It is very tempting to take a short view and a self-centered view.  The recent council proposals for CAO appear to sidestep the original and very expensive best available science report entirely.

If you are a property owner with coastal or wetland, I can understand why you don’t want to bear the burden of defending what we still have after decades of destruction of our local natural environment. You want to maximize the profit from what you hold. With your immediate self interest to guide you it is easy to convince yourself that the environment will not be hurt by your plans. You also may have very reasonable expectations that San Juan County cannot adjudicate or enforce any set of regulations in a competent manner.

I ask us all to rethink this situation. With a good set of tough enforceable regulations development can proceed and the values of property will actually be much greater in future. If not, what is lost is lost forever.

Richard Steinhardt

Orcas Island