Letterbox - Response to LWWSD

Dear Watchers:

Coercion not cooperation led to the negotiations that began between the city of Bellingham and Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer District (LWW&SD). Its manager and commissioners now have an opportunity to demonstrate their concern for their customers and others who rely upon the Lake Whatcom reservoir for water. They can acknowledge the impact of development in the watershed, development that they fuel every time they agree to provide water or sewer service where state law prohibits them from doing so. They can choose to limit their own footprint in the watershed.

This is the same entity that in 1992 joined forces with the city and the county to form Lake Whatcom Cooperative Management to ensure reservoir and watershed protection. The Lake Whatcom Cooperative Management developed 21 Goals & Policies. Consider goal 13 of that pact: prevent water quality degradation associated with development within the watershed. LWW&SD’S willingness to provide water service has facilitated the development that degraded the water supply. Their proposed construction of a new facility is concrete evidence of their intention to continue to promote more of the same development.

Goals 14 & 15: Ensure sewer systems promote, improve and protect water quality without promoting growth. Does the district’s unanimous approval of extending sewer service to the proposed North Shore Estates advance this goal? Hardly.

In their plan to construct a new and costly facility, they failed to consider the future costs to their customers and the entire city of Bellingham.

For a time their disdain for city residents was apparent as they refused to postpone awarding a construction bid until the full results of a study regarding a possible merger with the city were available. The district’s customers would bear a financial burden and everyone who consumes water from the reservoir would pay in terms of diminished water quality if construction proceeded as planned.

LWW&SD’s plans to grow and expand serve only their personal financial security. It is a disservice to the more than 90,000 people who rely on the reservoir. LWW&SD should not be permitted to continue to degrade the water body it draws from to serve new customers. It has no right to additional amounts of water. Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations, LWW&SD’s policy of expanding water service to foster more development in the watershed must end.

Passage of the Growth Management Act and adoption of the County’s Comprehensive Plan made the water districts in Whatcom County largely unnecessary going forward. Their role in providing water and sewer service in rural areas was changed completely. Urban services are not necessary for rural development. In fact, they are specifically barred in order to discourage the urbanization of our rural lands.

LWW&SD refuses to acknowledge these changes, and stubbornly pursues its old policy of promoting the conversion of undeveloped rural land into low-density residential development in direct opposition to growth management and comprehensive planning.

Where future growth is to be directed and encouraged, the Growth Management Act and our Comprehensive Plan state that cities are the logical providers of the urban services that growth will require.

LWW&SD’s efforts to perpetuate itself in this dramatically changed planning environment is self-serving. It is entirely logical, and intended, that Bellingham should ultimately be the provider of these services. And Bellingham obviously would represent the interests of far more water users.

I am surprised and disappointed that city residents are not outraged. The water district demonstrates such disregard for their reservoir.

Where are those who complain so loudly that logging is degrading to the reservoir? Surely they know development is the greater threat. If they cannot tolerate logging under the restrictions of the Landscape Plan, how can they remain silent in the face of more development in our watershed? Granted, poor logging practices can have a negative impact in the watershed; however, development is even worse.

Most water users live in the city and rely on the reservoir. Why aren’t you supporting your mayor and council more strongly? It’s your water, Bellingham! You are 40 percent of Whatcom County’s population. Please support your mayor and council in their efforts to protect your water from this rogue water district.

And you should demand your county support the city in protecting the Lake Whatcom Reservoir and its watershed as well.

Dear Watchers:

Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer District’s commissioners wrote in the May 2008 issue (page 7) that their intent to serve the Lake Whatcom Residential Treatment Center stands on its own. Not according to the minutes from their board meeting of February 23, 2006, which read: “Please note Vineyard Dev’t project relationship to the LWRTC and Agate Heights Water treatment plant. The feasibility study is dated Sept. 2005. There are plenty of documents to indicate this project is moving forward.”

If Vineyard only approached the district in early September, the study was sure done fast since it’s dated Sept 10, 2005. The commissioners wrote: “It wasn’t until September of 2005 that the district was approached by the Vineyard Development Group to provide water for their proposed construction.”

On page three of the study you will find the following: “The district is also currently investigating the feasibility of acquiring the treatment center’s water system and that the additional segment of water main, the treatment center reservoir, and the upgrade of the existing Opal Terrace Booster station would also be required as part of a system expansion to serve Vineyard.” On page two you can read that the developer is entitled to latecomer fees. This means more hookups at a later date.

My copy of the district’s application to the Wash. State Dept of Health for grant funds is dated Sept.15, 2005, not July 13, 2005, as the commissioners assert.

While the map illustrating the LWRTC installation continuing to the Vineyard is no longer on the wall of their conference room, it does exist and is part of the record that was presented in Superior Court this past January. I obtained it at the district board meeting held on June 13, 2007.