PORT ANGELES – Jefferson County commissioners said Monday they may back away from their funding plan for a clean water district.
“The big question becomes, ‘How do you fund it?'” Commissioner Phil Johnson, D-Port Angeles, said at a joint meeting of Jefferson and Clallam counties’ commissioners in Port Angeles.
An $18-per-parcel plan has backlashed among citizens of East Jefferson County whom the clean water district would include, Johnson said.
A Sept. 17 hearing was rescheduled to 6:30 Wednesday in the Fort Worden State Park Commons, 200 Battery Way, Port Townsend, after more than 100 people overcrowded the original meeting in the Jefferson County Courthouse.
The $18-per-parcel proposal would raise about $500,000 each year to clean up Discovery Bay and other watercourses.
The state Department of Health has restricted Discovery Bay shellfish harvesting and told the county to create a shellfish protection district.
Clallam County has a clean water district that encompasses the Dungeness Bay watershed.
It, however, is not supported by taxes but is used to leverage state and federal grants.
