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Public Comment on the 2016 Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan Update Date: Sunday, January 24, 2016 11:23:31 PM

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Public Comment on the 2016 Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan Update Date: Sunday, January 24, 2016 11:23:31 PM From: Sandra Robson To: Council Cc: Jack Louws; PDS Subject: Public comment on the 2016 Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan Update Date: Sunday, January 24, 2016 11:23:31 PM Dear Whatcom County Council members, Please consider this a public comment on the 2016 Whatcom County Comprehensive ("Comp") Plan Update. First, I would like make an acknowledgement of our Coast Salish neighbors: I acknowledge that this land is the traditional territory of the Lummi and Nooksack Peoples. Their presence is imbued in these mountains, valleys, waterways, and shorelines. May we nurture our relationship with our Coast Salish neighbors, and the shared responsibilities to their homelands where we all reside today. Cherry Point is home to a significant environmental resource and unique aquatic ecosystem in the Strait of Georgia, in the northern Puget Sound. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), in 2000, realized the need to protect the significant environmental resource of aquatic lands at Cherry Point and designated those state-owned lands that were not already under a lease agreement, as the "Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve." In order to ensure long-term environmental protection, DNR put into put into place a 90-year management plan called the "Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve Management Plan." The plan is aimed at protecting the health and aquatic environment of Cherry Point. In the plan it states the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve’s "marine waters and aquatic lands are a portion of Treaty- protected Usual and Accustomed grounds and stations of local Native American Indians, and are used by the Indians for commercial, ceremonial, and subsistence purposes." In the waterways in and around Cherry Point, Lummi fishers harvest salmon, halibut, herring, crab and shellfish. The increased vessel traffic accompanying the proposed coal export terminal, Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT), would harm the tribe’s ability to exercise its treaty-guaranteed rights to harvest those fish and shellfish. There are already oil tankers in the Salish Sea due to the BP and the Phillips 66 refineries, and if GPT were built and operating, 487 Panamax and Capesize vessels are expected to call on the terminal, going in and out of Cherry Point every year. All these large vessels will be competing for space in the sensitive waters. All it would take is just one vessel accident inside the Salish Sea and the Lummi Nation's way of life (Schelangen) would be gone. The Vessel Traffic Risk Assessment Study (VTRAS) released in November 2014, provides substantial evidence of some of, but not including all of, the impacts to the Lummi Nation’s treaty fishing rights from the increased vessel traffic that the proposed GPT would bring to the Northern part of the Puget Sound. The VTRAS was conducted for GPT applicant SSA Marine/Pacific International Terminals (PIT), by Glosten and Associates, with oversight by the state Department of Ecology. Gateway Pacific Terminal [SSA Marine/PIT] and the Lummi Nation also participated in the VTRAS. The VTRAS states: "The siting of the wharf and trestle at the proposed GPT and the potential anchorage use by bunkers will interfere with Lummi access to fishing sites. .The analysis predicts that GPT would increase the Lummi fishing disruption by 76% in the Cherry Point area. Link to VTRAS: http://www.eisgatewaypacificwa.gov/sites/default/files/content/files/20141104_Vessel_Traffic_and_Risk_Assessment_Study- Glosten_small_0.pdf And, now that the ban on exporting crude oil has been lifted by Congressional legislation that became law in December 2015, if the BP and Phillips 66 refineries were to begin exporting crude oil, the potential for accidents is increased even more. Exporting crude oil from Cherry Point refineries was not part of the VTRAS when the analysis showed that there would be a 76% increase in the disruption of Lummi fishing. Considering the information in the VTRAS, it is clear to see that the Lummi Nation's December 10, 2015 comment on the Whatcom County Comp Plan Update recommending a new policy that "the shipment of coal, or crude oil, from any new shipping terminal or pier, or any existing terminal or pier, is prohibited," is very reasonable, and should be included in our County Comp Plan. Whatcom County Planning and Development, and the County Council which makes final decisions about our Whatcom County Comp Plan, cannot deny, and cannot ignore, the significance of Cherry Point to the Lummi Nation. County decision makers can no longer continue to permit new projects and development at Cherry Point which would include heavy industry businesses and the pollution they bring, such as a 48 