WEAN now focusing on farm plans in battle over new ag rules

Published 6:00 am Saturday, December 24, 2005

Farmers are being pulled even further into the fight between Island County and an environmental group over new rules that restrict agriculture on properties with sensitive areas such as streams and wetlands.

Earlier this week, the county planning commission passed its recommendations on 21 changes to the agriculture rules to the board of county commissioners.

The controversial regulations — criticized by some farmers because they are too restrictive and by some environmentalists because they are too lax — would require farmers to complete standard or customized “farm plans.”

Hundreds of farmers in Island County have already completed farm plans voluntarily by working with the Whidbey Island Conservation District.

But last week, the Whidbey Environmental Action Network, or WEAN, filed an information request so the group could get copies of every farm plan that’s been done since 2000.

That move has farmers and others worried.

The county’s planning commission has noted that some farmers have already said they’re worried about “harassment by zealous environmentalists,” and the commission said it fears many farmers will just stop farming rather than complete a farm plan.

WEAN spokesman Steve Erickson said there are two reasons why the group has asked the conservation district for the farm plans.

“This is a government agency. The public has the right and duty to oversee it,” he said.

Secondly, Erickson said, the county has said critical areas will be protected through the use of the farm plans.

“We’re going to see, what is the management that’s proposed, what kind of buffers, if any, if there’s a grazed wetland. Is there any kind of proposed management that restricts seasonal access to it when the soils are wet?” Erickson explained.

The county is modifying its farm rules in response to a WEAN lawsuit and a 2004 court decision. That ruling said farmers on land that isn’t zoned for “rural agriculture” or “commercial agriculture” must abide by regulations that protect “critical areas” such as streams and wetlands.

Karen Krug, supervisor of the board for the Whidbey Island Conservation District, said the information request came in last week.

The district must now hand over more than 200 farm plans dating back to 2000 so WEAN can make copies of the documents.

Whether the request will have a chilling effect on farmers asking the district for help in completing farm plans in the future remains to be seen, however.

“We would hope it wouldn’t have an impact, but clearly, some people will be concerned,” Krug said.

The district notified farmers who had submitted plans of the WEAN request as a matter of policy, and the notice will also give farmers a chance to seek a court injunction against disclosure.

“We have had people call in with concerns with having their farm plans disclosed,” she said.

The district had gotten five calls by Thursday.

Duke LeBaron, a self-described organic “mini-farmer” who owns five acres in the Langley area with sheep, chickens, rabbits, ducks and other animals, completed his farm plan four years ago. His plan will be one of the ones handed over to WEAN.

While the information request is legal, LeBaron said, he expects it to have an impact.

“It will put a real damper on the ability of the conservation district to their job,” he said.

“It will make it more difficult for the conservation district to convince new people to use them,” LeBaron said of the farm plans, because the district won’t be able to keep farmers’ information confidential.

“The confidentiality has been broken by WEAN,” he said.

LeBaron once served on the district board. And he said he is “ticked off” that the leaders of WEAN are hypocritical when it comes to protecting the environment, because their own land is covered with hulks of old vehicles that are “rotting away.”

“They’re not walking their talk,” he said.

Phil Bakke, planning director for Island County, said the new rules must be finished by Jan. 31.

He noted that the planning commission reluctantly reviewed the new rules because many farmers are already struggling financially, and they’ve said more restrictions will force them out of farming.

“I don’t believe what we have got right now is necessarily what the farming community said we could live with,” Bakke said. “The farming community said, ‘Please leave us alone.’”

WEAN is expected to again challenge the new rules when they are reviewed by state decision-makers. The group has consistently criticized the county’s review of the rules, most especially, a mailer that was sent to property owners that warned of the upcoming changes.

The new restrictions don’t go far enough, said WEAN’s Erickson.

“You’ve got some default minimum regulations in there that don’t match what the science says needs to be done to protect streams and wetlands. It’s got buffers as close as 35 feet; they’re not really buffers at all, because you can mow in them right up to the stream edge. It doesn’t have limitations on grazing on wetlands during the wet season,” he said.

“And there’s no enforcement, anyway. They’re proposing a monitoring program which isn’t developed yet. And unless it shows a decline in water quality, no action will be taken.”

“It doesn’t satisfy the court order. And it doesn’t protect wetlands and streams like it’s supposed to,” Erickson said.

WEAN was harshly and repeatedly criticized by some farmers and property owners throughout the county’s public hearings on the new farm rules.

The perception exists that the activist group has unfairly focused on farmers, while it has ignored more major causes of environmental damage, such as failing septic systems or storm-water runoff from development.

Erickson readily agrees there are other sources of pollution, but says he has heard harsh words about WEAN at public meetings in the past.

“If you look at what WEAN actually does, just to say our legal work, we try to act systematically,” he said. “We don’t go around looking for individual people to find in violation. We try to deal with the law at a higher level.”

And people would rather call WEAN than the county about environmental problems.

“People call us when there’s a bulldozer in the backyard, when there’s a bulldozer in the wetland,” he added.

The county has muddied the water on which landowners will be affected by the new rules with its misleading mailers, and has also demonized WEAN in the process, Erickson said.

“We’re not going to do a mailing to 28,000 rural residents. So all I can say is look at what we do, not what people say we do,” he said.