by Claudia Finseth
27 March, 2024

Last week the Tacoma News Tribune carried some interesting articles related to the Hearing Examiner meetings that had just wrapped up on the proposed use of the Spanaway Marsh for a high-density development. The plan is for a tiny home village for people experiencing chronic homelessness at the end of their lives. Opposing sides have grown up, and the issue has become heated, resulting in lawsuits.

In one rather sensationalist article, reporter Cameron Sheppard compared the controversy over the use of the Marsh to a battle between people and squirrels, as in who is the most important, anyway? 

In another, more salient article, former Washington State Republican Party chairman, Chris Vance, wrote about the mess Pierce County has made of land use planning in general, and implementation of the Growth Management Act in particular, compared to King County.

I’d like to take a moment to try to get to the real heart of this matter by comparing the “expert testimonies” by the biologists who were the wetland specialists for the hearings, one for the building applicants, and one for the appellants who oppose the use of the Marsh for high density development.

The whole thing centers around Category I and Category II wetlands as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. Which is the Spanaway Marsh?

The biologist for the building applicant says it is a Category II wetland, and so high-density development is permit-able there. That biologist’s reasoning was that there is evidence of human activity on the land: specifically some trash, signs of camping, and signs of walking.

But most of these reasons are due to trespassing behavior, not-owner activity. There has been little to no owner activity since white settlers arrived a century and a half ago. For instance, there has been no fill dumped on the site, and no building of dikes or industrial activity as on the Puyallup River. There is no toxic pollution on the site like the Tacoma Smelter spread over large swaths of Tacoma’s North End. No signs of toxic spills or toxic uses of any size.

In Contrast, the biologist for the appellants, Dr. Sarah Spear Cooke, Past President of the Northwest Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists, wrote this conclusion to her appraisal of the Marsh:

“This site, situated adjacent to a major wetland complex (Spanaway Lake / Wetland) and within two large high quality wetlands (A and B), is unsuitable for any development, because the construction and continued use of the property as a tiny house village with many active residents would cause an adverse impact to the wetlands and surrounding oak forest ecosystem for numerous reasons (detailed below) and further, the mitigation proposed would be highly inadequate to compensate for the clearly foreseeable and devastating impacts.”

How will the Hearing Examiner rule? We should know by the end of this week.

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[Editor note: There is a KOMO News article HERE with quotes from Paul Lubbesmeyer and the attorney for Spanaway Concerned Citizens, Zak Griefen. There is also a link to the recordings of the Village Hearings HERE.]