The mood on Vashon has been celebratory in the wake of news that the Cascade Land Conservancy (CLC) is in negotiations with Glacier Northwest’s parent company for a potential purchase of its 236-acre mine site. But some have asked questions about the surprising turn of events, and a few — as a commentary on this page underscores — are criticizing the effort.
One of the key concerns is the source of the money to make such a purchase. At a time when basic services are being cut, how can the state afford what some might consider a luxury?
The reason is this: The lion’s share of the funds the state will use to help buy the site, assuming CLC is successful in its negotiations, comes from the recent $111 million Asarco bankruptcy settlement and can only go towards efforts that address the smelter’s legacy — a smoke plume that deposited arsenic and other heavy metals into the soils around South Puget Sound for nearly a century. None of the funds comes from the state’s general account — money that could be used, for instance, to help shore up public education, cut taxes or restore Basic Health.
Glacier’s Maury property sits directly in the shadow of the plume, and evidence of the land’s contamination is far-reaching. “If you look at the contaminant maps, this an absolutely appropriate use of that money,” said Tom Dean, who heads the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust.
Another question has to do with the role of the Puget Sound Partnership, the lead agency in an ambitious effort to restore Puget Sound to health and which initially was silent about Glacier’s efforts at expansion. When it issued its action agenda a little more than a year ago outlining how it hoped to restore and protect an ailing Sound, the mine on Maury wasn’t mentioned.
David Dicks, the director of the Partnership, told The Beachcomber this week that there were two reasons for that: First, the agency’s blueprint focused primarily on region-wide actions it needed to take, as opposed to specific sites it might try to protect; and second, it appeared that the company’s expansion was a fait accompli. Glacier had all its needed permits to begin building its 305-foot pier. “It was too late,” Dicks recalled.
A ruling by a U.S. District Court judge last summer dramatically altered the situation, and the Partnership jumped in to help a nascent effort to purchase the site, Dicks said. The agency did so because of what Maury’s undeveloped shoreline contributes to the bigger picture of the Sound’s health — a swath of eelgrass beds and feeder bluffs that provides some of the much-needed infrastructure for the Sound’s ecological health.
“With the exception of the dock, it’s a very large stretch of undisturbed shoreline,” Dicks said. “Those are pretty rare around the Sound.”
In the spirit of what newspapers stand for — lively debates and the inclusion of many voices — The Beachcomber chose to include a commentary challenging the decision to spend money purchasing the Glacier site. But it’s our measured opinion, based on interviews with some of the key players in this drama, that the effort to purchase the mine site is promising — and not only for Vashon. Should it come to pass, it’s a win for our beloved Puget Sound.
