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12 May 08

The painful cost of booming growth | Seattle Times Newspaper (Local News)

"Puget Sound is a funnel. Anything that we do at the top end of the funnel comes out at the bottom end." Sometimes painful reading, this article looks at the effect of bad wastewater runoff management and its deleterious effect on the environment. "Barbie Doll" housing colonies are the worst offenders, not least because old bylaws & regulations haven't kept up (or up to date) with new developments in treatment and approach.

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...985_growth_stormwater20m0.html - Preview

seattle puget_sound sprawl growth planning water run_off

The way we grow is undermining our promises to protect and restore Puget Sound, and could hobble a new rescue plan on which we may be asked to commit as much as $18 billion on top of the $9 billion we already expect to spend by 2020.
- Given Victoria's upcoming $1.2b+ sewage treatment issue, it would be interesting to know how to compare $18b plus $9b cited for cleaning up Puget sound: who is involved, who is ponying up the resources (money), how big are the horses (i.e., the population) contributing to pull this along? - on 2008-05-12
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It happens one creek at a time as bulldozers and pavement disrupt the natural flow of water through the ecosystem, destroying habitat and sending billions of gallons of polluted runoff into the Sound.
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- Even as we continue to push to protect Puget Sound, the entire effort is up against the fact that we also need to make room for as many as 4 million more people who could move here this century.
  
  And as we do, we are gradually eating away at the Sound's finely tuned water-cleaning system by leveling as much as 10,000 acres of forest every year.
- There's no overt conspiracy to hurt the Sound. Instead, the damage is happening in the pursuit of cheaper land and economic development, a longing for big backyards and a resistance to urban density, and a need to keep home prices within reach of average people.
  - "resistance to urban density"? "longing for big backyards"? Well, couple this with the reality of much higher gasoline prices, and those far-flung suburbs are going to face sticker shock. - on 2008-05-12
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- we still struggle to protect Puget Sound and at the same time make room for everyone to live the way they want.
- state officials have balked at tougher, more costly controls
- developments we allow lag behind the latest stormwater designs, because many county and city goverments are still using 16-year-old rules
- newest engineering standards, some of the strictest in the country and ones that could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a home,
- developers who try promising new approaches to addressing stormwater face red tape that creates costly delays or hurts effectiveness
- Today, stormwater flowing into Puget Sound is a slow-motion oil spill, amounting to millions of gallons a year.
- But the state didn't make them mandatory. So most local jurisdictions haven't made changes.
- At McCormick Woods near Port Orchard, Kitsap County commissioners promised in 2003 to require builders to follow the most up-to-date stormwater standards. At the same time, they approved what will amount to a small city with a business park, shopping, and more than 4,000 homes and apartments, ranging from big houses along a golf course to modest ones aimed at first-time buyers.
  
  Yet they didn't change any county stormwater rules. Kitsap County still follows the 1992 manual.
  
  That's not unusual. Snohomish, Skagit, Pierce, Thurston, Mason and Island counties all follow the 1992 manual, and so do countless cities.
- "Until it's mandated, most organizations don't really act," he said.
  - Bingo. - on 2008-05-12
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- Ignored, developers say, is the cost more regulation adds to the price of new homes, putting them further out of reach of average people. Builders complain that the newest stormwater requirements will add thousands to the costs of building each house. They point to a new study from a University of Washington economist saying land-use regulations have already added $200,000 to the price of an average Seattle home.
- Environmentalists and some developers say low-impact development is one answer. The state is starting to promote it, and some local governments say they want to change their rules to allow it.
  
  It turns out it's easier said than done.
- the concept runs up against decades of habits and rules: the assembly-line methods of major developers, concerns that low-impact methods are unproven and bureaucrats wedded to old methods.
- only a few adventurous developers dare to try new approaches. But many complain of costly delays, roadblocks and outright opposition from government officials resistant to trying something new.
- But some of the area's top low-impact experts say the builders are copping out, and low-impact methods can still work with customized approaches to each project, instead of cookie-cutter formulas.
  
  "It's way easier for those guys to come in and do what they've always done until there's some regulation that comes in and tells them to do something else," said Curtis Hinman of Washington State University, who has written a widely used manual on low-impact development.

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The painful cost of booming growth | Seattle Times Newspaper (Local News)

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