used to entice our elected leaders to buy in to the program and offer to spend our tax dollars. Do you know what those tax dollars will be used for? Most taxpayers don't know, and I would suggest most of the elected leaders that voted to approve the ILA for their jurisdiction don't know either. The millions of dollars alluded to in this article (7.6 Million) and millions more from the other partners will go to help pay for the dredging of the Port of Olympia Vessel Berths and the access areas for the private marinas and the yacht club so these private marinas, the yacht club and the Port of Olympia will not need to pay as much to maintain access to the deeper water from their boat slips. Why should our taxpayers pay to reduce costs to the richest people? They shouldn't. But you can't make the marinas and yacht club pay all of that money, right? Well, they did prior to the dam being built. However, inflation has increased the cost of dredging to a point where the state (Department of Natural Resources) who owns the leases to the shoreline where these marinas are located doesn't feel they could reasonably increase the cost the marinas lease the property for to a level that they could afford. Okay. Who created the problem? The state. So why are local jurisdictions being asked to pay? They shouldn't. Yes, a couple, like the City of Olympia should be paying something into the fund because the City owns one of the marinas and draws income from it. They also collect a lot of taxes from all the waterfront properties along the bay. But even Olympia should not pay 11.5 million. Why are we being asked to supplement the cost of dredging the Port of Olympia? We all pay a tax to the Port of Olympia already. That tax is supposed to include dredging the port when necessary. All ports in Washington State pay the full amount to dredge their Vessel Berths. Why is the Port of Olympia different? All our elected leaders need to excerpt their leadership and push back on DES. Redo the ILA. Some jurisdictions should pay some, but the state should pay for most of it. As I have just explained, they created the problem, allowed the problem to fester and get worse year after year and did little to take care of the increasing environmental issues that now include 12 invasive species. I realize most of the local jurisdictions have already voted to approve this ILA and stick it to their respective taxpayers, but it’s not too late for them all to stand up and tell DES to start over with the funding mechanism. That is what they should do. We will see what they do.
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bonaro
Prior to the hatching of this silly estuary project, the State was wholly responsible for the dredging of Capitol Lake, a maintenance task they have failed to perform for over 30 years.
Now they seek to partners to pay for this task which will will be greatly increased after the dam is removed.
Thurston County has no responsibility here and should abstain.
Thank you, bhalverson, for the cut and paste of your biased comment.
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ChuckCross
Hat's off to Halvorson for presenting a cogent background piece on Capital Lake. Agree with Halvorson's perspective that the "Capital Lake" project should be State funded, and that the cost of dredging of the Bay be funded by the organizations/entities benefitting from the dredging. The cost of this project does not end after the 26 year cost projection.
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