DIRTY WATER

When Blaine Community Development Services omitted environmental information in order to persuade the Blaine Planning Commission and Blaine City Council to rezone the protected east Blaine Critical Aquifer Recharge Area (CARA) to allow high-density residential development without doing an Environmental Impact Statement, several developers lined up to make excessive profits due to the scheme by Community Development Services--in violation of the State Environmental Policy Act and federal Clean Water Act--to eliminate best available science and best management practices for stormwater runoff that is now polluting our drinking water source.

 
When one of those developers pulled out of the deal, Community Development Services came up with the idea of shifting some development to the Semiahmoo headlands and expanding the city limits there. This shift could easily cost Blaine taxpayers $100-200 million in the form of "significantly increased utility bills for all Blaine residents" to extend sewer and water to the headlands, to increase sewer and stormwater treatment capacity, and to purify our previously unpolluted drinking water. The deceptive "Reduction of City Limits" proposition is in reality the initial step in expanding the city limits--in essence, FRAUD.

The remaining CARA developers continue to threaten the health and financial integrity of our community, at the same time that Planned Unit Developments in the Semiahmoo headlands are being approved by Blaine Community Development Services without Environmental Impact Statements, which include looking at both the environmental and financial costs to taxpayers. Adding two thousand new homes to Blaine, while providing sales taxes to the city government, comes at a high price to struggling Blaine residents--all so wealthy retirees can move here.

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