Farmers seek relief from buffers

OLYMPIA _ There’s a sign hanging in front of Terry Willis’ farm in Grays Harbor County: “Family-owned since 1920.”

“These soils are the very crux of who we are,” Willis told a Senate committee Monday.

Yet she and other farmers say they’re increasingly scared that land-use regulations will make it impossible to stay on the land. A proposed 200-foot buffer around the farm’s streams and creeks, she said, would eat up 97 acres and cost them $108,000 in farm income a year.

“When you’re struggling to pay your grain bill or your tax bill, it’s really hard to look at water quality and say ‘OK, I’ll do this, too,’ ” Willis said.

Those sorts of fears helped fuel last year’s Initiative 933, a farmer- and libertarian-backed measure that critics said would have stripped away many land-use and zoning restrictions on land. Citing land-use horror stories from a similar measure in Oregon, foes of the measure called I-933 a free-for-all. In November, voters overwhelmingly rejected it.

Now farmers and sympathetic rural lawmakers are back with bills that would exempt farming from critical-area ordinances and development regulations intended to protect streams and fish. Senate Bill 5248 and a similar bill in the House would do that, as well as banning local governments from taking any existing farmland out of production. Co-sponsors include Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, and Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda.

Environmental groups say the bills go too far, taking a cleaver to regulations that might just need a little tweaking.

“Most counties aren’t requiring a buffer for existing agriculture,” said Tim Trohimovich, planning director for Seattle-based Futurewise. As long as farmers comply with a farm plan approved by the local conservation district, he said, buffers typically don’t apply.

“It’s a pretty extreme approach,” Washington Environmental Council’s Becky Kelley said of the proposals. Agriculture would be exempted from helping protect critical areas and habitat, she said.

Leaders on both sides of the issue — as well as lawmakers — say that there is room for change in current land-use rules. Much of the debate around I-933 centered around farmers’ assertions that the state and local regulators are too quick to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t work well in dramatically different counties.

“No one is arguing that our current system is perfect or works all the time,” said Kelley. “We are interested in sitting down and talking with agricultural interests about how to keep them financially viable.”

To that end, Gov. Chris Gregoire has proposed having the two sides sit down with the William D. Ruckelshaus Policy Consensus Center, a university-run program designed to hash out tough problems.

“We think that’s the right approach,” said Trohimovich. SB 5248 sponsor Sen. Brian Hatfield said he’d be more amenable to letting that process work if environmental groups would pause in their litigation.

Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, said he’s skeptical that the bill, as written now, will become law.

“I don’t think it’s going to get through both houses. It’s a long shot,” he said. More likely, he said, is a final version that simply sends the dispute to the Ruckelshaus center.

Farmers at Monday’s hearing said they can’t wait. They worry that rules will make it impossible to control noxious weeds growing in wetlands or beside streams and ban them from selling land, even for organic farms, in order to stay solvent. Some said they’re tired of threats of lawsuits from environmental groups.

“Intimidation, hassles and mitigation have financially crippled my farm,” said Jefferson County dairyman Roger Short. “I cry because my kids and grandkids won’t have what I have loved all my life.”

“The people telling us that we have to put in a buffer probably live in an apartment somewhere and don’t have a chunk of grass,” said Skagit County’s Janet McRae. When blackberries and knotweed began growing alongside her streams, he said, local officials told her that land-use ordinances meant she could only use a “non-motorized handheld device” to clear the invasive weeds.

“In a 100-acre property, I invited them to come over and help me,” she said.

In related news:

• Sen. Jacobsen has proposed SB 5362, which would allow local counties to double their 6.25-cent-per-$1,000 maximum levy to pay farmers and foresters not to develop their land. Thirteen out of 39 counties, including Spokane, have such programs now. By buying up development rights, Jacobsen said, counties can preserve open space and put money in farmers’ pockets. The state home builders’ group is opposed, saying it doesn’t want to see taxpayers’ money used to pay for a program that restricts the amount of available land for construction.