I am still pinching myself. After 13 years, a gravel mine is dead and the land is protected. Wow.
There is one thing very clear: Judge Ricardo Martinez’s decision to cast out Glacier’s dock permit — a turning point in this long battle — did not happen in a vacuum.
Let’s look back to 1999, when the mine expansion was a foregone conclusion. An assumption was in the air. The gravel was needed for the third runway at SeaTac and other projects. They had what they needed to start.
This did not “fly” with the neighbors. At their insistence, an EIS and more than a dozen permits at all levels of government would be required. This would be a long fight, which started and ended at the shoreline.
Since then, we have learned what was really at stake. Studies have shown Maury’s near shore to be essential to Puget Sound and have led to an aquatic reserve, declarations of endangered orcas, salmon and the ecosystem itself.
And, more recently, we have the governor-sponsored, legislature-passed Puget Sound Partnership, a consortium of interested parties all concerned with the health of Puget Sound.
When we started, we did have our allies. State Representative Dow Constantine answered my first e-mail with, “We have to stop this bad idea.” He has never wavered and has grown in his influence, now as King County Executive.
Other elected officials, such as past State Sen. Eric Poulson, State Rep. and now County Councilman Joe McDer-mott and Ron Sims, past county executive, worked hard to stop the mine.
And remember the real frontliners, founder of Preserve Our Islands(POI) Sharon Nelson (now our state senator) and all the others who served as president and board members over the years. And we could not have prevailed without our magnificent legal team.
POI built relationships with neighboring communities, other environmental organizations and the news media. We made sure that no big or even little ruling or action slipped past the press.
And we didn’t let Lonestar/Glacier/CalPortland get away with anything. When they claimed the old dock was serviceable, we sent photos to the county. We stopped a sneaky rider on a state bill. We stayed vigilant. We publicized their environmental misdeeds.
When we were counseled to give up and “negotiate” (Glacier’s terms: “You get the dock, negotiate the hours”), our deep ponderings brought a unanimous “no way!” We could not let this Island down for a “better bargaining position.”
However, this fight was not just between a huge corporation and a few people on a board.
It was waged by a small Island community full of conviction and spirit and heart that used all of the best of what we had to exercise our full participation in the legal and legislative and expressive processes available to us as citizens of the county, state and country. And as we went, our activism got stronger and louder.
Every one of us who gave money, attended meetings, made signs, painted huge cardboard fish and carried them in the parade and stuck stickers on cars and signs on lawns; everyone who attended a hearing, signed petitions, wrote letters to agencies and newspapers and made phone calls; everyone who blocked Glacier’s gates, paddled in flotillas and demonstrated in all their myriad ways; everyone who prayed, held the dream, smoked a peace pipe, even when things looked hopeless, contributed to this victory.
Judge Martinez’s decision was made in a very different climate than 10 years before. The awareness that the sound could no longer afford the business-as-usual “death of a thousand cuts” was undeniable, and we never allowed that message to die.
With the miracle of the acquisition, we will always have our hands around Maury. More and more hands will be called to protect more and more of our Earth. What a precedent we have set here!
Did I wander into an adjacent reality? Did we really win? Yes. In hindsight, sooner or later, we just had to.
— Marnie Jones-Koenig, a former POI board member, produced Hands Around Maury in 1999, an event that drew 500 Islanders.
