FOR EVERY SOLUTION, there’s an objection.
Wind energy seemed to be a likely solution to achieve renewable energy mandates imposed by voters in 2006.
The four public utility districts serving Clallam, Grays Harbor, Mason and Pacific counties formed a partnership to develop a 32-turbine, $100 million wind farm.
Radar Ridge’s pre-construction costs were budgeted at $3.2 million.
Those costs are now topping $5 million, while prospects of ever obtaining permits are fading.
The Columbia River Alliance for Nurturing the Environment is now urging the PUDs to walk away from Radar Ridge.
This pattern of running up costs by greeting the results of every environmental impact study with demands for ever more costly studies, and then citing excessive costs as cause for pulling out of projects is reminiscent of tactics that shut down nuclear energy decades ago.
Expensive opposition also effectively shut down domestic timber harvest and near-shore oil exploration.
In their place came increased unregulated clearcutting of Third World forests and much riskier deepwater drilling, which contributed to the massive oil disaster off Louisiana.
Ironically, activism in the name of protecting “Mother Earth” perpetuates reliance on fossil fuels when it delays or even prevents timely development of cleaner energy, such as that generated by wind or wave turbines.
Even where overt opposition isn’t apparent, Earth-friendly endeavors are almost universally deterred by regulations intended for good.
For example, even amid a groundswell of support for preserving agriculture, local regulators pile on rules that make it difficult or impossible for farms to survive.
Producing and consuming local food improves nutrition, safety, food security and the local economy, but does nothing to slow galloping anti-farm regulations.
Jefferson County’s shorelines-management code, which substantially reduces the size of productive fields by imposing wide buffers around streams and wetlands, may be the most egregious example.
In Clallam County, new buffer rules are on the table, and the building code became farm-unfriendly two years ago.
Pole buildings, which farmers traditionally raise to shelter equipment, hay and livestock, now require building permits, regardless of size, county building inspector Tim Taff told my husband, Dale.
Responding to demand for local grass-fed beef, we’ve expanded our mini-herd of cattle to 13 — four cow-calf pairs and five steers.
Demand of another sort is filling our five horse stalls.
The result is a need to increase hay storage capacity here at Ireland Farms, but the new rules make the 16-foot by 20-foot structure Dale envisioned time- and cost-prohibitive this year.
In the late 1800s, doomsayers predicted civilization would collapse under the weight of the dung from the horses required to move freight.
Invention of the internal-combustion engine averted that collapse, but brought a new set of challenges that inventors such as Port Angeles’ Karl “Jerry” Lamb could solve if their efforts to do so received the support and acknowledgement they deserve.
After Lamb founded Magna Force in 1993, I was the first reporter he trusted to write about his energy-saving magnetic equipment couplings (visit www.levx.com for details about Magna Force.)
Seventeen years later, the U.S. military and various industries in several countries use Magna Force magnetic couplings, but this clean, Earth-friendly technology has been ignored more than implemented.
Possible solutions to today’s environmental threats face the dual challenge of obtaining financial backing and navigating a maze of regulations designed as much to protect the status quo as the environment.
Some seem to view problems — or perceived problems — as gateways to achieving philosophical goals that would otherwise be untenable.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” commented President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, in 2008.
State Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, echoed that view during this year’s legislative session.
One of three District 24 legislators representing Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County, Van De Wege is challenged by Republicans Dan Gase and Craig Durgan as he seeks re-election this year.
A greater-than-usual number of candidates for elective offices has emerged, demonstrating that many still dare dream of solving problems.
The filing period ends at 4:30 p.m. today at the Jefferson and Clallam county courthouses.
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Martha Ireland was a Clallam County commissioner from 1996 through 1999 and is the secretary of the Republican Women of Clallam County, among other community endeavors.
She and her husband, Dale, live on their Carlsborg-area farm with their critters. Her column appears Fridays. E-mail her at irelands@olypen.com.
