The Delphi Association is sponsoring a special presentation by Jeff Swotek of the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), who will be speaking about opportunities for conservation funding on your property. There will be informational packets available and Jeff will have lots of time to answer all your questions regarding the different projects available and how the whole process works.

Wednesday, April 23
7 PM
Black Lake Fire Department
5911 Black Lake Blvd. SW

In a letter to the Delphi Association, Mr. Swotek wrote:

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, is an often little known Federal agency. The main mission of our organization it to provide national leadership in conservation and wise use of our natural resources. We are not a regulatory agency but rather a technical assistance and financial assistance agency for everyone who owns, leases, or uses lands in all counties throughout this county.

You can check out our website at www.wa.nrcs.usda.gov and learn more about us and our programs. I might draw special attention to our Environmental Quality Incentives Program which provides financial assistance and technical assistance.

In a nutshell, this is a competitive program where landowners, renters, and alike bring their list of projects that they would like to do on their forest or farm and apply for the program. The applications are all ranked and we take the funding as far as we can based upon the ranking and the cost of the projects that you would like to do on your land and develop contracts. Lets take your typical forestland application. Say you are a customer who would like to do 40 acres of thinning, 10 acres of Maple control, 38 acres of Alder hand slash. . . Each project you would like to do and its location generates points in our ranking and we can tell you how much, should you be awarded funding from us, you could receive so much for each acre of thinning, Maple control, Alder hand slash. . .

You can develop a schedule of what you would like to do when (from 2 – 10 years) and have the money for all of your projects reserved under your name if you are awarded funding. All we would do is provide you a minimum specification for each project, you do the work or hire it done, you contact us, and we pay you on a per acre basis. We like you to maintain the project for the life of the project and I can better explain this when we get together. Financial assistance is also available for culverts and many many other projects under this same program.

Well now that I have tried to explain the financial assistance side, lets look at the technical assistance side of the program. For each of your projects we can provide free technical assistance or provide you additional funds to select from a list of “Technical Service Providers” or TSPs. The technical assistance takes the form of project planning, development of the minimum specifications, assistance in in the layout of project as well as the final certification of the projects.

It is important to note how we work. By participating in the program your information and your land are respected. All of your information is protected under the Federal Freedom of Information Act and is not releasable. We do not come out to your property unless invited by you and when working with us there is no public access. So rest assured we respect your rights as landowners.

We hope Griffin homeowners, too, will be interested in learning more about this program.

For more information about the Delphi Association, visit their web site at http://www.delphiassoc.org/

Other interesting information new on the website is the McLane 2008 timber sale that will occur April 24, 2008. For information and all the available documents, check out the Delphi Association website at:
http://www.delphiassoc.org/capitol_forest.htm

The Delphi Association would like to direct your attention to an interesting article that was just in the Olympian regarding County zoning and the planning fund:
http://www.delphiassoc.org/articles.htm

We are pleased to be able to update our prior post on the South Sound Logistics Center (SSLC), proposed for a part of South Thurston County. See also the link to the Olympian article, which will provide more information about this latest turn of events. Our prior post also links to several other Olympian articles on the plans to build a large warehousing facility within 1/2 of a mile of Millersylvania State Park.

From The Friends of Rocky Prairie, we received this notice:

Dear Friends,

Port of Olympia has helped us by withdrawing their request to postpone our rezone. Click here to read the Olympian article “Port rethinks request for county to delay rezoning”.

The Port of Tacoma has not withdrawn and they stated this past week that they could still sell the property to industry!

Let’s keep the pressure on!

Please! We need all of you to attend the rezone meeting March 26th, 6:00 pm at the Thurston County Expo Center (Thurston County Fairgrounds).

See you there!

—Friends of Rocky Prairie

Directions to the Thurston County Expo Center:

Heading to Lacey on I-5 North

Take exit 109, turn right on Martin Way. Take Martin Way and make a right onto Carpenter Rd. Follow for about 3 mikes to fairgrounds on left. Follow signs to Expo Center.