million metric ton per year coal export terminal, or the business of exporting crude oil, both of which, are not currently in existence at Cherry Point. Not only are these types of polluting businesses/industries harmful to the Lummi Nation, but they also are harmful to the rest of the residents in Whatcom County. Trading our environment's future, and our future health, for any number of what have been dubbed as "family wage jobs" or "high wage jobs" is not acceptable. Yet, we are being told by advocates for projects such as GPT that it is not only acceptable, but that it's our duty to embrace these jobs, as they are supposedly our future salvation—when anyone looking at the reasonably foreseeable adverse impacts of the GPT project or the exporting of crude oil from Cherry Point refineries, knows the perils of these industries. The herring population at Cherry Point is dwindling, declining more than 92% between the 1970s and 2012. Cherry Point herring, is considered a "Distinct Population Segment" under the Endangered Species Act, and it is a keystone species, supporting a variety of other species that share their habitat. It is my understanding that the herring make up two thirds of the diet of the federally protected Chinook salmon, and the Chinook in turn provide two-thirds of the food supply for Puget Sound Orcas. Puget Sound Orca are also a federally protected species by the Endangered Species Act. In an April 3, 2014 letter to Governor Jay Inslee, the Lummi Indian Business Council (LIBC) stated, "…the Lummi Nation has a treaty right to harvest salmon and shellfish in a manner sufficient to support our Schelangen (‘way of life’)." Schelangen is a right guaranteed and protected by the Treaty of Point Elliott with the U.S. government. Link to LIBC April 3, 2014 letter: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/swqs/LummiltrtoGovFCR040414.pdf The LIBC wrote in its June 6, 2011 letter to the U.S. Department of Interior that, "The Lummi people have fished in the Nooksack River and the waters of northern Puget Sound since time immemorial. Article V of the Treaty of Point Elliott provides that the 'right of taking fish from usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the territory.'" The June 6, 2011 LIBC letter went on to say, "The Lummi Nation retains a federal reserved Indian water right to instream flows sufficient to support their treaty fishing rights...Lummi also retains a federal reserved water right for consumptive uses necessary to fulfill other purposes of its reservation." The LIBC letter also stated, "At this time, state-permitted water diversions have reduced flows in the Nooksack River and threaten the fish species that make up the Nation's treaty fishery. In addition, state sanctioned water withdrawals within the Lummi Reservation threaten the Nation's reserved water rights on the Reservation." Link to June 6, 2011 LIBC letter to DOI: http://nwcitizen.com/pdfs/2014pdfs/90LummiNationLitigationRequest6711.pdf It was reported in a June 2013 Bellingham Herald article, that "Farmers admit that more than half the water they withdraw is not authorized by state law." Link to June 2013 Bellingham Herald article: http://citizenreviewonline.org/water-dispute-clouds-future-for-whatcom- county-farms-factories Add to that unauthorized use of water by some farmers in Whatcom, the millions of gallons of water per day that are used by Cherry Point industries currently operating, and the millions of gallons of water to be used daily for proposed GPT project, and it is easy to understand that encouraging more development at Cherry Point, and even throughout Whatcom County, is clearly not in the best interest of all Whatcom residents—especially the tribes such as Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe whose water rights are senior to industrial and agricultural water users, and all other water users in Whatcom. The Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe have a federally recognized treaty right to catch salmon from the Nooksack River. About 4 years ago, both tribes requested federal agencies file a lawsuit on their tribes' behalf to legally compel the state of Washington to take measures to define the amount of water they should be guaranteed, in order to uphold the flow of water (instream flow) in the Nooksack River and its tributaries, thus upholding the tribes' treaty rights. It is probable that would would mean curtailing the amount of water that users such as agricultural and industrial users, are allowed to withdraw. Currently, SSA Marine/PIT is contracted (through 2042) with the Whatcom County PUD 1 for a capacity of up to 5.33 million gallons of Nooksack River water daily. There was no amount listed in that contract for operating demand, so until that amount would ever be defined, one could then assume 5.33 million gallons daily is the amount to be used. That contract was signed in March, 2013. The water at GPT will be used to spray the 2 ½ miles of 60 ft. tall coal piles to prevent the coal from spontaneously combusting, as well as to try to minimize coal dust.
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