By Cindy Beckett
EPA certified Watershed Manager

Response to Water, water isn’t always everywhere, there’s nary a drop to drink

The loss of fresh water in our county has reached dangerous, irretrievable levels.  Nothing can live without water – nothing.  Believe it or not, even rocks require water or they turn to sand.  Yet much of our precious water reserves in this county have been ruined or destroyed, due 100% to wrongly approved highest possible density development on every acre across all the land, including wetlands, streams, ponds, and aquifer recharge areas in our county, if they are in the way of profit.  It has always been illegal to do that, but we have no enforcement capability here. We did under one of the past county executives, but that went away when he did.  For that short time, we enjoyed the protection of our precious water. 

That ended when his term ended, then it was back to their destruction.  I went around and around with the past PA (prosecuting attorney) about this issue, his hands were tied because the county planning dept wrote all their development regulations under county codes without citing the parent State law (RCW) so cannot be enforced in the courts here.  That was deliberate.  Added to that was when it was confirmed to me by the White House that the GMA (growth management act) was written by the master builders of america (small caps intended) and only exists in Florida and WA. Their “act” included one small but dangerous line “deference to local government”. 

Folks in Thurston county, who were going through the same issue, took it to a Federal court, who ruled there is no such thing as deference to local government when it comes to the laws that protect the water resources and ordered both EPA & Ecology to start enforcing.  We have yet to see that happen.  Meanwhile, many laws, both Federal and State, clearly forbid destruction of water resources, but again, the losses continue here, as the approvers of all this highest possible density on every acre of land (county planning dept) ignored the court ruling, confident that they can just keep doing it without repercussion so just keep on doing it. 

It would take the voices of the people of this county to stop it, yet most remain silent.  Why is the question.  Why do you remain silent when so much is at stake?  There is only so much water, then there is no more.  Overdeveloping because, “Someone said we have to,” is ridiculous, but more ridiculous is that the people here still let it go on.  Lakes dry up because the water that fills them from below has been sucked out or developed over.  Creating 100% impervious surface on every development site has turned the permeability of the land to cement. 

If no rain can get into the soils, no water can get into the groundwater reserves that also support the creeks, ponds, lakes and streams.  It’s very basic.  But unless more folks start paying attention and finding a voice, I assure you that one day people will turn on their taps and nothing will come out!  Are you sure you want that for your families, grandchildren, great-grandchildren? Think about this very seriously, and I recommend you look at historic photos of what used to be our waterways here and what is there now.  Nothing.  Drying up everywhere. 

In the world of water science, it also remains that in order to have rain, we must have trees.  The trees give off water into the air and attract the rain from the clouds (called “evapotransporation”), or rather they used to here, until we looked the other way while the mountains were logged off over and over again and all trees in the way of private profit development across our communities were lost on every development site.  You know this is true. 

Our region used to be a temperate rain forest.  Now we have no forest, no trees on any development site across our communities, little rain and it is about to become an emergency.  There is no law that says you go to jail if do not build as many houses as every acre can handle no matter what is irretrievably lost.  There is a law however that says you cannot destroy the water resources, though.  We just don’t enforce it.  It is up to the populace here to finally find a voice and say this is no longer acceptable. 
Will you do that?  

Cindy Beckett
EPA certified Watershed Manager
no water – no life