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03/12/2009: "Next Step In SJI Transfer Station Selection: The FEIS Is Released"

The release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) they may be a disappointed for some, if they hoped to have some soild answers to questions on costs of development and traffic safety for a transfer station on San Juan Island.

The Council will hold a public meeting on March 31 to allow some public input on the San Juan Island transfer station project.

The release of the Final EIS starts a 21-day appeal period that closes on April 2, 2009. Appeals are filed at the Community Development and Planning Department at 135 Rhone Street in Friday Harbor. There is a $555 fee for filing an appeal.

While the document is available for down load, the main part - the FEIS - is huge (26.5 mbytes), and even with high speed connection there may be a problem downloading it for many. Best bet is to down load it in three parts: Part One ; Part Two , and Part Three


In addition to the FEIS, an updated "Supplemental Alternatives Analysis" (SAA) provides additional information about some of the non-environmental attributes and constraints of the site, and funding options, including very rough "planning level cost" estimates; and a third document (Alternatives (30\k file)that lays out a side-by-side analysis in a spreadsheet -these are smaller documents.

The good news for obtaining a copy is the County has made it available on a free CD, and hard copies are available (15 cents per page) late afternoon on 3-12-09; and of course there are copies to review at the SJI Library and at Community Development and Planning (CD&PD).

The FEIS is touted by the County as the end of the road for the legally mandated review of environmental issues for the potential five sites, but it may be the beginning of a new round of objections and claims that there is insufficient, and inaccurate, information in the FEIS to allow an informed opinion, and a final decision, to be reached by the County Council on site selection.

To what extent the FEIS will be viewed as comprehensive or not, may become evident on March 24 when the County Council plans to have a joint meeting with the Town of Friday Harbor to discuss the issue. The idea of having the transfer station on the agenda for the joint meeting seemed to be news to some on the Town Council last Thursday when the topic came up; with one member wondering out loud why have a meeting to discuss what the County has already decided it is going to do.

Based on the County Council response last week to the Public Works (PW) presentation on why PW has made up their minds that the Beaverton Valley site is the best site, the County Council may very well not, in fact, be in agreement that Beaverton Valley should be the selected site for a new transfer station.

According to a press release from the County announcing the release of the FEIS:

”The newly released document includes the results of new traffic studies performed on the five prospective sites plus responses to all questions and comments received during the comment period following the release of the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
The responses address concerns raised about legal issues including the siting process and the county Comprehensive Plan, the Washington Administrative Code (WAC), questions about the potential impact on airport flight operations and numerous other areas of public concern.”

After they read the FEIS the public will have to decide if they agree with this assessment, but we suspect it is a document that will generate a new set of questions and complaints that questions were not fully answered, and some of those that were are simply incorrect or misleading. And as for the laying out of costs of site development, the FEIS still contains numbers that, in the words of Council member Bob Myhr, “have no meaning.“

(Appeal procedures under RCW 43.21C.075 and WAC 197-11-680 are found in San Juan County Code 18.80.140. )
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