Taking A Look At The National Heritage Area Proposal

By Krist Novoselic

The proposal to create a Columbia Pacific National Heritage Area (NHA) has been a hot topic in Wahkiakum County lately. Last December, the Grays River Grange invited people involved in the issue to submit statements for and against the proposal. The Wahkiakum County Board of Commissioners is set to vote on whether to endorse the NHA or not. District 3 Commissioner Blair Brady has come out against the NHA. This has prompted me to take a look into the situation.

Comm. Brady has apparently examined the proposal, and has stated: "I have looked deeply into the NHA and have found no down side to it personally. I have also been unable to document the negative allegations spreading around about The NHA". Regardless of this reasoning, his conclusion is still to vote nay on the proposal, on the grounds that he only wants to represent his constituents. So one must now ask – who are these constituents? There's a vocal group opposing the NHA. I know there are also people who support it.

Season of Political Discontent

It's the fear of losing property rights to the feds that seems to be motivating most of the local opposition to the NHA. The proposal is clear when it says, “A national heritage area boundary does not restrict land use or change any existing right or authority held by private property owners or public entities.” Regardless, there are those who still oppose the NHA as some kind of federal land grab. It’s been reported in the Eagle that a petition against NHA containing “173 or more signatures of persons opposing the NHA proposal” was submitted to the board of commissioners. The article also reports some in the opposition mixing property rights concerns with partisan rhetoric aimed at the current presidential administration. There was similar partisanship during the LNG controversy when some opponents of Bradwood Landing painted Northern Star as a shady Texas energy company with ties to the Bush administration.

What's Going To Happen?

From what I have read, the NHA is basically a federal government economic developmental program. Instead of creating a local board of directors, the feds are using the non-profit ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia (SBEC) to manage loans and grants. The total amount of funds available can reach up to $15 million.

SBEC wants to loan and grant funds to projects that create family resilience, ecological resilience and economic resilience. Even without the NHA, SBEC has supported projects along these lines. 

SBEC already provides non-bank capital. These are funds from philanthropist trusts and non-profits; money for things a bank will not lend to. This is the gist of the NHA. It's do-gooder stuff but hardly any kind of federal property regulation.

Who Controls The National Heritage Area?

The program calls for an “implementation plan”. SBEC has been careful as to not use the term “management plan” – likely an attempt to ease suspicions of private property regulation. Opponents interpret the term "management plan" as a way for the unelected SBEC to control private property.

An National Heritage Area structure has been proposed that includes an Advisory Board chosen by SBEC and the National Park Service. The Director of the Advisory Board is chosen by SBEC - and not the Advisory Board members themselves. SBEC holds most of the control but claim they “…will seek input from community leadership in the designation of this person as well as appointment of Advisory Board members."

Opposition to the NHA might be uneasy about the power the federal dollars puts in the hands of the SBEC itself. Looking at SBEC’s NHA organizational chart, (below) the Advisory Board flow has its own course apart from other aspects of the structure. This might be aggravating suspicion, as there appears to be a straight line from SBEC to the NHA manager. But according to SBEC “Advisors would inform and approve multi-year strategy, annual work plans, budget and performance to plan.” Also, why are the SBEC Directors and SBEC President in the chart separate from the SBEC in the bottom left? 

I believe the key to a successful NHA program will be the SBEC working together with an Advisory Board that really has a grasp of the needs and values of the entire community. A plan that encourages economic development will likely not find much opposition. It’s in the ecological resilience aspect, however, where the problems could arise. As we’ve seen in Grays River, regardless of legitimate concerns or even irresponsible accusations, preservation that could impact private landowners will taint the NHA effort. The Advisory Board needs to act as a real bottom-up mechanism. It should be a liaison from the community at large to the NHA – looking for ways to avoid controversies, especially in the hot-button sphere of property rights.

Personal Ideologies

Let me share my feelings on the NHA. I am generally opposed to things like this on the grounds that the federal government has been spending too much money for too long. Be it Democrat or Republican - the politicians are pulling money from a seemingly bottomless trough. I have stayed mostly silent on the issue because I know my position would not save the federal treasury one penny; as millions of federal dollars will likely then be spent elsewhere -- so why not here? In addition, the issue of federal deficit spending should be addressed in the halls of congress or in elections for federal office -- and not the courthouses of Cathlamet or South Bend.

Opponents of NHA claim that “great pressure is applied to local governments” to follow the management / implementation plan. The Wahkiakum County Board of Commissioners answers to the voters. Perhaps the “greatest pressure” that public officials can face is that from their constituents. I don’t know the extent of any pressure exerted on Commissioner Brady, but regardless of his discoveries that negate much of the fears of the loss of property rights, he’s still opposing the NHA. Great pressure indeed!

It seems like the National Heritage Area is becoming a wasted opportunity for our county. And even though the opposition apparently can’t even make a compelling case to a county commissioner – why are their wishes still adhered to? This is troubling considering it’s cutting the county out of its share of $10 to $15 million!  Can’t we find common ground? I refuse to believe that fear and partisanship has replaced reason in our public discourse. I hope it’s not too late to turn things around.

The Grays River Grange #124 has no policy for or against the National Heritage Area at this time. The opinion above is only that of Krist Novoselic. Readers are welcome to join the conversation by adding a comment.

