House again fails to protect the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve

March 7, 2008

OLYMPIA – The House of Representatives today again missed a chance to protect the sensitive shorelines of Maury Island from the construction of a massive industrial barging loading facility on state-owned aquatic lands.

The Maury Island Aquatic Reserve was the first reserve established in the state of Washington, and this designation withstood the review of two Commissioners of Public Lands.  It includes a herring nursery and a juvenile Chinook salmon migratory corridor, and it is the winter feeding and calving ground for the endangered population of southern orcas.

However, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources included a provision in the reserve’s management plan to allow Glacier N.W., a multinational-owned corporation, to allow the construction and operation of the barge loading facility. 

"I am angered by the House’s latest failure to act on this issue, which is critical to the health of Puget Sound, to our endangered orcas, to our declining salmon populations, and citizens across the state who care about this aquatic reserve,” said Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-Vashon Island). “All the taxpayers of this state are being asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up Puget Sound. Yet, the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, has once again refused to protect these critical tidelands.”

Senate Bill 6231, to which this proposed amendment would have been attached, requires the Department of Fish and Wildlife to study the management of marine protected areas.  The amendment would have required that DNR not lease aquatic lands within the reserve to Glacier N.W. until the study was complete.

“Aquatic reserves are supposed to be established for the protection of important ecosystems,” said Nelson, “not the protection of the profits of multinational mining companies.  I will continue to fight to protect the shorelines of Maury Island, the integrity of our aquatic reserve program and the future of Puget Sound.”