Recipe for Corruption

My 7/31, 2024, letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and WA Department of Ecology:

The Washington Department of Ecology's false claim that enforcement of the State Environmental Policy Act by DOE is "discretionary" defines environmental injustice under the Clean Water Act. Far beyond arbitrary and capricious, DOEs institutionalized failure to enforce SEPA and the Clean Water Act is a recipe for corruption by local governments, as we have seen in the City of Blaine. 

This failure to enforce the Clean Water Act also impairs the treaty rights of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians whose property rights under federal law include restoration of salmon runs such as those that swim through Drayton Harbor into Dakota and California creeks. Additionally, there is a commercial oyster farm in Drayton Harbor that leases Washington State tidelands and employes 35 people, as well as Lummi Nation tribal shellfish harvesting.

Alex Wenger, the Blaine SEPA official who is also the Blaine Community Development Services director has concealed evidence of self-dealing facilitated by his department involving financial conflicts of interest of city council members and developers. His repeated criminal misconduct has annihilated public trust in Blaine city government, and you have let him do it despite heroic efforts by Blaine citizens who have put in thousands of hours documenting corruption at their own expense. Telling these people that the rule of law no longer matters is an insult.

Blaine's consolidation of power in the city-paid Hearing Examiner, who works in tandem with Mr. Wenger, comprises a closed loop for expediting developers' proposals that intentionally excludes any meaningful public participation whatsoever. DOEs complicity in this "racketeering" should prompt an investigation by the Washington Attorney General's office and the U.S. Department of Justice.

At present, the AG and DOE can confer on how to comply with the Clean Water Act in the absence of EPA enforcement or citizen lawsuit, both of which could be forthcoming. Either way, it's a heck of a story for public media.

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