BY AMY CAREY

For The Beachcomber

Doug Sutherland should be ashamed of himself. On Dec. 1, 2008, the Puget Sound Partnership adopted a bold new plan to follow as the State moves forward in its commitment to restore Puget Sound by 2020.

One short day later, in granting Glacier’s lease, Mr. Sutherland gained the dubious distinction of being the first to break the plan’s No. 1 priority action — to protect the Sound’s intact ecosystem processes, structures and functions. Places like Maury Island.

In upcoming years, the taxpayers will pay billions of dollars to restore Puget Sound. In contrast, Doug Sutherland decided it would be OK to let Glacier pay the state $1,500 per year to destroy it.

Doug Sutherland granted Glacier this lease with serious environmental issues unresolved and pending litigation and after thousands of citizens asked him to deny it. Thousands of letters were written and phone calls were made asking that this last best place in Puget Sound be preserved and that this land, our land, not be used as a corporate giveaway.

He granted this lease after receiving word that 25 Pew Fellows, pre-eminent experts in protecting the world’s waterways, sent word they believed that allowing Glacier’s proposed use of the reserve would contradict international standards for marine protected areas.

He granted this lease after being presented with sound science and documentation showing without question that Glacier’s proposal would cause significant environmental harm and not meet specific conditions set forth in the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve Management Plan as being necessary for lease consideration, much less approval.

He granted this lease even though the federal chinook recovery plan notes the Maury nearshore “cannot be overestimated in its value toward the recovery of endangered chinook” and that this area should be protected from development at every level of government oversight.

He granted this lease after learning of the seven recent orca deaths and of the whale’s lack of food, with full knowledge that the orcas depend on Maury Island for food during the late fall and early winter months.

Even though the construction and barging operation proposed by Glacier will very likely cause the orcas to be displaced from this important foraging habitat, he proceeded.

He granted this lease after People for Puget Sound, Washington State Audubon, the Sierra Club, Preserve Our Islands and the Washington State Environmental Council — which itself represents more than 60 smaller environmental organizations across the state — wrote a letter asking that at a minimum a lease decision be delayed. The delay would allow time for an emergency orca recovery plan related to this endangered whale’s sudden population decline to be incorporated and to include planning related to the Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Agenda, which calls for the use of aquatic reserves as a tool in Puget Sound recovery.

He granted this lease after Washington voters spoke very clearly, telling Sutherland his business as usual was not our business as usual. And, most tellingly, he granted this lease after Glacier Northwest, who he once called his “good friends,” made a $50,000 donation to a special interest political action committee created by timber and mining companies that wanted to see Sutherland re-elected.

What a sad, albeit fitting, legacy to leave as his tenure at the helm of the Department of Natural Resources.

Preserve Our Islands immediately appealed Doug Sutherland’s act of quid pro quo. And due to Sutherland’s blatant disregard for fact and truth, as well as for the state mandate that the use of public lands must first and foremost be for the benefit of the public trust, we expect that a judge may have a slightly different opinion on the issuance of this lease.

And rest assured, while an official appeal decision will not be made for several months, we expect that by the time this paper goes to press, we will have likely already filed an injunction for a stop work order.

Some of you have already seen and heard the industrial machinery that Glacier has moved to the site to begin dismantling the remnants of their last 40 years of environmental degradation. Preserve Our Islands is working hard, for you and with you, to make sure that they don’t get one more day, much less another 40 years, to pillage Maury Island’s nearshore.

Yes, it is disheartening to see Puget Sound sold out by public officials like Doug Sutherland. And it can be unsettling to see construction barges at Maury Island. But please don’t despair — there is without question plenty of fight left in this battle and as much as Glacier would like us to think it is, this is by no means a done deal.

Even with this lease issued we have miles of good legal ground to stand on as we continue in the fight for Maury Island and for Puget Sound.

There is a lease that was issued as a quid pro quo favor, federal agencies in violation of the Endangered Species Act and permits granted that don’t protect the nearshore as required by law. All of this adds up to a legal pathway unfolding before us where we will finally have the environmental issues related to this project looked at in clear light – and judges don’t owe Glacier any political favors.

Yesterday, orcas from both J and K pods came to Maury Island in search of badly needed food. Already a fragile and troubled species, there have been seven more deaths recently confirmed, putting the population and the species in nothing short of peril.

Had Glacier been pile driving or loading gravel barges yesterday, the underwater noise would have likely meant that the orcas would have not been able to use this important foraging area during a time when they are literally starving to death.

This is why we fight. We fight for the orcas, we fight for the salmon, we fight for our clean air and water, and we fight for the protection of Puget Sound. We fight for you, and we fight with you. And after 10 years, it will take more than a noisy red construction barge and some chain link fencing to stop us from stopping Glacier. As always and now more than ever — not now, not ever.

— Amy Carey heads Preserve Our Islands, a grassroots group fighting Glacier Northwest’s expansion on Maury.