"As Washington state implements its "nation-leading environmental policies", I don't know who wrote that, but please correct your statement - it is untrue and can absolutely be proven to be untrue!

Wordsmithing can be very misleading sometimes, so it is with your above false statement.  There can be no "nation-leading environmental policies" when you have no enforcement of the environmental laws in WA - especially water laws - and no one trained or authorized in this issue at all.  State departments continue to infer that development MUST be done at highest density possible on every acre of land _(no matter what is permanently lost), while the State has done nothing to correct that to this day.  It remains impossible to get any enforcement in this State, nor help from the State to protect the very last of our water resources here unless local govts enforce, which most cannot and many do not want to as it would impede their State implied mandatory highest density development plans.

No one at the State will listen and it has always been impossible for the everyday people to reach the Governor.  I know - I gave up trying! It took a Federal District court judge, in a case brought before her by citizens in Olympia, to rule that there is no deference to local government as was implied in this State's growth "management" act, (we call it the growth (mis)management act" as there is NO management at all), who ordered that both EPA & Ecology were to start enforcing.  That still has not happened, especially at the State Ecology level, and we are still running out of fresh water in this region with no end of this travesty in sight - in spite of all the laws that demand protection of our water resources!   Hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars have already been lost in this pretend effort to "save the Orcas" while they continue to die, the reasons are available but the State agencies and elected leaders continue to ignore that and do nothing but talk about it.

Without abundant fresh water flowing out to the Orcas, they will continue to die, yet this State continues to infer that local govts MUST develop at highest density possible on every acre of land, even at the loss of most of the water resources, inferring that if local govts do not build at the highest density possible on every acre of land as dictated by the State, they will lose State funding.

Now, with the loss of the glacier that used to provide most of the water to this area, it becomes an emergency.  Our rivers are polluted, nearshore tidal waters are highly polluted (commencement Bay is Federally listed as a DEAD ZONE), far too many creeks and streams are dried up because their sources were developed on, our wetlands and aquifers destroyed (proven) to accommodate development, and so much
contamination still gets into the Inlets that the Orcas must try to survive in, they have dropped in numbers alarmingly while no one does anything but talk about it.

This is not "nation leading" policy at all!

Thank you for your time.

Cindy Beckett
EPA certified Watershed Manager
no water - no life