Mining threatens Sound, island

By Erik Poulsen and Peter Goldman
Guest columnists

The Legislature is on the verge of preserving Maury Island and the Puget Sound waters that surround it forever. But a powerful mining company is standing in the way.

Tiny Maury Island straddles the southeast corner of Vashon Island. It boasts one of the largest undeveloped shorelines left in King County and prime habitat for endangered salmon, birds and even orcas.

Recognizing Maury Island’s importance to the future of Puget Sound, former Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher created an “aquatic reserve” in 2000 to discourage the massive expansion of Glacier Northwest's sand-mining operation in the heart of the island and to prevent decades-long barging of material across the Sound.

The reserve was ratified by current Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland in 2004. But it’s a reserve in name only, since his “management plan” grandfathers the proposed mining expansion, which Glacier testified could mean extracting and barging 80 million tons of material over 40 years.

Glacier’s plans pose a huge threat to the health of Puget Sound – and Maury Island’s drinking water. The island’s only aquifer lies directly below the mining site. Soil at the site contains dangerously high levels of arsenic, caused by decades of downwind fallout from the Asarco copper smelter near Tacoma. When this toxic soil is disturbed, arsenic could leech into the island's lone water supply.

Glacier has proposed to bulldoze the top layer of soil and store it in an enormous berm. Should the berm rupture because of a slide or earthquake, the soil would flow downhill into Puget Sound and devastate the nearshore ecosystem.

The risks of this mining expansion far outweigh the need for Maury Island’s sand – especially in light of what we now know about the dire state of Puget Sound.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has been a powerful leader on the need to protect and restore the Sound. Her Puget Sound Partnership has developed an aggressive plan for recovery that includes a goal to restore 100 miles of damaged shorelines.

Senate Bill 6011 would preserve the fragile shorelines of Maury Island, so taxpayers needn’t spend tens of millions of dollars restoring them after the damage is done.

SB 6011 would create, in state law, a 235-acre Maury Island Aquatic Reserve that prohibits the expansion of industrial activities such as mining and barging materials across Puget Sound. It would require the state’s Department of Natural Resources to manage the area to conserve native habitats, protect and restore nearshore ecosystems, and provide for low-impact public uses such as education and recreational diving.

The bill passed the Senate on March 6 and awaits action in the House. But intense lobbying against the measure by Glacier and the mining industry threatens to derail this critical step in the recovery of Puget Sound. That’s why it’s essential for people to call or write their state representatives and ask them to support SB 6011.

The environmental impact statement for this harmful mining expansion states there are “several unavoidable adverse impacts on the marine environment ... . The severity of these impacts cannot be fully predicted.” This is not the vision anyone wants for our waters – and it certainly won’t help us repair our troubled Puget Sound.

Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-West Seattle, represents Vashon and Maury islands and is the prime sponsor of SB6011. Peter Goldman is founder and director of the Washington Forest Law Center, a nonprofit, public interest law firm.

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