PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County commissioners on Monday unanimously approved a formal watershed plan policy statement critical of the state Department of Ecology’s efforts to push an in-stream flow rule
“The county has grave concern that the Department of Ecology may be exceeding its legal authority with several of the rule’s provisions,” reads a sentence added to a policy that asks for a comprehensive water management strategy that protects local food production as much as salmon and public water supply.
County Commissioner Pat Rodgers, R-Brinnon, thanked the policy’s editor, Commissioner David Sullivan, D-Cape George, saying: “That was nice to push the pin into Ecology.”
“It was a lot of discussion and a lot of agreement,” Sullivan said of the wording of the document that he thought was necessary to make the county’s position clear to state leaders and Ecology.
Forum on Thursday
The commissioners’ action came three days before a Thursday public forum involving the North Olympic Peninsula’s three lawmakers to discuss the controversial in-stream flow rule.
The forum is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the Fort Worden State Park Commons, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, is expected to attend along with Reps. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, and Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.
Ecology officials are also expected to attend.
Buck and Kessler recently said they recognize that it is only through an act of legislation that the in-stream flow rule can be recast.
Buck said last week that such legislation would be up to the public to get under way.
The commissioners’ policy statement comes as a time when Ecology, through the Water Resource Inventory Area 17 planning unit, enters the implementation phase of the plan intended to protect water for humans and fish.
