Army Corps of Engineers

Ron Wilcox

P.O. Box 3755

Seattle, WA  98124-3755

US Fish and Wildlife Services

Ken Burg, Manager

510 Desmond Dr. SE

Lacy, WA 98503

NOAA

Steve Ladino, Manager

48 Devonshire Road

Montesano, WA 98563

Washington Department of Ecology

Lori Ochoa, SW Washington Director

P.O. Box 47775

Olympia, WA  98504-777

Pacific County

David Burke, Prosecuting Attorney

P.O. Box 45

South Bend, WA 98586

Pacific County

Faith Taylor-Eldred, Director

Department Community Development

P.O. Box 187

South Bend, WA 98586

Department of Natural Resources

Pacific Cascade Region

P.O. Box 280

Castle Rock, WA 98611-0280

Shoalwater Bay Tribe

Michael Rogers, Tribal Administrator/CEO

P.O. Box 130

Tokeland, WA 98590

Department of Transportation

Kevin Dayton, Regional Administrator

5720 Capitol Blvd.

Tumwater, WA 98504

Re: Pacific County PUD #2 plans for extending redundant power to Tokeland, then to Long Beach

Ref: Harrison-Benis, LLP (Kathy George) letter to PUD Commissioner

Dear Regulators,

I am writing as a concerned citizen to alert you to a large construction project, which continues to move forward – receiving “final” funding approval from the Pacific County PUD Commissioners on December 3 - without the necessary permitting activity. The PUD budget approved three days ago includes $13 million to extend power to Tokeland/Grayland, then across the Willapa oyster beds and shipping channel to Oysterville. The PUD has yet to obtain a permit from any permitting agency for the currently planned project, which has been revised numerous times since it started in 2000.

For the past 10 months our group has been trying to get the PUD#2 Manager and Commissioners to come clean and tell us about their entire plan to provide redundant power to an area already being served by Grays Harbor PUD. Their stated reason is to improve “reliability”, but in fact PUD #2 has no reliability services data, whereas Grays Harbor PUD has reliability data that clearly shows this area is now being served well. The data shows that 82 percent of power outages are from an independent source, Bonneville Power, which supplies power to both Grays Harbor and Pacific County. This makes one wonder…why spend over an estimated $50-$80 million of the ratepayers’ funds to accomplish a project which has no measurable increase in reliability? So, the bottom line is there is no quantifiable data to show the stated need. This added burden on the ratepayers will provide added stress to citizens in Pacific County, who already are 20 percent below the poverty level with the highest percent of senior citizens below the poverty level in the state. 

We believe without proper local, state, and federal review to assure all rules and regulations are complied with, this project will damage Willapa Bay’s estuary and oyster beds, and impact several endangered species listed in the waters of Willapa Bay.

You can see from our attorney’s (ref) letter, which Pacific County PUD chose to ignore by passing the budget, it is making final decisions before going through the requisite environmental and regulatory review.    

Pacific County Commissioners, by contrast, are operating in good faith to see that all environment rules and regulations will be followed. The CDC Director, Ms. Taylor-Eldred, has indicated she will be following the environmental laws. We ask for your assistance in helping her and in ensuring that your own agencies’ regulations are enforced.

Sincerely,

Ron Craig

December 6, 2013

Attached:

1) Harrison-Benis letter

2) Attachment to letter Harrison-Benis (upon request by email)

cc: Doug Zimmer, US Fish & Wildlife Services

      Pacific County Commissioners

      Kathy George, Harrison-Benis

Editor’s Note:This article first appeared on www.hometowndebate.com 12/6/13. If you would like to respond to this story go to hometowndebate.com