PORT TOWNSEND — The state Growth Management Hearings Board has dismissed 19 challenges to the newly enacted Jefferson County Shoreline Management Program.
The decision, issued Monday, said “the board concludes that petitioners failed to provide clear and convincing evidence demonstrating the challenged action.”
The challenges the plan enacted in February were made by three petitioners: Hood Canal Sand and Gravel — which may appeal, a spokesman said — the Olympic Stewardship Foundation and the Jefferson County chapter of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights.
David Alvarez, Jefferson County chief civil deputy prosecutor, said that combined, the three organizations initially filed more than 200 challenges.
Those were whittled down when the state hearings board refused to consider that many issues, Alvarez added.
Many of the challenges said the county had not followed the law with regard to the approval of the shoreline management plan.
Hood Canal Sand and Gravel, also known as Thorndyke Resources, seeks to build a 4-mile-long conveyor belt and a 998-foot pier on Hood Canal to move gravel from a quarry to ships.
It maintained that the plan was unconstitutional in that it violated the rights of private property owners, while the other groups maintained that its 150 buffers in which new construction is not allowed was illegally imposed.
The plan was first submitted at the end of 2011, when it was challenged by the state Department of Ecology for its prohibition of fish farming.
This situation took more than two years to resolve, with the county now allowing fish farming on a conditional-use basis.
Thorndyke Resources wants to build the 998-foot pier on state-owned land 5 miles south of the Hood Canal Bridge to annually load onto barges some 6.75 million tons of gravel that would be transported from a quarry at Shine.
The company argued that allowing fish farming means a mining operation also should be allowed.
The state board ruled that a sand-and-gravel pier is a different use than a net pen.
“They made the right decision,” said John Fabian of Port Ludlow, who opposes the project.
“We need to protect these resources and keep commercial industry in high-density locations rather than environmentally sensitive areas.”
Thorndyke Resources spokesman Dan Baskins said his company is examining the decision and would most likely file an appeal.
Appeals will be filed in Thurston County Superior Court, as is the practice with challenges to Washington state board rulings, Alvarez said.
The Olympic Stewardship challenged the plan as basing its rules on unsupported scientific data and saying it placed too much of the burden of shoreline restoration on property owners.
It also said regulations were inconsistently enforced.
The board ruled that there was no substantial evidence to support these challenges.
The challenges from the Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights about the lack of flexibility in the plan also were overruled.
“We are pleased with these decisions,” Alvarez said.
“We are confident that if they are appealed, they will be upheld.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