Comments

[Chuck Wolfe]

The people of western Wahkiakum County have recent history with quasi-government agencies stepping on private property rights. The Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, along with Ducks Unlimited and Columbia Land Trust, recently did the Kandoll Farm Project. The project returned approximately 163 acres of farm bottomland back to a tidal estuary, which should improve Chum Salmon runs. LCFRB funded the project, it was designed by DU, and CLT is the owner of the project, as well as the Kandoll farm itself.

The project first removed two historical buildings, located at the very end of Kandoll road. So much for those heritage buildings. Would they have been saved had the NHA been in existance? It then lowered the last portion of that road (a county road previously used for recreational fishing access to the Columbia river). Next, it breached the dikes around the property, allowing the acreage to be subject to twice daily tidal flooding. All of the above did not impact the property rights of any other people living in that area.

However, the project also removed two 42 inch tidal floodgates and replaced them with two 13 foot culverts. The culverts hydraulically connected Seal Slough to the Kandoll Farm acreage. But these culverts DO impact over a dozen non-Kandoll property owners. Specifically, the twice daily ebbing flow through the culvers is so high that scour erosion and avulsion effects are impacting the bends and dikes in the slough. As a result, dikes that protect non-Kandoll property are being degraded.

But there is more. The material removed from the lower portion of Kandoll road was relocated to the upper part of Kandoll, raising the level of the road itself. The problem is that Kandoll road itself is a dike, and the higher dike is preventing floodwaters from overflowing onto the Kandoll property from the north. Those floodwaters are now being directed immediately onto another affected property owner, Raven Webb, and has led to increased flooding onto highway 4 itself in an area usually not subject to such flooding. People refer to this as the ‘bathtub effect.’

I might suggest that you post figures that Poul Toftemark prepared on this problem on the grange's website. They explain all that was done, and the affect on private property owners.

As to the roles of LCFRB, DU, and CLT, there were no public meetings discussing this project prior to it's construction. Such meetings are required by state and federal law, specifically in the form of environmental impact analysis. That is, anytime someone wants to do a project in state waters, they are required to determine the impact that the project will, or should, have on both the waters of the state and the land areas adjacent to those waters. That requirement stems from the federal Clean Water Act, Environmental Protection Act, and Endangered Species Act.

Much has been said regarding the permits required for this project. It isn't the permit itself that is the issue. The first permit, one typically issued by the county, called a Substantial Shoreline Development Permit, is required by the Shorelines Management Act of 1971. In order to get this permit, the project owner (in this case, DU and/or CLT) is required to show the effects the project will have on the floodplain and on the wetlands. A SSDP is required by county ordinance.

The federal government, through FEMA, is very concerned as to how a project will affect any structures located within a floodplain, in regards to flood insurance. THEY require any work, within a floodplain, to be done under a permit, issued by the local government (in this case, Wahkiakum County), and that permit is also required to include the environmental assessment. The feds don’t want someone, like CLT, to do something that affects the flooding characteristics of any other person who owns land within a floodplain.

A SSDP was never applied for, or issued, by the county, and the environmental assessment (including a public review before construction) was also never done.

The next permit that was required, but never applied for or obtained, is known as a Hydraulic Project Approval (HPA), required by the State Hydraulic Code of 1949. ANY work done that affects the waters of the state needs to have a HPA. The HPA applies to work done in stream between the Ordinary High Water Marks on either side of the stream, and within 100 feet upland away from the stream.

The HPA application requires project plans and specifications to show what is being proposed, but it also requires proof of compliance with SEPA and CARL (State Environmental Protection Act) and Critical Areas (wetlands). No SEPA compliance information, no HPA. No HPA, no work within state waters.

Which brings us back to property rights issues.

Whenever the local property owners affected by this project complained (to the County Commissioners, to CLT, to DU, to Fish & Wildlife (they issue the HPA), to Ecology (they validate the SSDP), they were ignored. A pro se court case was lost, and litigation, asserting the right of enjoyment of their own property, will be expensive. Expensive even though those property rights are a fundamental part of the Washington State Constitution.

Specifically, Section 16 says that "No private property shall be taken or DAMAGED for public or private use without just compensation having been first made, or paid into court for the owner, . . ." This Eminent Domain clause is NOT limited to eminent domain issues!

CLT continues, to this day, to refer to the damage caused by their project as ‘unintended consequences’. How sad!

So, how does this relate to the proposed National Heritage Area? My question is, given how the property rights of the Kandoll Road project property owners were violated, and how those same affected property owners were treated whenever they tried to assert their rights, why should they believe another government entity, or quasi-government entity, based 2000 miles away, will somehow do things differently. Only this time, instead of a dozen or so local property owners, all Wakiakum property owners might be affected.

You can't fight city hall. You can't fight County Government. You can't fight state agencies. And you certainly can't fight the federal government.

As Ronald Reagan used to say, government isn't the solution to the problem, they ARE the problem.

The NHA may turn out to be a good thing for Wahkiakum County. The money certainly is impressive. The money spent on the Kandoll Road project was also impressive. If the project wasn't done, it would have gone somewhere else. But a dozen local residents certainly wished it had gone somewhere else! Is Wahkiakum County willing to take a chance on the NHA? Once that money is spent, the county could never withdraw from the NHA, even if it turned out to be a bad idea.

Blair Brady is listening to HIS constituents.
And I am NOT one of those guys!