Hope emerges in decade-long fight against Glacier

It’s been a long, hard fight against Glacier Northwest and there’s more to come.

After a decade of working to stop the massive expansion of Glacier Northwest’s strip mine on Maury Island, there’s new hope of forging a permanent solution that will safeguard our drinking water, critical nearshore habitat and quality of life for generations to come.

The state Senate made a strong statement about the need to protect Maury Island when we passed Senate Bill 6011 on March 6. The bill creates — in law — an aquatic reserve encompassing southeast Maury Island, Quartermaster Harbor and outer Quartermaster. The bill prohibits introducing a massive barge-loading facility within the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve.

Maury’s Aquatic Reserve was first established in 2000 by former Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher, who recognized the fragility of our Island. The reserve was ratified by the current Lands Commissioner, Doug Sutherland, in 2004.

But it is a reserve in name only. Sutherland’s “management plan” for the reserve grandfathers the mining project — not just current operations but the proposed expansion — which Glacier representatives testified could result in the removal of 80 million tons of material over a stretch of 40 years. The plan sets a dangerous precedent whereby industrial/mining operations and massive barge-loading facilities can be introduced into sensitive shoreline areas.

We can’t allow this to happen. The mine sits atop Maury Island’s only source of drinking water, and Glacier intends to mine within 15 feet of that water supply. If Glacier damages our drinking water while moving tons of material, then what?

In addition, the soils at the site have extremely high levels of arsenic. Glacier doesn’t want to remove the contaminated soils from the Island; instead they’ll build a berm on a bluff in a seismically active area to “contain the soils.” If the berm fails after the mining is done, then what?

Glacier Northwest claims they’ve met various permit requirements, the project poses no threat to the environment, and any risk that does exist can be mitigated. But the terrible health of Puget Sound shows that regulation and mitigation are failing us. We need to start saving what we’ve got — so that we can stop spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars restoring places that have been destroyed by apathy and carelessness.

That’s what King County tried to do when it denied Glacier a shoreline permit to build its dock. But a court ruled that provisions of the state’s Growth Management Act essentially over-ride the county’s effort to protect its own shorelines. The justification for this ruling traces back to a behind-the-scenes move Glacier made years ago when the Shorelines Act was being updated by the state Department of Ecology. Glacier’s attorney slipped a provision into the rules which opened the Maury Island shoreline and other conservancy shorelines to mining and barge-loading operations.

Glacier’s latest strategy is to argue that construction costs for vital transportation projects like the Alaskan Way viaduct and the 520 bridge will skyrocket without sand from Maury Island. But it’s doubtful that taking a single mining project off the table will tilt the worldwide market for sand and gravel. Glacier exports materials to such faraway places as the Marshall Islands. They have no obligation to keep their product here in Washington state.

Glacier and its lobbyists are infamous for their strong-arm tactics in Olympia. This is a classic David and Goliath battle between a powerful corporation with seemingly unlimited resources and a small Island community that most people in our state barely know exists.

So today I’m thrilled that SB 6011 has passed out of the state Senate and awaits action in the House. Representatives Joe McDermott and Eileen Cody are working hard to move this critical legislation to the governor’s desk — they too need your help and support.

Thanks to your dedication and perseverance over the years, there is still hope of saving our Island, restoring the health of Puget Sound and preserving the habitat and creatures that depend on it for survival. Never give up – not now, not ever!

Sen. Erik Poulsen, a Democrat, has represented Vashon and the rest of the 34th District in the state Senate since 2002. He served in the House from 1995 to 2001. Poulsen chairs the Water, Energy and Telecommunications Committee.

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