For the last decade or more Kitsap County and its consortium cities have spent untold amounts of money and time creating rules and regulations that have had a tremendous impact on how waterfront property owners can use their property in the name of resource protection.
   Exhaustive planning procedures, hours of meetings, and fortunes were spent discussing buffer widths alone. How wide should setbacks be and how many feet away should property owners be limited to develop from streams and shoreline? The idea behind buffers has been to naturally filter stormwater runoff through native vegetation before it discharges to critical areas or sensitive shorelines – a measure to prevent negative impacts to water quality and fish habitat.
   It is a good theory, sound science, and proven to be effective but it crosses into a very contentious and integral part of American history… personal property rights.
   Most citizens welcome measures and regulations that protect, enhance, and preserve our natural environment. Many are cognizant of the role we all play in the delicate balance of our ecosystem, health of our streams, estuaries, bays, and willingly accept our fair share of responsibility for their protection.
   The primary focus of regulations however, fall squarely onto the shoulders of waterfront property owners. They may think twice before picking up a hammer without running the gauntlet of expensive assessments, permits, inspections, and anticipate lengthy responses from an overburdened bureaucracy labored with oversight and enforcement of stringent rules and regulations.
   This beckons the question “Are we myopically placing too much emphasis on the role of waterfront property owners and ignoring the bigger picture?” That bigger pictures being the impacts of municipal public projects, commercial, and private developments. Several recent events in North Kitsap certainly suggest we should refocus.
   The Olhava development has deforested 220 acres of heavily wooded land to develop a shopping center. Developments and growth are a fact of life... particularly as we desire the economic benefits that come with it. What we should not have to accept is irresponsible,

Are there one set of rules and regulations for property owners and another for municipalities? The asphalt pictured above is a clear violation of the law, yet it was put in place along Lemolo Shore Drive by county work crews. Pictured above is the outfall pip the county required a developer to install to handle stormwater runoff.

environmentally insensitive developers who design systems that channel contaminated runoff from parking lots and buildings straight into nearby creeks and Puget Sound.
   Well written plans claimed that stormwater would be infiltrated back into thirsty soils on site with no residual runoff. Not so, as currently, even before a single brick has been laid, significant silt-laden stormwater runoff is being sent straight into salmon-bearing Dogfish and Johnson Creeks.
   What is the benefit of imposing stringent regulations on small private waterfront property owners if these huge developments are merely allowed to use our sensitive streams and critical areas as a repository for their polluted runoff?
   A little further south, Keating Construction, while complying with the law, is building houses after clear-cutting an area formerly populated by old growth firs, cedars, and native vegetation directly uphill of property owner Frank Nausids’ waterfront home — where he has lived for over 50 years.
   “My wife and I have loved and cared for this property all this time and now all of a sudden these houses are crammed into that small space and there is no where for the water to go but downhill to my property. I worry about the contamination to my well and my septic system becoming overloaded. In all those years we never had runoff from that property but now the volume of water is so great that the county forced the developer to stick a big outfall pipe to the beach to handle the massive stormwater runoff he created in the first place. We are all having to pay the price for this because all the runoff and the pollution it picks up along the way dump straight into Nesika Bay affecting its water quality.”
   What value, after so much time and money discussing vegetation buffers, if developments are merely allowed to bypass restrictions by tight lining contaminated runoff in a straight shot to the bay?
   The Coupe d’ Gross is the recent Liberty Bay Waterfront Trail designed and built by the City of Poulsbo extending outside city limits into over a mile of unincorporated Kitsap County. While the “official” line has proclaimed lofty goals of “protecting sensitive shorelines and responsible stewardship”, municipalities are allowed to increase impervious surfaces immediately adjacent to the water, making a mockery of negotiations with the public about development standards and Best Management Practices.
   Despite statements in the project’s biological assessment that “new impervious surface would sheet flow through 60 feet of grass prior to entering Liberty Bay” grading was done, with gravel and asphalt laid directly adjacent to and atop eroding shorelines, bulkheads, and 100-year old trees lining the critical areas of Liberty Bay.
   As evident in the photo, any runoff would be lucky to flow through 6 feet let alone 60 feet of vegetation!
   Another fallacy reads that “No vegetation with the exception of grass would be removed” This is of specific concern to several waterfront property owners along Lemolo who, several years ago, voluntarily gave the Washington State Department of Ecology a ten-year conservation easement along the water and the Lemolo Citizens Club awarded a $214,000 grant for re-vegetation and restoration efforts early 2001.
   Several established three to four-year old cedar and fir trees as well as bushes were plucked from their roots and placed into holes clearly too small for them while smaller plants and ground covers may have been discarded altogether. Whether trained master gardeners were present to supervise this action, as they were when going into the ground is questionable. Some are now dying or exhibiting visible signs of distress.
   Now that the pavement cuts two to-three feet into the original setback of plantings, as these plants mature they may become a hazard to bicyclists. One area with 100-year-old trees will not lose existing trees now, but loss of soils compromise their stability and nutrient/water surface advantage… conditions that may doom these for future destruction because they’ve become “dangerous” to pedestrians.
   Experienced native gardeners understand the difficulty of transplanting older plants and the digging required in mixed rocky soils to gain an appropriate sized hole. Though had the intentions of earlier biological assessments — paid for with public money — been adhered to, there would not have been movement of established plants and root structures there to prevent erosion and filter stormwater run-off.
   The net loss to the DOE-EPA 319 Nearshore project is not measured only in volunteer and staff time, materials, and equipment costs with the re-vegetation efforts but the greater loss to existing buffer where plants were unable to be replaced or new areas planted due to slope and rocky areas lacking equivalent soil or stability.
   Richard Best, waterfront property owner and president of the Lemolo Citizens Club, stated “this roadway project is so poorly conceived given the emphasis these past five years on sustainable development practices and the efforts Kitsap County has made to protect streams and nearshore habitat that it is laughable. There are newly paved areas that will drain petroleum hydrocarbons, metals and other possible road contaminants directly into Liberty Bay without flowing through any type of biofiltration vegetation (a development practice for the last fifteen years for projects a mile from fresh and salt water bodies). In addition, it has clearly established two construction standards – one for private property owners and another for municipalities.”
   Rules and regulations are created for the betterment of our citizens and should be applicable to all — from public municipal projects to large developers to private property owners — and equally enforced. No doubt we should all care, protect, and be responsible stewards of the natural resources we cherish.