Heading to Lacey on I-5 South

Take exit 109, turn left on Martin Way. Take Martin Way and make a right onto Carpenter Rd. Follow for about 3 mikes to fairgrounds on left. Follow signs to Expo Center.

Perhaps you have already read or heard about the South Sound Logistics Center (SSLC), proposed by the Port of Tacoma and Port of Olympia. Located within a 1/2 of a mile of Millersylvania State Park, plans are already on file for a high-cube warehousing facility. In this biologically diverse area of rural Thurston County, plans show a structure with a building footprint of 3,028,00 square feet, the size of 28 football fields.

We’ve seen this sort of thing already; construction of a project that in no way reflects the rural setting on which it is sited. Both the Ports and the County have sought to downplay the significance of the plans or even the likelihood of the project going forward. Meanwhile, plans are now on file with Thurston County.

The Friends of Rocky Prairie “is a group of concerned homeowners and residents in Washington’s South Puget Sound region, including the Thurston County rural communities of Maytown and Tenino.” According to Friends of Rocky Prairie:

The plans for the SSLC contain numerous possibilities including a rail switching yard, chemical manufacturing plant, solid waste transfer station, warehousing and a truck to rail distribution site. This would create a massive 24 hour per day industrial complex the size of Olympia, and would inundate roads from Olympia to South Thurston County with 1000’s of trucks and blocked railroad crossings.

A citizen has filed an application with the county to rezone the Port’s property in order to bring it into conforming use with the surrounding rural lands, including the State Park, the Fish & Wildlife Preserve, and long-term forests.

You can help.

Learn more about the issues. The Friends of Rocky Prairie have a page dedicated to the rezone, on their web site. Click this link to visit that page.

If you believe the County ought to rezone the property, you may sign a petition. The Friends of Rocky Prairie would like to obtain the names, addresses and phone numbers of as many County residents as possible, by Wednesday, March 19. There is a link here to that petition.

The Olympian has run a number of articles on the project. Among these are:

Crowd of 300 speaks out on port project
Logistics center meets opposition
Ports to meet on cargo center
Plans for cargo center collide with concerns about prairie
Ports team up on depot Web site
Neighbors rail against cargo site

At their February 20th Annual Meeting, Griffin Neighborhood Association members voted-in a slate of 16 area residents to serve on the Board of the GNA. The Board manages the affairs of the GNA and Board members serve without compensation.

Two members of last year’s Board chose not to have their names placed in nomination. Matt Coyle and Jack Sisco retired from the Board, with the thanks of GNA members present at the Annual Meeting. We’ll be sure to see more of Jack, in particular, as he is fully-engaged in efforts to develop the Steamboat Area Conservation Partnership.

Three new members have joined our Board.

Here are the names of our Board members:

Beau Altman
Gayle Broadbent
Fred Finn
Gary Goodwin
Jerry Handfield
Norm Johnson
Steve Lundin
Mark Messinger
Eric Moll
Kathy O’Connor
Kathleen O’Shaunessy
Elizabeth Rodrick
Velma Rogers
Dave Schuett-Hames
Bob Whitener
Chris Wickham

You can best support the work of this Board by joining the Griffin Neighborhood Association. Click here to join the GNA. It’s easy and you can do it entirely online.

We’re proud of the diverse backgrounds of our Board members. Here’s a little information about a few of those on our Board:

Dr. Beau Altman is a Psychologist specializing in human behavior in crisis situations, emergencies. When asked, what do you do, Dr. Altman responds, “I teach people how to prepare for and how to survive emergencies when they occur on land, water and in the air!”

For more than 40 years Beau has been a major contributor to the development of emergency equipment, safety instruction and evacuation procedures for planes, ships, and buildings.

Beau is a teacher and trainer. His background and experience in crisis management and human behavior, safety and survival training and education may be particularly useful in the GNA’s ongoing emergency preparedness efforts.

