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Skagit: Tribe asks state to impose buffers - Farmers see end of agriculture; tribe says they're overreacting
Tribal officials say farmers are overreacting. Skagit County officials have until Thursday to explain to the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board why the tribe's proposal is a bad idea. The board set that deadline on Sept. 6, a week ago. The tribe's request would require 50-foot buffers on each side of any so-called Type 4 or Type 5 stream, which are small streams with no fish in them. That includes hundreds of miles of drainage ditches in the agricultural flats of western Skagit County, many of which must be routinely cleaned out to keep sediment from filling them in. "What it means is you couldn't get in and clean them," said Paul LaCroix, manager of the Western Washington Agricultural Association. "They'd fill in in a few years, and then your drainage system goes away and you can't farm." Without the drainage ditches, the ground gets saturated with water during the winter and key crops, including tulip bulbs, would die. Growers of potatoes, cabbages and perennials would also be affected, LaCroix said. But that's not what the tribe is asking for at all, said Larry Wasserman, environmental services director for the Skagit System Cooperative, a coalition of tribes with fishing rights in Skagit County waters. The tribe wants buffers on those small streams to protect water quality, but it doesn't want to stop farmers from cleaning the ditches out, he said. "We haven't said that you can't maintain the ditches," Wasserman said. "The farm community hasn't provided any evidence that they won't be able to maintain those ditches. And the farm community hasn't provided any proposals as to how they would maintain water quality in the streams that are already degraded." Buffers are strips of vegetation installed along streams to protect the water in which fish live from runoff. The county has halfheartedly promoted buffers on larger fish-bearing streams, the so-called Type 1, 2 and 3 waters, but county commissioners repeatedly delayed a deadline that would have actually forced farmers to install buffers. The buffer requirements did not address Type 4 and 5 waters, which crisscross the delta region where most crops are grown. The brunt of the buffer regulations fell on lands east of Sedro-Woolley. While buffers on the larger streams require trees to provide shady salmon habitat, the buffers on the smaller, non-fish-bearing streams would simply be grasses and brush to provide a filter, Wasserman said. "Every one of them either enters a stream or the bay, and polluting those (Type) 4 and 5 waters pollute either the streams or the bay," he said. "We would welcome an alternative from the farmers that would provide water quality protection within the delta," he said. "To date we haven't seen a proposal from the farm community." The county's planning and public works departments are working on crafting a new law aimed at balancing salmon preservation with agriculture, with a target date of next June. The tribe asked the state board to require buffers until the county actually produces something. The request is designed to protect fish that currently are unprotected by the county, said Dave Bricklin, a Seattle lawyer who is representing the tribe. Rich Doenges, who spearheads farmland preservation for the county, said he was surprised by the tribe's request. Farmers and the tribe had made real progress in negotiations before this, he said. "I'm hoping this request (by the tribe) just reflects an ignorance of what agriculture requires," Doenges said. The change wouldn't just affect growers of ground crops, Doenges said. Anyone who has fruit trees within 50 feet of a Type 4 stream, or within 100 feet of a Type 3 or bigger stream, or within 200 feet of the Skagit or Samish rivers or Day Creek, would be unable to get to their crop this fall. Doenges estimated that the tribe's request would put 10,000 acres - about 11 percent of the county's agricultural land - in buffers. The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board has asked for initial briefs on the impacts to farming by Thursday, Sept. 19. Responses to those briefs are due on Sept. 30, and replies to responses by Oct. 7. The board will make its decision after that date. |