OLYMPIA — Pressure from environmental groups appears to have blocked legislation geared at making it easier for developers to build in upland areas while a shoreline permit is under appeal.
State Rep. Dean Takko, the prime sponsor of the legislation, declared the bill “dead on arrival” after environmental groups lobbied hard against the bill over the weekend, sending out “action alerts” saying the bill would make it easier for the coal industry to gain a foothold to export coal out of the coast of Washington.
“Once they said it would help coal and word went out it would help coal, this bill was dead on arrival,” said Takko, D-Longview. “I don’t want to be the guy out there with the reputation that I wanted to get coal in the ports. This bill is not moving forward. We’ll have to look at it another day.”
Takko acknowledged there are efforts in the Longview area to establish a terminal to export coal and recent efforts at the Port of Grays Harbor to also develop a terminal to export coal.
Takko said he never intended the legislation as a means to help the coal industry. Instead, it was geared to help developers, who are mired in a lengthy appeals process before the state Shoreline Hearings Board and the court system to build in a property’s uplands while leaving the shoreline area and an adequate buffer alone to be decided through the appeal process.
“There are some upland areas that are buildable and the appeals process shouldn’t be used to stop it,” Takko said.
The legislation does receive the caveat that local governments would need to sign off on construction being done upland, that the applicant starts building under his own risk and that the court system may not factor the upland construction into its decisions that take place along the shoreline.
But Takko’s comments were little comfort to environmental groups ranging from Futurewise, Fuse Washington, the Surfrider Foundation, the Center for Justice in Spokane, the People for Puget Sound and others, which sent out e-mail blasts, issued blog alerts and made phone calls urging legislators to kill the bill as written.
“This bill could promote the development of coal export facilities, gravel mines and other large projects whose shoreline permits are under appeal,” a notice states from the People for Puget Sound. “Support the bill with an amendment to keep the existing automatic stay for construction of projects where the upland development requires the shoreline work and will irreparably harm the shoreline environment.”
A blog post at Communities for a Coal-free Gorge linked Takko’s legislation to the coal-company Peabody Coal, which the environmental group alleges “is known for using their money and power to influence the democratic process.”
“We need to stand together to tell Peabody ‘not in our state!’” the posting declares — except Takko said the bill was not introduced on behalf of any coal company and the notion it would help the coal industry first came to his attention a few days ago.
Takko said that he still doesn’t think his legislation would help the coal industry establish a terminal on the coast.
“We’re talking about a $100 million investment, easy, to set something like that up,” Takko said. “You wouldn’t build anything in the uplands if you didn’t have a high comfort that you could do something at the shoreline area.”
Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, did prepare an amendment to ensure that the legislation could not be used for a proposed project that involves “storage, loading, or shipping facilities for fossil fuels, chemicals, radioactive materials, hazardous materials, or hazardous waste; mining or facilities that process or support mining; or waste disposal facilities.”
Van De Wege said the amendment had nothing to do with coal, but was specifically designed to prevent the bill from helping a company build a 4-mile-long conveyor belt to a pier at Hood Canal without going through a thorough review by the state Shoreline Hearings Board and the courts.
Van De Wege said he was surprised that all of this attention over coal exports came to life over the past few days.
“It’s a topic I hadn’t heard before,” he said.
