Washington property rights measure raises concern
State and local fishing organizations warned Wednesday that Initiative 933, the property rights initiative, would roll back a decade of stream protection rules and threaten habitat restoration efforts on waterways statewide, including the East Fork of the Lewis River.
An unreleased draft report by the the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, prepared by staff members in the habitat and wildlife divisions, reaches some of the same conclusions.
I-933 would force local governments to pay property owners when they enforce laws that require them to leave a portion of their property undeveloped, or else waive those laws.
Its "pay or waive" language would also apply to rules that prevent landowners from cutting trees on their property and to regulations that restrict the operation of tide gates, man-made embankments and irrigation systems, including water diversions.
"Initiative 933 is bad for fishermen," said Richard Kennon, a member of Clark-Skamania Fly Fishers and a board member of the Native Fish Society, in a statement. "It would open the door to reckless development, putting salmon and steelhead habitat at risk. Lost habitat means fewer fish, and fewer fishing opportunities." The Clark County chapter of Trout Unlimited also opposes the measure.
Environmental and fishing groups say the initiative, sponsored by the Washington Farm Bureau, would force local governments to waive rules protecting federally listed salmon and steelhead and could even prompt further restrictions on fish harvests.
"That's a stretch," said Dan Wood of the Washington Farm Bureau, the sponsor of I-933. "No laws are going to be repealed by I-933. It's not going to reduce fishing."
However, a June 16 analysis by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, prepared for Deputy Director Larry Peck, warned that the initiative could force waivers of state stream buffer rules, undermine the state's ability to regulate activities under the state hydraulic code and hurt programs designed to protect threatened fish and wildlife under the federal Endangered Species Act.
For example, if the department lost the ability to regulate hydraulic activities, "this would have significant detrimental impacts to Washington fish resources, especially those listed as threatened or endangered, as well as the myriad of salmonid recovery initiatives under way to restore and improve those resources," the memo said.
The report also predicted that the initiative would create "significant conflict with other state statutes," including the Growth Management Act, the Shoreline Management Act, the State Environmental Policy Act and the Forest Practices Act, which among other provisions requires stream buffers on state and private land.
"I-933 would reduce or eliminate the incentive for forest landowners to participate in forums to arrive at consensus ways of implementing the Forest Practices Act," the memo said.
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Property rights measure raises concern