Fred Finn is a business man and graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Fordham University Law School. Fred is a past Griffin School Board member involved with numerous business and civic organizations and is a candidate for the 35th District legislature. For more information on Fred’s candidacy, click this link.

Gary Goodwin writes, “When we bought property on Steamboat Island Road, there were 31 acres of trees west of us and 42 acres of trees east of us. Now all the trees are gone, there are four homes to the west, and a commercial facility proposed to the east. I am involved in the GNA to help protect the rest of our Community from a similar fate.”

Jerry Handfield is the father of four grown children and one grandson with two more on the way. He is the Washington State Archivist. The Archives is responsible for managing the life cycle of all state records and preserving valuable legal and historical records for local and state government. Jerry is a resident on Gravelly Beach Loop since March 2002, member of the GNA Board since 2003, and served as both Secretary and President (2005 – 2007).

Steve Lundin retired as a senior counsel to the Washington State House of Representatives in 2001 after nearly 30 years. He has undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Washington. Steve and his wife Linda Bondurant have lived in the Griffin area since 1975.

Steve has written numerous articles about the history of the Griffin area and a book entitled “Griffin Area Schools.” He recently published a book entitled “The Closest Governments to the People – A Complete Reference Guide to Local Government in Washington State.”

Mark Messinger is a consultant to individuals, business and government. One of his children currently attends Griffin School and the other will be at Griffin next year. He’s been a resident in this area for 6 years.

Eric Moll is the Chief Financial Officer for Mason General Hospital. He has a CPA and MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Rodrick has worked for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for 30 years. She is a Land Conservation Manager. Elizabeth does conservation planning to identify important landscapes to protect for fish and wildlife. She also coordinates habitat acquisition grant applications and contracts and works with several land trusts including the Capitol Land Trust. Elizabeth looks forward to serving on the board and getting to know folks better.

Velma Rogers was born in Venice, California, but her family is the namesake for Hunter’s Point. Her public interests are conservation issues, retrofitting development on her own property and working to raise local awareness of the devastating effects of over-building, over-using and not protecting our unique environment and resources.

Chris Wickham has lived in the Griffin area since 1989. His children, now grown, attended Griffin School. He is currently employed as a Superior Court Judge at Thurston County Superior Court.

It’s been mentioned on this blog that there is a strong connection between growth management – the direct actions of our County government – and global climate change. Driving is the largest source of global warming pollution in Washington State, and irresponsible development dramatically increases driving. Achieving smart growth goals and reducing sprawl development is absolutely essential to reducing carbon dioxide pollution. Here in the Griffin area, we know we’re right in the crosshairs of development which, if not undertaken in a well-considered manner, will not only increase carbon emissions, it will threaten our property values, the availability and health of our drinking water supplies, and significantly reduce our quality of life.

According to Fuse, a progressive network, “Now we hear that a critical bill to combat global warming is stalled in the Legislature, and we have just six days to get it moving or it’s dead for the year. The Local Solutions to Global Warming bill tackles the global warming pollution created by irresponsible development and traffic. This bill will fight global warming by protecting farm and forest land, encouraging energy efficient building and promoting livable, family friendly communities.”

But, don’t take Fuse’s word for it. You can read about this bill, yourself, here.

I found especially notable is the statement against the bill, in the Senate Report of the Bill, which begins:

“This bill wrongly assumes climate change is human caused and human influenced while there is no scientific conclusion to support this theory.”

Personally, I am growing weary of a debate framed in such terms. While there may be room to disagree on the degree to which the environment is able to absorb the deleterious impact of human activities, it is rational to seek to reduce traffic on our roads, to identify and develop within urban growth boundaries and to reject arguments that affordable housing can only be built if we develop further and further from urban centers.

To learn more about this bill and another, Senate Bill 6516, and to send a letter to Senator Sheldon, click here to visit Fuse.

–Mark Messinger