Blaine Confidential

Whatcom County will probably pay for neglecting to protect Lummi ancestral burial grounds on Point Roberts, as the City of Blaine paid when the city knowingly unearthed 100+ human remains in a registered Lummi burial ground on Semiahmoo Spit in 1999. Semiahmoo Resort is located where a major Lummi village flourished for five thousand years. There are Lummi cultural artifacts throughout the Semiahmoo Peninsula.  Lummi treaty rights to salmon and shellfish require that Blaine clean up Drayton Harbor, which is currently under a Department of Ecology/EPA TMDL mandatory reduction in human fecal bacteria pollution, which will likely mean expensive upgrades to the Lighthouse Point sewer treatment plant in Marine Park, as well as stormwater detention there. The Dakota Creek/California Creek/Drayton Harbor estuary has great potential for raising wild salmon and oysters, but for that to happen, Blaine needs to clean up its act.

May 9 letter to WA State Senate candidate Eamonn Collins: Dear WA State Senate candidate Collins, The Washington State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) requires specific questions be asked of land use developers by cities and counties. When land use development applicants or planning departments lie, in theory, the state departments of ecology, health, and auditor hold them accountable. In reality, they do nothing of the sort, leaving it to citizens to fight both municipal and developer attorneys who are breaking the law.  The consequence can be seen throughout the Salish Sea region, where unlawful developments are now undermining decades of salmon recovery efforts by Northwest tribes. To expedite these developments--now destroying the Critical Aquifer Recharge Areas in east and west Blaine that moderate flooding and provide drinking water to all Blaine and Birch Bay residents--Blaine City Council plans to adopt amendments to the Blaine Municipal Code on Monday, May 11 that would im...

May 4 letter to Whatcom County Council chair Kaylee Galloway, Dear Whatcom County Council chair Galloway, I read in  Whatcom Watch  that you are a  climate science advocate . As such, you now have the opportunity to put your values to work for the public good, in the largest housing development in Whatcom County. Also published in  Whatcom Watch  this month is a Water Planning Matters article about the Blaine Hearing Examiner  removing climate science from the public record , as well as WA Department of Ecology wetland and aquifer maps that conflict with those of the City of Blaine. You can also read about  arsenic contamination of Blaine's municipal water supply . We need your leadership to correct this planning travesty that threatens Birch Bay Village with flooding, and all 17,000 Blaine and Birch Bay consumers of Blaine potable water system. You need to mobilize the County Health director to intervene now, not later when the aquifer is deforested a...

Blaine Hearing Examiner, Phil Olbrechts,  removes climate science from the record .

As reported at Water Planning Matters, the municipal drinking water for Blaine and Birch Bay is unsafe due to naturally-occurring arsenic contamination that frequently reaches the legal limit of 10 parts per billion. Long term ingestion of arsenic contaminated water can cause cancer, cardiovascular disease, and incident stroke. While 10 parts per billion is the legal limit, as little as 5 parts per billion is now known to cause significant reductions in working memory and perceptional reasoning in schoolchildren. Exposure in early life is linked to permanent decreases in IQ and impaired brain development.  When the land is disturbed, arsenic is "unlocked" from the soil and flushed into the water table and our drinking water. The City of Blaine stormwater designs for the proposed Creekside manufactured home park over the municipal aquifer do not have the capacity to remove quinone, a highly-toxic tire wear chemical that travels with the arsenic into our city wells. The Creeks...

Watching our state and county governments in action up close for two years, I'm surprised anything ever gets done. Not for lack of awareness of public health and civil rights violations by the City of Blaine, but because they apparently don't care. Not even an imminent threat to a municipal drinking water system can get agencies charged with protecting public health and civil rights to do anything as simple as send an official letter of concern. Forget about them actually holding criminal public officials accountable. Right now, the proposed 568-unit Creekside manufactured home park threatens the drinking water for 17,000 customers in Blaine and Birch Bay. Read the latest from Water Planning Matters .